Darling Girls jumps from present to past which each chapter giving us a bit more information about what happened in a foster home years ago. I enjoyed getting to know the characters both in present and past. While it started slow, I sped through the end of this one because I needed to know what happened.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and Macmillan Audio for ARCs of the audiobook and book. I did not like putting this one down. I enjoyed how the story went back and forth between the past and present. I liked all the characters and how the ‘sisters’ were close. The end was unexpected, but good! I also enjoyed the narrator. I will be recommending another one by Sally Hepworth! Thank you again for the ARC!

👶🏼🍼 Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth Review 🍼👶🏼

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 4.5/5

💭 Thoughts:
This was an extremely dark slow burn thriller/mystery. Check TWs before you read it! With that said, the story primarily follows 3 foster children and their psychotic foster mother going back in time to tell their history after remains were found under their old foster home. Despite how dark the story was, I loved how Jessica, Alicia, and Norah persevered and stayed close throughout the years, as well as the found family that they found within each other. The ending was WILD, and I had a lot of guesses!! But I was taken aback for SURE! I recommend this one if you can stomach the TWs (primarily a lot of details of child abuse).

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Sally Hepworth for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Normally I can’t stomach books where cruelty to children occurs. But this one is so cleverly done I got caught up in the story and I forgot to be horrified. The twists and turns are amazing and by the end I was so surprised that I was surprised. Kudos to the author for a truly original story. Thank goodness it was a fiction book and not true crime.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced copy!

This was a 3-3.5 read for me and unfortunately my least favorite from Hepworth so far.

I don’t think this is a thriller. This was much more of a dark drama. I am literally the worst at guess any twists in thrillers but I had this fully figured out from the start. To me, there were no surprises in this. Even the end, which Hepworth is famous for, felt like “well duh.”

The writing was great, characters were good, per her usual. I’m just left disappointed.

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth is one I won't forget for a while. It was really good, centered around foster care and trauma with some mental health/sociopath pizzazz. I thoroughly enjoyed the psychological aspects of the cause and effect of trauma on kids and I think Hepworth was trying to make a point with one of the characters, that not all foster care situations are horrible, but lots are. Overall, it was a good mystery that kept me turning the pages, but the payoff was sort of cringy. Overall, I enjoyed it and I think a lot of others will too!

⭐️⭐️⭐️.75


Jessica, Nora, and Alicia were brought up by Miss Fairchild, a loving foster mom. They were given a second chance after being rescued from their family tragedies.

But their childhood wasn't the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. 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 thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?


This started off really good. I was so intrigued by who the body was. I didn’t realize until towards the end, that one of the POVs, the office of Dr. Warren, Psychiatrist, we didn’t actually know who was talking to Dr. Warren. I thought it followed the same chapter that had just finished. I think because of the way it was set up in my eARC had me thinking that way. Well that changes everything…

At times it did drag on a bit. But holyyy, if reading about child abuse is a trigger for you I highly suggest approaching this with extreme caution. That ending…😐

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for an eARC. Darling Girls is available now.

I enjoyed this fast-paced suspense novel! There were times in the beginning where I felt the story dragged a bit, but towards the middle to the end I was nose deep into the story and enjoyed the plot twists! While I can’t say I was over the moon after reading, I did like it and would recommend for a quick thriller read.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

Three foster sisters, one cruel foster mother and the quest to find the truth of bones unearthed beneath the foster home where they lived.

Sally did it again! I was so hooked by this story. Each of these women, the 3 foster sisters - Jessica, Norah and Alicia and their foster mother - Miss Fairchild, were fascinating characters. I loved that the story unfolded in both past and present timelines and via multiple point of views.

The book takes us through the dark effects of trauma and abuse but also shines a light on found family and sisterhood. It was haunting, engrossing and absolutely gripping. I felt so much for the girls and everything they went through.

Highly recommend this one! It is up there with The Good Sister for me which is my fave by Sally.

Thank you so much to @macmillan.audio @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the ALC/ARC!

