Generally speaking, I rate most thrillers I read as 3 stars. They are entertaining while I am reading them, but they tend to be formulaic and very rarely ever surprise me. That is not the case with Darling Girls. This was a propulsive read from beginning to end. Jessica, Norah and Alicia are all very flawed characters as adults, but you feel for the children that they were. The story is told in chapters that alternate between the 3 girls’ POV as well as between the present and the past. While I am giving the book 4 stars overall, I would like to award the final chapter 5 stars. It absolutely shocked me and I never even saw it coming.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy of Darling Girls. Go place your pre-order now. Place a hold at your library. Do whatever you need to do to get your hands on this book.

Good for fans of The Night Swim, The Night She Disappeared and The Guest List.

I always look forward to Sally Hepworths new books. This did not disappoint! Page turning and exciting every step of the way. I enjoyed more than some of her more recent books and will be recommending to friends.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review**

“A thriller page-turner of sisterhood, secrets, love, and murder” indeed!

Sally Hepworth has been a hit or miss author for me in the past, but I’m so glad I gave her another chance because I ended up really enjoying this upcoming release! I’m not sure how to best describe the genre of this book…it was less thriller and more fast-paced literary mystery. This story follows Jessica, Norah, and Alicia – three former foster children and sisters by choice. They previously lived together at Miss. Fairchild’s foster home. An idyllic home on the outside, the same can’t be said for what went on within the home. Miss. Fairchild was an incredibly cruel and unpredictable foster mother towards her young wards. They were eventually able to escape the home and continue to be incredibly close in adulthood, but the shadow/trauma of their time with Miss. Fairchild continues to follow them and effect them in different ways. When human bones are found on the site of their former foster home, the three are called back to the site and are forced to face their trauma head on. Told in alternating timelines (“present day" and "before"), the three are put to the test to solve the mystery behind the mysterious remains.

This had me completely captivated from start to finish. The characters were so flawed and dynamic. Despite having some shared experiences, it was very interesting to see the way the three women coped differently with their trauma. The mystery itself was very slow burn, and I genuinely didn't expect this to take the turns that it did. And that ending?! I was GAGGED.

The only reason why I didn't rate this 5 stars was because the pacing/intrigued dipped slightly in the middle for me. Otherwise, this was such a solid read! I’m definitely excited to pick up more books from Sally Hepworth going forward.

This book deals with a ton of heavy themes/content, so I will include a list of CWs after release day!

Oh wow!! Sally Hepworth always delivers!This was so engaging yet disturbing!

Darling Girls is about three young ladies who grew up in the foster system. They were taken away from their family tragedies and sent to live with Miss Fairchild. They were told that they were so lucky to live with her, but were they really? All of the disturbing events of their childhoods come out after a body is found buried under their foster home. Maybe they weren’t so lucky after all.

I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

It's possible this is my favorite Hepworth yet!!!

I wasn't sure where we were going with the "Darling Girls" and thought I had it figured out but nope, sure didn't!

Definitely a stand out on my shelf!

🏡 T W I S T E D T U E S D A Y 🏡 featuring “Darling Girls” by Sally Hepworth!

BOOK REVIEW: 🖤🖤🖤🖤/5

3 foster children turned sisters have always been told just how lucky they are. They were all taken in by their charming foster mother Miss Fairchild and lived in a beautiful farmhouse called Wild Meadows that offered them everything that they needed for a wonderful life. But this house could be a house of horrors at times because Miss Fairchild had strict rules and did not like being crossed. She could be nasty, manipulative, sinister and vindictive at times and she knew how to psychologically torture the girls when she didn’t get her way.

Finally the sisters band together and flee from Wild Meadows, never to see Miss Fairchild again … but forever haunted by what went on in that house. Now decades later, bones have been found underneath Wild Meadows and the girls are called in for questioning. Whose body could be underneath the house?? And will they have to come face to face with Miss Fairchild again?!

This book had SO many layers to it, and not only was it hauntingly beautiful, but disturbing to its core. The evilness of Miss Fairchild towards these poor girls who have suffered so much loss and trauma is so dark and twisted! It is heavy, gut wrenching, emotional and distressing! But most importantly it is VERY powerful and sends a message and I loved every second of it!

Thank you kindly to @sallyhepworth @stmartinspress @netgalley for my advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review! This book releases on April 23, 2024!

@sallyhepworth has done it again with this dark thriller

Thank you @stmartinspress for my #gifted eARC!

I’ve loved all of Sally’s books, so I’m not surprised that I loved this one too!

Jessica, Nora, and Alicia are sisters, but they aren’t actually related. They grew up in the same foster home and remained dedicated to one another once that home could not longer house them. Now, they are adults and a body has been found at their old foster home. The three women have been called back to the place they suffered as children.

Told from the perspective of all three women, this book is super fast-paced and dark. Plus, all three women are so different from one another. It was great to see all their stories woven together.

This is a dark book and is probably darker than Sally’s other books.

I found myself speeding through this story, and it will definitely make my favorite thrillers shelf.

