"Love and security were the most basic of rights. Forcing these kids to believe they were lucky to have that was even more damaging than what some of them experienced in care."

WHEW. What a story!!! I needed to catch my breath after reading this one because it was DARK. Seriously, proceed with caution because this was a tough read.

This story is about three sisters, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. They aren't biological sisters, but they are definitely bonded for life after the trauma they experienced together while living at Wild Meadows as foster children. This idyllic estate is owned by the beautiful and pleasant-seeming Miss Fairchild. Each child is placed in her care at a different time, starting with Jessica. For as long as the girls can remember, they've been told how 'lucky' they were to be placed there. What they experienced in this house was far from serendipitous, and no sane person would consider them lucky.

The book starts off years later; the girls are now adults and they are still close, but one day each girl gets a call from the police to return to Wild Meadows because a body was found under the house. The sisters reluctantly return to their hometown and are forced to revisit old demons as an investigation is underway.

This is told in multiple POVs (each girl has a very distinctive personality which made this a pleasure to listen to on audio), and past and present timelines. This story was unpredictable, unsettling, and unforgettable.

I think giving any more information would be criminal because this is the kind of thriller you need to experience for yourself. The way Sally Hepworth described what these girls went through was nothing short of cinematic. I was glued to my headphones and my Kindle. I audibly gasped, my eyes widened at parts, and I *actually* found myself holding my breath at certain points.

This entire book was perfect and the ending was amazing! This is definitely going to be one of my top favorite thrillers of the year. I did guess a few plot-twists, but it's because I am just that good, lol. It was NOT predictable! Lastly, I really appreciated the author's note at the end and that the author actually interviewed children who were in the foster system in Australia. This was well-researched, disturbing, and if you can stomach the subject matter, a must-read for any thriller fan.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martins Press, and Macmillan audio for the advanced reader copy, and advanced listener copy in exchange for my honest opinion. This publishes on 4/23/24, it is already available on Book of the Month, but if you don't have a subscription mark your calendars and set those Libby holds! This one is a doozy!

CONTENT WARNING: child abuse (physical and sexual), childhood trauma, domestic violence

I’ve read a few books by Sally Hepworth, and for the most part, I enjoy her writing. I also really like the fact that they’re set in Australia and the audiobook narrators have Australian accents, but they aren’t so strong that I can’t understand them. And yes, I have had that problem in the past with a different author.

I wound up alternating my reading between the ebook and the audiobook, since I enjoyed the accent of the narrator, Jessica Clarke, and the way that she narrated the book. She did a great job with this story, and I enjoyed how easily she slipped between characters during the POV shifts in the story.

It isn’t just the characters that we slip between, since this is a dual timeline story. We gradually learn the story through the eyes of each character both “then” and “now.” Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are sisters through their time spent with Miss Fairchild, a foster mother who seemed to offer everything they could possibly ask for. Except like most things that seem too good to be true, this is too. Miss Fairchild isn’t the dream foster mother they hoped for, but quickly reveals herself to be an abusive nightmare. Jessica is the first girl to enter Miss Fairchild’s home, at the age of five, willing to endure ever-growing levels of isolation in order to keep the affection of Miss Fairchild. Norah follows, an eleven-year-old with violent tendencies due to her background. Alicia, a good-natured girl, comes to live with them at age 12 after her grandmother has an accident and has to stay at a rehab for a while.

In the present day, each of the women are struggling with their own inner conflicts. For Jessica, it’s obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and an addiction to prescription pills that she has been stealing from the houses of her clients, leading to the implosion of her business and marriage. Norah is facing potential incarceration as a result of her uncontrolled anger issues. And Alicia is a social worker, helping children to find safe living arrangements, but her own unresolved issues make it difficult for her to move on from her past and get into a healthy relationship and build a family for herself.

But when police get involved and let them know that human remains have been found beneath the house which they have tried very hard to put behind them, they can no longer escape their past. This is the central mystery to the story—whose remains are these? And who put them there?

