👩🏼 Dark & twisted thriller
🏊🏼‍♀️ Foster care sisters
👩🏼 Found Family
🏊🏼‍♀️ Past & Present timelines
👩🏼 Slow burn suspense
🏊🏼‍♀️ Murder mystery
👩🏼 Character driven
🏊🏼‍♀️ Twisty ending
👩🏼 Multiple pov
⚠️ Check triggers ⚠️

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia... Three sisters all raised together in the same foster home, Wild Meadows. All three went through some level of abuse through their childhood and foster care. They are all called back *home* 25 years later, after bones were found under Wild Meadows.

My favorite part about this was how we got FOUR povs. 3 sisters and an unknown. Norah is probably my favorite sister, she's a bit unhinged and I loved it.
I did guess one of the twists but the ending was still wild and enjoyable.

Definitely recommend adding this to your thriller tbr.

Thank you to Sally, Netgalley and stmartin press for this arc.

Oh my... this book was gripping from the very beginning and never let me down!. It's an edge of your seat, chew off your fingernails kind of read. This novel has it all with sisters, secrets, suspense, love and murder. It's brilliant, disturbing and heartbreaking and an incredible read, one I won't forget any time soon. I highly recommend this absolutely outstanding book!

WOW! Sally Hepworth does it again! This was a wild ride and Miss Fairchild is a serious piece of work, a liar, and a terrible person! This was a great read and I was hooked from the beginning! I can't wait to read her next book!

This one started out slow. The pace picked up around halfway through. This wasn’t quite edge of your seat reading, but it was intriguing. There were a lot of puzzle pieces to put together. I did figure out quite a bit of the story, but there were still a few surprises. The end was not a complete surprise, but I was still slightly shocked.

Mystery, murder, and drama will keep readers turning the pages of Sally Hepworth’s suspenseful new book, Darling Girls.

After individual tragedies occur when they are children, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are sent to live with a ruthless foster care mother named Miss Fairchild. Due to poor treatment and fear, the “sisters” flee their foster care home. Years later a body is found under the foster care home and the police contact the sisters to question them.

What’s to love:
💕 Dual timelines
💕 Multiple POVs
💕 Found family
💕 Secrets about to be revealed and what people are willing to do to prevent it

Thank you to @netgalley for an advanced copy of this book.

I’ve read Sally Hepworth’s books before and I just don’t think her writing is for me. I know lots of other people adore her books, but I find them hard to get into to.

The same goes with this book. The concept of the book intrigued me and I was so excited to dive in, but it fell flat for me. Kinda slow at some parts and overall not as interesting as I thought. It’s a 2.5 star rounded up to 3 for me.

I have read almost all of Sally Hepworth's books now and I loved Darling Girls!! This book had me guessing until the end with twists I never saw coming.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are sisters by circumstance. They were all rescued from the dire circumstances of their biological families and raised by their foster mother, Miss Fairchild. But the upbringing they experienced was unlike what everyone thought it was. They are now traveling back to the home where they were raised because a body has been discovered.

I’m not crying. You’re crying. This was a typical Sally Hepworth, complete with complex characters and a dynamic plot with lots of emotion.

A body is found under an old foster home, which brings three sisters back to face their traumatic childhood. Each sister is going through her own struggles, Which added some drama to the story.

The big reveal of who was in the therapists office wasn’t entirely a surprise, but the culmination of it in chapter 55 was 🤌🏻chef’s kiss🤌🏻

Between that layer and the dual timeline, this was a delightful book that I couldn’t read fast enough!! 4.5 stars!

Mystery/Thriller

You can always count on Sally Hepworth for a good story and Darling Girls doesn't disappoint.

Three girls met in foster care and formed a lasting friendship. Their shared trauma bonded them closer than sisters. They all are experiencing lasting effects from their experiences - Norah gets into physical altercations with people, Jessica has a successful business but is stealing medications and abusing benzos, and Alicia cannot form lasting attachments to anyone. They are brought back together to the town where they once lived because bones were found buried on the grounds of their former house. The police want to hear about their experiences, and it brings up lots of memories for the girls.

The book's narrative is provided between different characters and there are also timeline hops, which sometimes made following the storyline difficult. There are also inserts from one of the characters visit with a therapist. It's difficult to tell which character is the patient until the very end of the novel.

Holy cow - the ending! It saved the book for me. I felt like this book moved really slowly and I just wasn't that invested in the characters. True to Hepworth's style there are twists upon twists. Another solid effort from a true star of the genre.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC of this novel.

This is a riveting unputdownable book. It has both an exciting plot and interesting characters. Plus, it is full of great family vibes and unpredictable plot twists. It is definitely worth reading!

