⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Whew! What a thriller this book was! I could not put this one down!

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia were raised by their foster mother, Miss Fairchild, in an idyllic looking home. Their life was anything but idyllic though. Now, as adults, they are forced to return back to the town where they spent their horrible childhood, after bones were discovered under the house.

This book was fast paced and very well written. Hepworth did a great job writing about very intense subjects. This is one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a while! I look forward to reading what’s next from Hepworth!


📘: Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth
🗓️: April 23, 2024

Thank you to NetGalley, Sally Hepworth , and St.Martin’s Press for this ARC!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

*Reviewed on NetGalley, Amazon, and Goodreads.

Sally Hepworth's Darling Girls is a gripping and emotionally charged novel that delves deep into the bonds of sisterhood and the shadows of a troubled past. The story follows three foster sisters—Jessica, Norah, and Alicia—who, years after leaving their foster home, are drawn back together by the discovery of human remains near the house where they grew up. This chilling revelation forces them to confront long-buried secrets and traumas.

Hepworth masterfully intertwines past and present narratives, gradually unveiling the dark history that binds these women. Her characters are well-developed and richly complex, each grappling with their own demons and insecurities. Jessica’s need for control, Norah’s rebellious spirit, and Alicia’s quiet resilience create a compelling trio whose dynamics are both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

The novel excels in building suspense, with Hepworth's deft pacing keeping readers on edge. The psychological tension is palpable, and the twists are both surprising and satisfying. The author's exploration of themes such as trust, loyalty, and the impact of childhood experiences on adult life is thought-provoking and poignant.

While Darling Girls is an absorbing read, it does leave a few questions unanswered. Certain aspects of the foster mother's character and motivations could have been explored more deeply, and the resolution, though satisfying, feels slightly abrupt. Additionally, some secondary characters could have been fleshed out more to add further depth to the story.

Despite these minor shortcomings, Darling Girls is a compelling and emotionally resonant novel that showcases Sally Hepworth's talent for blending psychological drama with heartfelt storytelling. It’s a powerful exploration of sisterhood and survival that will stay with readers long after the final page.

Enjoyed this one! Definitely suggest checking the trigger warnings because there are parts of this story that are hard to read. The multi-povs were well done and didn’t confuse me. The storyline kept me wanting to read more and I felt like I flew through this! Definitely recommend if you like twisty reads!

Holy heck, I love Sally Hepworth!
Not only was this a great thriller, but it was loosely based on Australia's foster care system. It's very interesting and very sad to see that the system fails even there.
One thing I love about Sally Hepworth is her twists. You think you've gotten to the twist, and it's good. Then bam! You get hit with the real twist!
This book did not disappoint.
I was feeling bad for Miss Fairchild,but then at the end. BAM! nope!
I really liked the characters in this book! It was interesting to see the different results of the trauma the girls dealt with. They all had different issues that stemmed from the trauma. I was glad that they at least got a happy ending. Alicia's ending was my favorite.
I just really liked everything about this book tbh. This will definitely stay in my head for a while!
I highly recommend this book!

The main characters instantly drew me in and had me intrigued from the beginning! Overall it was a very suspenseful quick read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review

📚 book review 📚 Thank you to @stmartinspress & @macmillan.audio for the review copy!

I am not a huge thriller reader, but I am a huge Sally Hepworth fan. I loved her last two books, and generally like more domestic thriller/mysteries that are a little more character driven and less edge-of-your-seat-thriller.

Darling Girls was no different. The story is told in dual timelines - with three foster sisters visiting their former foster home as adults, and their past in the house as children.

For being a book centered around childhood trauma and abuse, I felt like the repercussions could have been developed more deeply. I think I’m used to seeing more of a healing journey around issues like this, instead of the book kind of throwing its hands up in the air like “trauma will be trauma”. Therapy can be very effective, and it feels like a cheap gimmick to not explore that more.

That aside, I thought it was a lot of fun. The stakes felt very low, but that didn’t bother me. It was a quick read!

This was my first Sally Hepworth novel, and definitely won’t be my last. This was a weirdly twisted story. It wasn’t much of a thriller, but I still really needed to know what happened to the foster girls while they lived with Miss Fairchild. Alicia, Jessica and Norah remained as close as blood sisters after their experiences living with Miss Fairchild. When, years later, there’s a body found on the property, the girls return to get answers. As we uncover parts of each girl’s history, including Miss Fairchild’s, we learn a lot about what happened in that house. The twist at the end was quite unexpected.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my gifted copies of this book.

Sally Hepworth knows absolutely how to write a thriller that will make your head spin and fall in love with every character and this one was no different! Holy shit I loved this one so much!!
If you love a book about sisterhood and girls sticking together this is for sure the book for you. Jessica, Alicia, and Norah were all orphans taken to a girls home to live with Miss Fairchild and as you can imagine, Miss Fairchild is not the woman she appears to be. The three girls band together and have a bond that is truly unbreakable. Passing from current day to their turbulent childhood, you get to learn more and more about where these girls came from. Until in current day, a skeleton is found on the property where they once lived. Who is this mystery person and what happened to them??

Overall, the ending lost me a bit with how fast it all came together but overall it was another HUGE win for Sally Hepworth and I can’t recommend this one enough. If you are looking for a book club pick, this would be so fun! I kind of wished I saved it for my book club because there were so many different personalities and decisions shown in this book that would have made it fun to discuss!


Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the early copy of this book! (That I still can’t manage to post on time.)

