The final chapter sent this from a 3 to a 4 star book. The book’s strengths were the friendship/sisterhood of the Darling Girls, and the pacing of the flashback chapters. The ending was out of left field in the best way possible.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are foster sisters, having survived a horrific placement because they had each other. Miss Fairchild, on the surface, looks like a caring and loving parental figure, but she is anything but. Her arbitrary rules and hair trigger makes life a living hell for the three girls. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild, but soon find that they have different struggles on the horizon.

As adults, the three receive phone calls from the police that take them back to the place of their childhood. Will what they learn help Jessica, Norah, and Alicia finally move on mentally and emotionally?

Darling Girls is a good, solid read, but not really all that surprising. I find the ending to be predictable and think that the author spends too much time moving between the present and the past. Overall, I am a fan of the author, but this is not my favorite.

That being said, I made my way through the book quickly and was entertained by Darling Girls. Readers who like mystery thrillers with good character development will like author Sally Hepworth.

Disclaimer: I was given an Advanced Reader's Copy by NetGalley and the publisher. The decision to read and review this book was entirely my own.

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Jessica, Norah and Alicia forged a bond as sisters in their childhood when living at their foster home, Wild Meadows. As adults, they are still insanely close to each other and their everyday lives - but each has failed to deal with the stress and trauma their time in the foster system and with their foster mother, Ms. Fairchild caused them.

When a body is found in the demolished remains of their former home, the three sisters are forced to deal with their troubled past and the secrets that might have been buried along side the new found body.

As always - Hepworth’s novels are great and make for quick, unable to put down reads. For me - this one was definitely a departure from her last, The Soulmate, and I thought it was a good read - I wished for a little bit more character development and story telling with the supporting characters. A great read for any solid Hepworth fan!

Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Sally Hepworth for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Read if you like:
+ Family Drama
+ Psychological thrillers
+ Hepworth’s The Younger Wife & The Soulmate

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth was a story surrounding 3 young girls who are fostered in a horrible situation by Ms. Fairchild. Now as adults the girls are asked by investigators to come back to town when a body was found burried under the foster house.

The story is told in multiple points of view and jumps from present tense to past tense. While well written, this story was not for me, possibly due to my own triggers with the story involving children and abuse. While it has a twist inside not see coming at the end, it actually made it worse. Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Sally Hepworth for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Sally Hepworth for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I LOVED this book!!! It hooked me immediately and I could not put it down! This was so well done and I immediately ordered a copy to send to my best friend because I knew she'd love it too!

5 star read for me!

Oh. My. God.
Not only did this book move quickly, but it kept me hooked from start to finish. Plus... I feel like my brain was exploding by the time I finished this book, putting all of the pieces together and seeing how it all played out.
4.5 stars

- I really love getting the perspectives of each of the three sisters. Each on brought a very unique perspective to their upbringing in the foster home and it helped keep each chapter new and fresh.
- The twists were TWISTING - even when you sort of put things together, the way things are unveiled is brilliant and reveals even more than you thought.
- The child abuse represented in the flashbacks is very intense and dark, but it sets the tone well to allow the reader to understand just how malicious the situation was
- I appreciate that the characters had depth - they all had their own individual lives as adults with their own issues to work through

I loved the first half of this one but it kinda lost me after that. The last chapter almost made me bring it up because it was super shocking but I don’t know. Nothing remarkable about it.

I love Sally Hepworth! Everytime she publishes, I want to pick her up to enter her world.

Brief synopsis: Three young girls once lived on a farm with a foster mother named Miss Fairchild. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild, and they thought they were free. But the reach of someone with such power is long, and even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When bones are discovered buried under the farmhouse of their childhood, they are called in by the police to tell what they know.

My thoughts: The setting of this book was intriguing, a dead body found at three foster sisters’ old foster home.The story travels back and forth in time from when Jessica, Norah and Alicia are children to the present when they are contacted by the police regarding the remains of a child found buried under the pool at the old foster home. There are also chapters with one woman speaking to a psychiatrist but we aren't sure who it is until the end. I enjoyed getting to know the three sisters at the center of the mystery. Of note: all of the characters in the story are unreliable, flawed and complex adding to the mystery.

Darling Girls is full of tension, twists and turns and a mystery I wanted to solve.

Trigger warning: Hepworth includes difficult topics in Darling Girls, including foster systems and the sexual abuse/harassment of children and adults.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St.Martin Press for sharing Hepworths latest domestic mystery filled with sisterhood, secrets, love, and murder.

Three girls bond as sisters when raised in a horrendous foster home. Jessica came as a toddler and she and Mrs. Fairchild had a maternal child relationship until Jessica went to school and Mrs. Fairchild wasn't her whole world. Norah came later and was always a strong individual so she came in for most of the abuse Mrs. Fairchild handed out. Alicia came last when her beloved grandmother died leaving her without a home.

Mrs. Fairchild insists the house always be spotless. Sometimes there was food, sometimes not. There was verbal, psychological and physical abuse. But the girls never told anyone as they didn't want to ever be separated. Mrs. Fairchild started taking in babies but she would get tired of them and make the girls take over their care. Finally she adopted a toddler named Amy but again she got tired of her when Amy started transferring her affections to the girls. Mrs. Fairchild started abusing Amy and the girls decided they had to tell someone. But when the authorities come to save Amy, there is no trace of her and Mrs. Fairchild said the girls made her up. Amy is never found but the girls are taken away to a group home where they finish growing up.

Now years later, bones have been found under Mrs. Fairchild's house. They are the bones of a small child. Jessica, Norah and Alicia return to the town to help the police. Mrs. Fairchild is still there and she tries to incriminate the girls. Who was the body and what happened?