Sally Hepworth did an amazing job writing the story of three girls now women who grew up in foster care.

The sisters stayed close all these years and have been doing the best they can in their lives since Miss Fairchild. That is until one evening they each get a call that human remains have been found underneath of the “home” they found each other in. The women return “home” to have more secrets, lies, and coverups. This book kept me reading and even when I thought I had figured it out i was dead wrong!


I enjoyed reading Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth. Thank you to Netgalley and St Martins Press for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review

This story follows Jessica, Alicia and Norah, 3 girls that were in foster system that were placed at Wild Meadows with Miss Fairchild. Now they have found remains where the house once stood and they are asked to come back to town to help find out who they belong to. It brings up many memories of growing up there and finally escaping to live on their own.

Great character development and a great plot with many twists and turns. I highly recommend reading this one!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in return for my honest review.

I loved this book! I didn't want to put it down. Kept me guessing until the very end. Sally Hepworth is an automatic read for me.

Darling Girls
By: Sally Hepworth @sallyhepworth
Story: ✨✨✨ ✨✨ 5/5
Narration: 🎧🎧🎧🎧🎧 5/5

Thank you @penguinrandomhouse and @netgalley for a preview of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Oh those darling, darling girls…

Every girl should feel lucky to have a mother’s love.

The lives of three foster children; three very different personalities and yet one tragic thing in common - their upbringing.

Jessica craves order, Nora craves freedom and Alicia sits somewhere in between the two. How did they all end up this way? They share a “mother” (if you could call her that) who is more devoted to her own wellbeing and self perception than to the children she is supposed to be raising.

From the outside looking in, Mrs. Fairchild is viewed as the perfect foster mother. Yet, twenty-five years later, the truth is unveiled after human remains are found underneath the house where she raised so many of her foster children.

And no one knows who it might’ve been…

After detectives are called to the scene to decipher whose body the remains once belonged to, Jessica, Nora and Alicia must return to the place they once called home. Desperate to forget their time at Wild Meadows, once they arrive the memories come flooding back.

Will their secrets withstand all of this new attention? Find out in Darling Girls.

⚠️ I do not own the rights to the imagery or audio used.

Oh, Sally Hepworth. Not typically a thriller gal, I end up reading thrillers if they're by her. Darling Girls was a bit slow to start and, to be honest, I had no clue where it was going until the very end. I found the ending satisfactory and enjoyed the mystery, but my favorite part of the story was the relationship between the sisters, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia.

The sisters are not biologically related but became sisters during their time with foster mother Miss Fairchild, a seemingly loving, but abusive woman. When they finally broke free of Miss Fairchild, they though they were free of her. Years later, detectives come knocking, letting the sisters know that bones were found under the house they spent so many contentious years.

A winding mystery, this thriller keeps you on your toes and wondering what twist will come next. I enjoyed it!

Thank you to NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for the ARC copy of this one, which is out everywhere now!!

This was a very interesting read. To me it kept a great pace throughout, had some nice surprises & just had a great plot line.
I really enjoyed how this wrapped up and felt like everything was answered nicely.
There was nice development for the characters & throughout the story as well.

Really enjoy Sally Hepworth's writing style!

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a readers copy of this book. My reviews never contain spoilers and are freely given.
Three foster children, all girls, spent years at a home with Miss Fairchild, who was, to put it mildly, in need of help herself. The “sisters” are now grown women and are stunned to get a call from police that bones were found at the site of their old home. Whose bones?
The story switches between present day and the past, but is never confusing.
If you love a good suspense novel, don’t miss the latest by Sally Hepworth.

Sally Hepworth has crafted another crafty thriller with Darling Girls. This mystery is heavy on character development. The three main characters, Jessie, Norah and Alicia have a traumatic shared past as foster children of Miss Fairchild at Wild Meadows. The story jumps between present day and the past seamlessly. A body is found at Wild Meadows forcing the girls to reunite and relive their dark and twisted past, which is full of secrets. As with all Sally Hepworth novels, there are lots of satisfying twists and turns in this story. This is probably my favorite Sally Hepworth novel to date, and I really enjoyed here earlier titles as well! Thanks to #netgalley and the publisher for providing me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Sally Hepworth for the copy of Darling Girls.

Wow! I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I was hooked from the beginning…and the final chapter put my jaw on the floor. This was my first book of Sally’s but I will definitely read more and I definitely recommend this one!

Sally Hepworth has done it again. This was a wonderfully creepy book that kept twisting all the way to the end. I love that all the characters were well developed and that the plot was quick paced.