We slowly learn more about each of the girls, and what they went through in Miss Fairchild’s care, but we also peel back the layers of the onion on the personality of each of the women in the present day. Each of the sisters grew on me in a different way. Norah is the one that I found myself identifying with initially, with her combination of sensitivity and sarcasm to protect vulnerable core, while Alicia was just too sweet not to like. She’s one of those genuinely good-hearted people that you can’t dislike even if you want to. And Jessica had my feelings all over the place during the book, as more information is revealed, but once her true personality is revealed, it was much easier to empathize with her.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It kept me intrigued, and I was surprised by the plot twists and the big reveal. However, the ending kind of left me a little disappointed, and I didn’t love that last twist. It didn’t add anything to the story, and felt like it was there more to ruffle feathers than anything else. The only other thing that I wasn’t exactly thrilled about was the use of “abused child in foster care” as a trope. While I know that this does happen and far more than should ever be acceptable, i’m not generally a fan of this being used as a trope, and think it comes up in books, shows, and movies to the point where it seems as though every single foster situation is abusive, and there aren’t ever any good ones. Other than those things, I was here for the story. Nothing really played out as I had expected, and it kept me engaged from the start to the finish. And I highly recommend the audiobook—Jessica Clarke does a wonderful job and her Australian accent is fantastic to listen to (and easy to understand even if you’re an uncultured swine aka American like me 🤣). Is it just an American thing to love hearing accents different from my own? A me thing? Or is this basically universal? Regardless, while this isn’t my favorite Hepworth novel, it’s still a really good one.

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth
Narrator: Jessica Clarke
Rating: DNF
Pub date: 4/27

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia all grew up in the same foster home, remaining close throughout their lives. As adults, a body is found beneath their old home, Wild Meadows, and the police contact them when they start to investigate. What follows is a series of revelations about what really happened to the girls when they lived with Miss Fairchild.

Sally Hepworth is an auto-buy author for me, so I was very excited to read this one. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t for me.

The story goes back and forth between the past and present tense, although we spend most of our time in the past while the girls live with Miss Fairchild. They are treated terribly and the victims of child abuse (some of it sexual) while they are there. This isn’t something I enjoy reading about, so I DNF’d the book at 60%. I should mention that I’m definitely an outlier here…there are lots of five-star reviews for this upcoming release, so make sure you check out the trigger warnings and other reviews before taking my word for it.

I listened to the audiobook, and Jessica Clark did a wonderful job voicing all the characters.

Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for my complimentary audiobook and Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for my advanced copy.

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

I’m torn on this one. I did find it engaging and listened to it over 2 days as I was eager to find out what happened. However over the last couple of days the more I think about it the more I don’t like it. I think this author just isn’t for me, I’ve tried several and I feel meh about all of them.

The story is of 3 foster sisters who are forced to go back to the town they grew up in when a body is discovered under their foster home. I did like the different perspectives especially the unique unreliable narrator’s perspective and the ending. But overall the story just fell flat for me and the ending wasn’t enough to redeem it.

What I really look for in a thriller is the atmosphere - a creepy and suspicious edge of your seat type vibe. And these books are more domestic drama than thriller, which is fine it’s just never what I go in hoping for and expecting for some reason.

I am seeing a lot of excellent reviews for this one so I think if you like her other books I’m sure you’ll like this one.

Thank you to @macmillan.audio for my copy, this one is out on April 23rd.

#bookreview #bookish #booksta #reading #bookthoughts #audiobookreview #audiobooks #audiobookstagram

Thank you so much to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press, and Sally Hepworth for allowing me to review this twisty thriller. I love Sally Hepworth and highly recommend all of her books. She always throws me for a loop with the twists and turns in her books. This one, however, was a bit challenging for me to read due to some triggering details regarding child abuse. I am usually able to read most books with trigger warnings regarding this issue, but I struggled to get through this one in some parts. All of that did add to the character development and was impactful in the storyline, but I would have enjoyed it more without the graphic detail of some events. I still recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fast paced twisty thrillers and Sally Hepworth’s gripping storylines and writing. Just keep in mind there are trigger warnings and it might be good to skip a few scenes. Thank you again for allowing me to review this book.