Everything Sally Hepworth writes turns to gold for me, and Darling Girls does not disappoint. The main characters instantly draw you in and I couldn't put this book down! I appreciated the character narration being told from differing perspectives and time periods, plus the twists will keep you guessing until the end!

Sally Hepworth hits it out of the park again with "My Darling Girls." She has become one of my favorite suspense writers with her unique stories, complex plots and authentic characters. Darling Girls tackles children in foster care and paints a vivid, and at times, hard to read picture of three girls in placement. Having worked in child protection, I found the stories of abuse and neglect experienced by the girls to be all too real. The girls form a bond, a sister relationship that helps them survive the emotional and physical torment perpetrated by Holy Fairchild, their foster parent. Years later, human bones are discovered under the foster home. As law enforcement investigates, the gorls, now young women deal with the fallout and reckoning of their past. The suspense was riveting as the story moved toward an ending I never saw coming.. Thanks to Sally Hepworth. Netgalley and publishers for the opportunity to read and review this excellent novel.

The clever plot of Darling Girls kept me turning pages, while the characters surprised and intrigued me. I loved everything about this novel and devoured it in one sitting.

The masses were not lying when they said this one somehow got past editing with a TON of type-os. I have never seen anything like it. That being said, Sally Hepworth is an #autoreadauthor for me and I always highly enjoy her #books. This one was still really good, and I enjoyed it and devoured it, but honestly, not in my top three of hers. Full trigger warning: there is a lot of rough child abuse and neglect throughout this one, so be warned. And move over Miss Trunchbull, because Miss Fairchild is your new *you’re in the wrong career field/passion* most hated enemy #1.

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Jessica: Type-A, over organized to a fault, and desperately hiding her secret and overwhelming craving for Valium. Norah: Passionate, aggressive to a fault, and one assault away from landing herself in a jail cell for an extended stay. Alicia: Kind, gentle, and devoted to her life as a social worker and making the lives of foster children better, but crippled by her inability to accept love.

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All three adult women share one traumatic childhood in which they spent years of their lives under the care of the notorious Miss Fairchild - a woman who appeared to be a Good Samaritan but wreaked havoc and hell in their lives in her search for the perfect child.

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Years later, the women are brought back to the small town in which they were fostered by Miss Fairchild, when an unidentified body is discovered beneath the house of horrors they left long ago but never mentally escaped.

I’ve read several Sally Hepworth books and enjoyed them all. Darling Girls is full of suspense. I highly recommend.

This isn't my first book by Sally Hepworth, so I was very excited when I learned I was approved to read the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This was a well done, fast paced thriller, which kept me guessing until the very end. I don't always love when a story is told in different perspectives or different periods of time, but somehow it works here. I would definitely recommend this book, and have already encouraged several of my friends to read it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

I always enjoy Hepworth's books and Darling Girls was no different. I loved the intertwining sisters POV’s and the back and forth from their current selves to their past childhood selves who spent a number of their formative years in an unsettling foster home with an unhinged caregiver. When bones are found during an excavation of their former foster home the women head back to there old town to try and make sense (and amends) with their troubled past.

Woooaah, this is easily Sally Hepworth's best book. Talk about wild twists and turns, on the edge of your seat dramatic. I was fully engaged the whole book and couldn't get enough. This book was really dark, different than a lot of Hepworth's books. I loved the back and forth with the different POV's from the sisters, and all the easter eggs throughout the book.

This was WIIIIILLLLLLDDD!! This lady was so unhinged and manipulative. These poor girls!! This was a very interesting story, so many secrets and lies. But the ending, CRAZY!!!

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for giving me an eGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jessica and Miss Fairchild are happy together. Jessica really thinks of Miss Fairchild as her mother, but when Miss Fairchild experiences financial difficulties, she chooses to take in another foster child--Norah. And then another. Alicia. Cracks in Miss Fairchild's armor begin to appear, especially when she decides to take in infants. They don't adore her as she'd hoped, as worse yet, the other foster children seem better able to care for them.

Decades later, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia consider themselves to be sisters, bound by a shared, if traumatic, childhood with Miss Fairchild. When a body is discovered on the site of their former foster home, the sisters are summoned to the small town to help with the investigation.

Told in multiple points of view and varying timelines, this novel builds suspense with unreliable narrators and vintage Hepworth whiplash-inducing twists. The characters are all so flawed, due to their sad upbringings (except maybe one, who might be pure evil). Another impossible to put down Sally Hepworth novel. #DarlingGirls #NetGalley

Hepworth knows how to weave a story together so flawlessly. I couldn't get enough of this story. The sisters and their completely different personalities complimented each other so well. If you're looking for a story to hook you from the very first page this one is for you. Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for my honest feedback!

You can't always bury your past...

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have bonded and consider themselves real sisters after being placed in the same foster home growing up. They've always been told they were lucky to be placed in Ms. Fairchild's home which seems like the perfect, idyllic farming estate. But not everyone knew the real side of Ms. Fairchild, or her rules. Years after they have escaped from Ms. Fairchild and her unpredictably, the girls are brought right back to their childhoods when a body is discovered under the foster home they grew up in. Are they witnesses... or suspects?

First off, let me say that I enjoyed the foster care/adoption storyline, as I am a social worker as used to work in this specialty. Unfortunately, some foster experiences really can be this bad. However, I did not find this thriller too thrilling. I felt like I was really just hurrying through to get to the end. This dragged for me and I just wanted to know the outcome.
I do applaud Hepworth's research into the the foster care system, adoptions and social workers. Overall this one just wasn't my favorite, but plenty of people are loving it, so give it a try if the subject sounds interesting to you!