🔹 𝙈𝙮 𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 🔹
This was my first read of Sally Hepworth, and it did not disappoint! I didn’t expect this psychological thriller to be so character driven, where I’d get invested into the well being of the three main children.

This story is set in Australia, where three children - Jessica, Norah, and Alicia - go to live at Wild Meadows home with their foster mother Miss Fairchild. The children aren’t sisters by birth, they each come from a different background that brings a unique backstory to each of their personalities.

Each girl learns that there is more to Miss Fairchild than meets the eye. They have to learn to navigate her wild temper, her manipulative personality, and her spontaneous whims.

You root for the girls as you hear their story past and present. They each thought they’d never go back to where they grew up, but a gruesome discovery of a body buried beneath their childhood home draws them back to the area, where they have to face their past and demons.

The ending of this book left me like 🤯. It’s such a sinister plot, and it isn’t a far fetched one at that. It’s rooted in truth and could easily be anyone’s story. There are twists and turns, and slow revelations as the story unfolds, and Hepworth reveals things in such a manner as to leave you hanging on for more at each turn. The past and present timelines were interwoven perfectly, revealing past stories that had to do with the present at the right time.

🎧 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚:
🔹 Psychological Thriller
🔹 Dual Timelines
🔹 Foster Children/Mother Dynamics
🔹 Character Driven Story

Dark, twisty, moving, this is a well told psychological thriller. Sally Hepworth created characters and a story that was completely plausible. The trauma the main characters went through, the foster care system, those parts were sad and hard to read. She has great storytelling ability that kept me reading even when the subject got difficult. Check the trigger warnings before picking this one up! Thank you Netgalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is truely a Sally Hepworth book. If you have enjoyed her books in the past, you will definitely enjoy this one. I especially enjoyed this one because it focused on foster children versus a boyfriend or husband! Overall, great read.

Wow! Hold on tight. This was a whirlwhind of a story with multiple MCs, multiple timelines, and multiple mysteries.
I had to sit and just think for a bit after finishing this and getting that final twist. My head is still spinning.

This one had me itching to get back to it every time life interrupted. I loved getting to know Jessica, Norah, and Alicia on multiple timelines and from their sister’s points of view too. Mrs. Fairchild will have you flip flopping your feels all over the place. And yeah, you think you know where it’s going… then you have to change your opinion… then you have to change it again… then you get SMACKED in the face with what really happened. I’m shocked.

Thank you go NetGalley for the e-ARC and audio-ARC in exhchange for my honest opinion.

i always enjoy Sally Hepworth's books and I could not put this one down!

Three sisters, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are not sisters by blood but by shared experience at a foster home that was other than ideal. They are brought back to the town and house when a body is found under it. We are left guessing throughout who the bones belong to and the last chapter was a big WOW moment. These women are so scarred by the treatment that Miss Fairchild inflicted on them. Locked in the basement, made to eat off the floor, having to stay up all night taking care of the babies she would foster. They just went through so much for kids that were already traumatized by loss.

The one thing that keeps them going is the strong bond they have with each other. As Jessica's husband says at one point, I wish you loved me like you love your sisters. That bond will get them through the healing they need as they confront their past and Miss Fairchild again.

I enjoyed every second of this book. I was utterly involved in what would happen with the sisters and the last chapter was just icing on the cake.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's for a copy for review.

Even though, the dates say 5 days, I’ve actually been reading this book for a whole month and still hadn’t finished and had to DNF. It’s just too cruel and violent, and I just couldn’t continue. It saddens me because I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read from this author, and I will still pick up her next book, but unfortunately, this wasn’t it.

**Many thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Sally Hepworth for an ARC of this book!**

Twisted, dark, emotional, and...funny?!

If there's any author who can strike JUST the right balance of those 4 elements...it's the reigning QUEEN of domestic suspense, Sally Hepworth, who is BACK with a frightening tale of found family in the foster system...and how the macabre intentions of the "perfect" foster mother MIGHT just have crossed the line from demeaning to DEADLY!