I didn’t know what to expect from this book at first..but I was HOOKED. The ending had my mouth wide open!! I need more of these sisters in my life.

Synopsis:

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have long been told they are so lucky. As young girls, they were removed from family tragedies and placed into a loving foster home with a doting foster mother, Miss Fairchild. Their idyllic life on a farming estate provided them with an exclusive second chance at a happy life. Their childhood, however, was not as perfect as everyone thought it was because Miss Fairchild had rules and could be unpredictable. In a moment of fear and desperation, the girls break away from Miss Fairchild and hope to find respite in a new life. When a body is discovered under their childhood home, they find themselves thrust into a police investigation. But are they witnesses or suspects?

Review:

Let's start with what I enjoyed about the novel.

This is my first novel from Sally Hepworth, so I didn't know what to expect; however, I was pleasantly surprised. Her writing style is engaging and easy to read. She crafts believable characters who actually sound like sisters. The way the three women speak to each other sounds like how I talk to my sisters. There are moments of humor throughout and they flow into the sisters' interactions. Hepworth's writing style also shines through in the format of the story. The plot is told through past and present chapters from each of the sister's perspectives. While I found the past chapters more intriguing, I was interested in the present mystery plot.

While I read an e-copy of the book, the physical book is 361 pages. Even though it is a little long for a thriller, it reads quickly. Hepworth's writing contributes to the readability, but the setting and the foster family plot are interesting.



Now, for what I did not like. There isn't too much to say, but the mystery elements are not as twisty as I expected. I often hear about Sally Hepworth's books and their twists, but I did not find the twists to be very exciting. Don't get me wrong, the book is good, but I expected a little more.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and gave it 3.5 stars. If you are looking for a solid domestic thriller, this is it. If you are looking for a dark crime thriller like Karin Slaughter, you won't find it here.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher, I loved this book so much and I highly recommend. It’s a 4/5 stars for me!

Thank you, NetGalley and St.Martin’s Press, for this book's ARC! This was my first Sally Hepworth book and I was thoroughly impressed!!
We follow the lives of three adoptive sisters: Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. They have all been dealt their share of abuse from what they were told was the best place to be when needing a place to stay while family matters were taken care of. The reality was these girls were never going to go back to what they knew.
Miss Fairchild promised the girls a happy and fulfilled life but what happens behind closed doors or, in this case, a beautiful farm stays there. The girls are dealing with an unpredictable, manic woman who is constantly putting the girls in dangerous and scary situations. (Trigger warning: Child abuse) When the girls finally have a chance to escape the situation they go. Flash forward to the present each one of the girls is experiencing their day-to-day issues and coping with the trauma they endured as pre-teens. Each girl is completely different from one another yet they would do anything to protect and care for each other. While navigating their own lives they receive a call that a body had been found underneath the farmhouse that they grew up in. But whose body is it and how did it end up there?
The story goes back and forth between the different perspectives and from the past and present. You get to understand what is going on from all angles and understand more about what happened to these girls. Loved that!! I was rooting for these girls throughout the whole book and knew from the beginning they deserved a second chance at life.
As an educator, I will say it was hard to read at times about the girls as kids, my heart hurt for them. I actually wanted to punch Miss Fairchild straight in the face a few times or throw her in the pool myself iykyk! This story had many twists and turns I was not expecting and truly left me feeling uneasy in a good way. I absolutely love reading dark thriller novels and this one was not like the others I’ve read and I really enjoyed that! But seriously that ending had me hollering!! Looking forward to reading other books from Sally Hepworth!

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

You know those movies that have an extra scene after the credits? This book was like that. So STAY FOR THE CREDITS!

This fast-paced novel kept my attention throughout, and I was not prepared for everything that was thrown my way. In true Hepworth fashion, she explored relationships and what it meant to be family. The POVs were so distinct from one another, so it was easy to keep them straight. Most of the characters were morally gray, which I loved. Also, I found the bounce between present and past to be successful. It allowed the story to move at the perfect pace.