Sally Hepworth is an Australian author. Her thrillers focus on various family relationships and are full of twists and turns. This one follows the same formula and readers will be fascinated at this tale of abuse and murder. Each of the girls has made a life for herself, one a social worker, one a home organizer and one moving from job to job. This may be the final piece that makes their lives whole. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

4.5 stars rounded up! This book got me out of the slump and was exactly what I needed! Not like her usual books but I was completely hooked from the first chapter. I love the relationship the three foster sisters had and Ms. Fairchild was completely batshit. I loved this book so much!

The universe did not give the three main characters in this story much, but it did give them each other.

Nora, Alicia, and Jessica forged their sisterhood as young girls sent to the same foster home, and now decades later they find themselves dealing with a mystery from their past.

Honestly I don’t think I appreciated this story enough while I was reading it, and I’m glad I waited a bit to write a review of it. This book was more of a slow burn mystery, but with some twists you definitely won’t see coming. I especially loved Nora’s sarcasm and wit.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this somber yet profound story of found sisterhood and female empowerment,

DARLING GIRLS follows a group of 3 girls who grew up together in a foster home with a crazy foster mother. Years later in adulthood, the foster house is torn down and bones are found underneath the house.

If there’s one thing Sally Hepworth is going to do it's going to be to deliver a shocking ending! DARLING GIRLS was a wild ride and it’s certainly the darkest book of hers content-wise as it moves away from her more standard domestic thriller and is more of a psychological thriller with a domestic twist. If you loved her previous work I would definitely recommend giving this one a shot.

This is definitely going to be one of my top reads of 2024! 🤩 and how is this my first read by Hepworth?! I need to go back and read all of her other books now!

Needless to say, this was 𝗗𝗔𝗥𝗞, 𝗧𝗪𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗗, and 𝗦𝗨𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗡𝗦𝗙𝗨𝗟 with so many shocking twists!

It was a slow burn yet also a page turner 🤔 I had such a hard time putting it down with the multiple POV’s (Jessica, Alicia, and Norah) and dual timelines. I enjoyed just watching the bond of the 3 sisters grow and develop throughout their trauma and the story. It was beautiful to watch how deep and strong their sisterhood was even if they weren’t blood.

And of course, the shocking twist at the end…🤯

This is my first book by this author and I was very impressed. The story kept me engaged the whole way through, where I could not put it down. I loved how the story went from past to present, which let me learn each character individually, with an additional voice, who you don't know, thrown in here and there that tied up the story at the end. This book kept me guessing and trying to figure out what would happen next, but with the twists and turns throughout, it just kept me shocked again and again.
As a mother of two daughters, my heart was drawn to the characters where I just wanted to adopt them myself and show them what true love is and means. This book gives you a tad incite of what some foster children go through, from the past to present concept in this book, which is sad, and how it traumatizes them throughout their lives emotionally.
The last chapter was definitely a shocking twist that I did not see coming! I was left with a WOW! If you enjoy darker context books then I highly recommend this book! I am excited to read more from this author!
Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Sally Hepworth for my advanced copy of this book!

I will always read Sally Hepworth. Always. Her writing keeps me interested and I always want to know what is going on. DARLING GIRLS is no different. We are introduced to Jessica, Norah, and Alicia, foster children raised by their foster mother Miss Fairchild. Not everything is picture perfect. The girls escape Miss Fairchild’s care and years later, a body is discovered under the house. Are the girls suspects or witnesses? I loved going back and forth between past and present, it really gave me an insight into each girl and their trauma, how it played into who they were as adults. It’s a heartbreaking, and trauma filled book and I loved the twist. Another great book by Sally!

Sally Hepworth never fails to write a domestic suspense that I absolutely love. Her characters are real, the situations written as if you could've known that person or been in the situation yourself. Darling Girls is a messed up thriller that really shines the light on nature vs nurture, with a little nightmare of foster care thrown in. Sit down and buckle up. I highly recommend you read it.

I received an advanced copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

I absolutely loved Darling Girls. When the remains of a child are found at their foster home 30 years later, three foster sisters are drawn back to their "home" and reconnect over their shared nightmarish history.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy of Darling Girls!

I have loved every Sally Hepworth novel I’ve ever read and this one doesn’t fall short!

This one is a slow burn but well worth the weight!! A MUST READ!

4 STARS

This book. Yesss.
Absolutely yess

I wasn't sure where this book was going at first. But then something happened and I couldn't put it down.

This book was so easy to read. I loved the twists and the ways it makes you question everything.

And then you get to the last chapter. And BOOM.

I enjoyed every minute of this well- plotted, well-paced novel by the super talented writer Sally Hepworth. I had already read her previous book, The Soulmate, and thought it was excellent. I liked Darling Girls even more.

Three main characters are all courageous, likable, and inspiring women. They were foster kids were raised by an abusive foster mom, and the wounds of their childhood have made them all troubled as adults. They are all working on themselves, and trying to heal and support each other, and I was rooting for them the whole way.

Miss Fairchild, the foster mother, is a narcissist, and accurately represented. Anyone who has spent time in the company of a narcissist will recognize how realistic this character’s behavior is. Sally Hepworth knows her human psychology for sure.

There are also four lovable dogs in this book who add humor and to balance out the sad scenes. There is one chapter where the dogs are farting in the car. I was falling over with giggles as I was reading that part.

Thank you so much Netgalley, St Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio, for giving me free digital downloads of both the written book and the audiobook. Having both forms of media is my favorite way to experience a book, because I can absorb every sentence book by reading and hearing it.

The narrator of the audiobook was terrific, and I love hearing an Australian accent. I need to get more audiobooks read aloud by Australians.