Jessica, Alicia and Norah each remember their first day at Wild Meadows foster home with clarity. Each coming from different tragic situations, it seemed like a godsend to have a new home and someone to call 'mom,' and each girl looked at Ms. Fairchild, their foster mother, with the sort of wide-eyed innocence and boundless hope that is so easy for children. But it doesn't take long for the manipulation to begin...and for the girls to learn that 'my darling girl' is FAR from a genuine term of endearment. Ms. Fairchild has no problem washing their mouths out with soap, working the young girls to the bone, and even expecting them to 'parent' other babies that end up at the foster home. Despite their terror and exhaustion, the girls form an unshakable bond and all manage to leave Wildwood Meadows in one piece...and hope to leave this horrific shared experience in the past, where it belongs.

Years later, Jessica has turned her OCD tendencies into a successful cleaning business...and if her job just HAPPENS to afford her easy access to her client's prescription pills? So be it. Feisty Norah, who has never been afraid to throw hands, is the 'date em and leave em' type who basically sees her dating prospects from various apps as handymen for hire...and isn't afraid to use her 'assets' to her advantage...even when it gets her in trouble. Alicia has managed to maintain a tremendous amount of empathy in her field of social work, despite her troubled upbringing at Wild Meadows, but she is now contemplating making a change that will alter her life forever...and is longing to jump feet first into a relationship that COULD bring her everything she's been missing...if she could ONLY find the confidence to tell the object of her affections just how MUCH she feels for her.

But it's a phone call from a detective that brings these Soul Sisters back together...and the detective doesn't hesitate before dropping a bombshell: BONES have been found underneath the farmhouse in Port Agatha where they spent so many hours together...and with no clear suspects OR even a suspected victim, all eyes are trained on the three girls. Do they know WHO the bones belong to, WHEN they were buried, and WHY the murder occurred? And just WHERE were the three of them when the crime took place, anyway? Will Ms. Fairchild come storming back into their lives one FINAL time...or did the trio ALREADY get their revenge?

On the side of every Starbucks cup, you'll usually find emblazoned "that first sip feeling," and in some ways this metaphor works perfectly in terms of how I felt picking up this Hepworth read. Within a few chapters I KNOW I'll be laughing, intrigued, and I'll feel as though I have a solid grip on the personalities of her always-dynamic characters. (In this particular read, there's also a mystery narrator revealing their past to a psychiatrist, but I'll get more into that later). After a few Hepworth reads, you know exactly what that 'first sip feeling' is like and even in her less impressive efforts, this initial draw is ALWAYS there...and Darling Girls is no exception. These wily ladies took no prisoners and had a sort of fearless, open, and tantalizing narrative style that pulls the reader in, and I found myself thinking this could very well end up a 4.5 or maybe even a 5 star read: I was just THAT lost in the mystery and felt an affinity for these characters and their tortured backstories from the jump.

Somewhere along the way, though, the endless atrocities committed by Ms. Fairchild honestly FELT endless...even to the reader. In some ways I'm sure this was an intentional decision, and according to the author's note, not one Hepworth took lightly. Lots of research and countless conversations went into making this book as realistic and horrific as it often felt, and in some ways it was refreshing to read about a different 'kind' of family...one brought together and bonded almost solely through trauma. Hepworth also never shied away from exploring the link between the trauma the girls experienced in their youth and the resulting mental health and addiction struggles that followed, and all of this exploration was nothing if not consistently DARK. In some respects, the humor almost felt VITAL to the plot to keep it from becoming a complete tearjerker...so when it petered off in later chapters (my loudest recorded out loud laughs DEFINITELY occurred in the first 30% of the book) it was a noticeable loss.