If you like stories about found families, strong female relationships, and psychological thrillers, this one is sure to be a hit for you.

Sally Hepworth's Darling Girls was another fresh thriller for 2024! The story was fast paced and enjoyable, and I really appreciated a mystery/psychological thriller with a happy ending for the complex characters.

4 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.


We all hear horror stories about the foster care system. Thankfully, not all homes are horrific, but in Darling Girls, we meet a woman who cares for her foster children in a frightening way.

Jessica ends up at Wild Meadows after the death of her mother. Miss Fairchild seems so welcoming and kind and loving. At first. Miss Fairchild is obsessed with a clean home and perfect children. Once Jessica starts school, the shine of Jessica gets a bit tarnished, as Jessica becomes friends with other children at school.

In comes Norah. A very angry, troubled foster child who has seen the worst of the system. Then Alicia, who was to be placed temporarily while her grandmother heals in the hospital. For these three, the life at Wild Meadows truly does become awful, as Miss Fairchild finds their deepest fears and uses them.

When the girls become adults, they carry these fears with them, which shapes their personalities. And when they are called back to Wild Meadows, they don’t know the best way to cope with what’s to come.

Sally Hepworth writes compelling human dramas that show both the best and worst of the human psyche. Through her characters in this novel, we understand how easily a child’s spirit can be shaped and broken. Wild Meadows truly was a clean house of horrors.

Quick read. Excellent story. Would recommend!

This was an intriguing story, I didn’t think it was a “thriller” or a “suspense” book, I would consider it a mystery. The story of 3 girls and their story at a foster home, what they endured while under Miss Fairchilds care. What seemed like an idyllic situation from the outside, was actually a horrific experience on the inside. The girls in her care endured physical and mental abuse from a narcissist, gaslighting care giver. The life they lived had these 3 non-biological girls band together, and act like true siblings to keep themselves as safe as possible. The story starts with the foster home being demolished so a McDonalds can be built on the lad, while they are digging for the parking lot, a set of bones is discovered …. Whose bones are they? And how did they get there? The girls think it’s Miss Fairchild, Miss Fairchild blames the girls, while others suspect a neighboring sex offender could be to blame. Step one is determining the age of the bones, and who they belong to, so the right person can be put to justice. Within this story, you are also privy transcripts of a “patient” and their psychiatrist … who is being interviewed? (You’ll find out about 50% in). It’s a beautiful story, about the girls, and how they have stuck together, protected each other, even with what they have endured. The who, what, and why left me angry, the twists at the end magnificent.

I have mixed feelings about Darling Girls. I liked the mystery and suspense of the book. I especially loved the short chapters - they helped move the story along and also made the hard chapters *a little* easier to swallow. I had trouble connecting and feeling much of anything for any of the characters beyond Alicia. The writing also felt uneasy with certain chapters being a lot cheesier than others (a confession and a some of the relationships come to mind). Overall, it was an okay read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

The perfect bingable thriller! I am reading SLOW these days, but I sped right on through Darling Girls.

Three sisters were rescued from seperate tragedies and raised as sisters in the foster care system. They met while in the care of Mrs. Fairchild (spoiler alert: she’s nuts!).

The girls are all grown up when they receive news that a body has been found under their old foster home. Old secrets and lies come back to haunt everyone and it’s a wild ride.

Wickedly twisted, the perfect domestic suspense novel!

Three not-related-by-blood sisters, bonded through the foster home where they grew up, have secrets to hide. But, when a body is found, everyone is suspect. Their lives are turned upside down, and they come face-to-face with the horrible foster mother who raised them.

Their entire childhood was a farce, and no one would believe the truth, regardless, so they learned to cope the best way they could, and coping is what they do best. They have to face the past and uncover the truth, no matter the repercussions. Even if it threatens their current lives and future with loved ones.

The twists and revelations as the story progresses will leave you on the edge of your seat, and the final outcome may leave you with your mouth hanging open in shock.

Couldn't get enough of this truly brilliant story.

Sally Hepworth has a way of writing books that are just so readable. Her stories just flow and you quickly find yourself immersed in it. Darling Girl did just that for me.

It’s about three sisters who return to their foster home when a body is found underneath the house. Sounds interesting, right? Like I said, her stories just sucks you in

I love reading each sister’s POVs and the mystery character. It’s pretty easy to guess who that person is but the twist?! That one I didn’t see coming.

Looking for a domestic thriller with dual timelines, multiple unreliable narrators, and a focus on the trauma foster kids endure? Then this is a great pick for you!
This book focuses on three foster sisters, bonded together forever by the treatment they endured at the hands of their foster parent, Miss Fairchild. Over the course of the book, we learn that Jessica was the first girl to live at Wild Meadows, then was joined by Norah, and later Alicia. The three are terrified of Miss Fairchild and her unpredictable moods, but they’re more terrified of being separated and sent to new foster homes.
In the present day, local detectives are trying to determine the identity of the body found beneath the Wild Meadows home. The three women are asked to return to the small town to be interviewed. As the interviews progress, we get more and more answers about their pasts. As detectives start pulling answers out of the women, it gets harder and harder to know who to believe.
With a balance of character-driven plot and slow-building suspense, this book kept my attention. The slow-burn feeling had evaporated by the last quarter, and I was racing to the finish line, desperate for answers.
Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

this is a slow, unraveling, mystery puzzle whose pieces come together through the pages.

I absolutely love a good book that gives us things in bits and pieces. Telling a story in current person, but also giving flashbacks of past stories. All of which come together to tell you not only the characters journey but also their own story of who they are & why they make decisions that they do.

I had never read a Sally Hepworth novel. It was recommended to me by a friend & I was so excited to see it offered as an ARC in NetGalley. I was enthralled! I read it in a few hours because I desperately needed to know the full story of the sisters, the body Found during the excavation of their old home, and the WHO of it all!!

Sally keeps you guessing until the last page. I closed this book with a shudder.

Hopefully the final release copy has a trigger warning at the beginning because there are discussion of child abuse. Sexual abuse of a child in general story telling “like this happened to me” as well as verbal & emotional abuse. Additionally topics of growing up in the foster home are discussed heavily as that is a big premise of the bits & pieces of the story. As well as how they become “sisters”.

i truly enjoyed the slow burn. The calculated way the story unfolds. The characters are well developed, the plot well thought out & honestly genius! I loved it. More than that it’s a true twist of heartbreak, love & healing. Not to mention an ending I didn’t see coming!!

i look forward to reading more in her catalog!

shoutout to NetGalley & St. Martins Press for the ARC!

THAT FINAL TWIST THO!!!!! Darling Girls is told in the form of a now and then format that alternates in the chapters. Alicia, Jessica, and Norah are three foster sister who met at the Wild Meadows farming estate where Miss Holly Fairchild is the picture-perfect foster mother. However, Miss Fairchild can be cruel and unpredictable. The girls find themselves trying to survive until one day they make a break from Wild Meadows. They hope they'd never have to deal with Miss Fairchild or Wild Meadows again. Fast forward to the present and the three girls are now grown adults, just trying to live their lives until news that human bones was found under their old foster home at Wild Meadows. The three girls must now return and face their shared past.
Sally Hepworth is known for weaving family/domestic drama into her twists and this might be her best novel yet. Sometimes I find domestic dramas boring and predictable but this was super easy to keep reading and kept my focus the whole time. The twists were not super predictable but not outlandish which I appreciate, as it makes the story more relatable and believable. The chapters written from the girls' perspective is written using third-person point of view but there is also an unknown female first-person point of view that takes place in a psychiatrist's office, which is an interesting choice and somewhat unique. I will say this story is not for the faint of heart in that there is multiple depictions of child abuse, so if you are sensitive to that you might want to skip this one, otherwise, highly recommended!