I also felt that Hepworth's twists weren't QUITE as twisty as I would have liked. For starters, I found it pretty obvious who the mystery narrator was from early on...and these sections with the psychiatrist also were sort of a snooze fest in comparison to the other action. I also found it highly unlikely that the doctor would even BELIEVE everything this person was saying: it seemed pretty obvious to me that this patient was saying things for shock value or possibly making EVERYTHING up, and I found it hard to take stock in these portions of the book for that reason alone. This device was necessary for several reasons (none of which I can discuss to avoid spoilers) but I guess I just wish there were fewer of them included because they slowed down a plot that already felt a bit plodding at times. Once I had figured out a certain amount of the plot, I felt like I had to put on my Patience Cap and simply wait for the final twists to be revealed...and it WAS a bit of a wait to get to the final 'good stuff' (much like the chocolate at the bottom of a Drumstick cone...IYKYK!)

When it did arrive, however, Hepworth managed to deliver a solidly SATISFYING ending, even though I wouldn't call it mind-blowing by any stretch. I also appreciate the clever nuance of this cover too (you'll appreciate it more after reading the book, although it IS pretty dreamy and summery even without context...poolside margarita, anyone?) While I do feel this is a MUCH heavier read due to the subject matter than some of Hepworth's other efforts, I also applaud her willingness to dive into a different type of drama: as much as she has mastered the scandals of sibling rivalries, marriages and relationships gone awry, and Gossip Gone Wild, she handles very sensitive subject matter with a considerate pen and an air of authenticity that helped to balance out the less plausible parts of the plot and kept me contemplating the future of ALL of these women long after I turned the last page.

As a roller coaster junkie, there are probably those out there who can't understand how taking the same 200 foot plunge could be TRULY thrilling every time...after all, you can look up at the giant structure and SEE every twist and turn you'll take long before you take a seat in the car. But much like that a roller coaster ride, knowing exactly where you COULD end up in this story doesn't take ANYTHING away from the thrill of the journey.

Just don't forget to keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times...my darlings.

4 stars

This is tough book for me to rate, I think as a whole though, 3.5 stars seems appropriate. It was well written, as all Sally Hepworth novels are, it just wasn’t a subject matter I enjoyed reading about. The book alternates from the past when our three protagonists are children in foster care and the present day when the bones are found. There was also a mystery person in therapy, although I was able to guess who it was before the reveal. While I appreciate Sally brought attention the foster system and its flaws, I didn’t want to read about the abuse the girls endured. Although I know it was necessary to bring us answers in the present. Overall, it was an okay “thriller” the last twist was a little over the top and I’m not sure we needed it. It will definitely get people talking though.

I enjoyed Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth because it was a page turning murder mystery with short chapters. The story had twist and turns and a wild ending that left me surprisingly shocked…exactly the way I like my thrillers!

Wow 🤯
I couldn’t put this one down!
Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth is well worth the hype.
Three sisters who grew up in foster care return to their home town for a recent grisly discovery.
Hesitantly, they make the trip to recall events from their childhood about the foster home they grew up in.
This gripping thriller is super twisty and will definitely make you think!
The ending was probably the best twist I’ve read all year.
Bravo to Sally Hepworth!

Ok Sally, I get it. Everything you write is engaging, interesting, original and slightly dark. Everything you write, I want to buy. Everything you write, I want to read. And EVERYTHING you write, has me more smitten with you!

I would say this book is far more domestic suspense than thriller. There is a mystery woven through the book and the ending packed a huge surprise- but it is mostly about the long standing effects of being foster children of Miss Fairchild that is the bulk of this story.

It is the story of 3 girls who ended up at the same (ghastly) foster residence and became sisters in every sense of the word. They looked out for each other, leaned on one another and took punishment for one another.

The story uses each girl as a POV and switches timelines between the past and the present with each. This sounds like it might be confusing- but it is not at all. The subject is difficult, yes. But with Sally’s knack for unearthing good from the bad, these “sisters” rise from what their lives could have sunk to and use their strength together to finally make people listen to their truth.

The Good Sister will always be my favorite book of Sally’s (because Fern is the best character ever), but this one is definitely up among the other greats she has written. Newly released, this one is a “pick this one up” choice for sure!!

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC to read and review!