Out April 23.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#litbylillireviews

Thank you to the publisher for the early release copy in exchange for a review. I was excited to get this ARC as I always enjoy Sally Hepworth - her novels really stick with me and I end up thinking about them long after finishing. This novel really grabbed me from the beginning and drew me into the story quickly. The three sisters are very different but all broken in various ways. I recommend this book - the story moves quickly and has a few surprises to keep you guessing. I look forward to the next Sally Hepworth!

I loved this book. I've never read anything that involved foster kids. The pacing was perfect, it wasn't to slow where the story kind of dragged but it also wasn't so fast that the characters and the plot couldn't be fully fleshed out. The formatting of the story was great. dual POVs and dual time lines. Its not none stop action where the main character(s) life is in immediate danger but its fast paced and easy to get through.

We Follow these three women who were being fostered by the same foster mom. She is awful to them. we follow each of their POVs. Its dual time line past and present. in the past we follow each woman as they were growing up is this house and how each of them ended up in foster care. in the present the women receive a phone call that a body has been found under their former foster home.

👩‍👧‍👧 Darling Girls - Sally Hepworth

4.5 ⭐️ - A slowww burn but so twisty, unexpected, and worth it. There were lots of times during this one where I simply just didn’t know where it was headed. Something felt predictable and then, bam! next twist.

This one had short chapters, changing POVs, and overlapping storyline - a few of my favorite things. I enjoyed the growth of each sister and the bond they formed over time. Toward the end, I thought we were getting a bland finish, but Sally hit us with the biggest twist in the last few pages. Definitely worth the read. Sally Hepworth is now an auto-buy/auto-read author and she doesn’t disappoint. Definitely keep your eyes peeled for this one hitting shelves on 4/2!

This is definitely my favorite Sally Hepworth book I have read so far! The story hooked me from the first page and at times I felt really sucked into the story and unable to put it down.

From the first page we have an unknown person talking to Dr. Warren psychiatrist. Having that additional unknown piece while still being able to see the exact conversation was so intriguing.

We also get the three girls, foster sisters, perspectives in past and present and that adds a nice layer to the book to keep you really sucked in to the book.

The thing holding back Darling Girls for me was the lack of character development I felt got put into Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. They almost felt flat and stereotypical for a thriller book. I wanted something more, and to see more of a sisterly bond between them since this was something the book was really centered around.

I also did guess some of the things in the ending and I was sad I wasn’t super shocked at the end. Maybe I just overanalyze books too much.

Overall, this was still a great psychological thriller, with so many moving parts that you will stay interested the whole time. I never felt too confused by what was happening which is what a lot of thrillers tend to do for me.

I would recommend reading this when it comes out!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

*I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

4- (minus) is my rating …
Generally I like anything from this author. This took some time getting into. It read much more like a YA novel, of which I’m not much of a fan. Teen angst is not entertaining to me. This is presented from various points of view, mainly with 3 girls bonded by foster care and becoming sisters of the heart. Much of this is heartbreaking and disturbing and probably very common. Still hard to read about it.

There are chapters that begin with a visit to a psychiatrists office by some undisclosed patient of his who describes a difficult childhood of abuse and manipulation. Who the patient is does eventually get disclosed and is detrimental to the plot line, in fact her whole story is.

For me it got better in the last half and the ending was indeed a shocker. I was however relieved to end it as it seems there has been an overload of mental illness news everywhere, even in the soap I watch. It gets depressing and leaves me feeling motivated to move on to lighter reading material, the likes of Emily Giffin, Rachel Hanna, or Debbie Macomber.

For physiological mystery fans, this may delight. My thanks to the publishers via NetGalley for the e-ARC of which I give my honest review.

I did not care for this one at all. The subject matter was too dark, and I actually ended up not finishing it. I usually enjoy Sally Hepworth, so I will look forward to her next one.

Jessica, Norah and Alicia are the luckiest girls, or so they are told. After family tragedies, each was given a second chance at a happy family, living on a peaceful farm with a loving foster mom. Yet, the foster sisters' childhood was far from idyllic, though no one ever believed them. When a body is found buried on the farm, they soon find themselves prime witnesses and possibly prime suspects.

As usual, Sally Hepworth delivers a well-plotted page turner. Miss Fairchild proved to be a perfectly aggravating villain, fully despicable in her child abuse but clever enough to conceal everything at first glance. I was thrown by several of the revelations and loved the push-and-pull of the then and now timelines. Although the thriller obviously shows the worst scenario of foster care, Hepworth balances that out with a wonderful portrayal of Alicia as a social worker.

Sally Hepworth’s new novel tells the story of Jessica, Alicia and Norah, who are three foster sisters raised by Miss Fairchild at her farmhouse estate Wild Meadows. Each had their own tragic childhood story and, at the time, felt lucky to have found a foster mother like Miss Fairchild. But over time, Miss Fairchild revealed herself to be a cruel and twisted woman. Eventually, the girls were able to escape from Wild Meadows, but the scars of their time there never went away. When the story opens, the 3 foster sister are now adults, each trying to rise above their troubled childhood and make their way in the world. When Detective Ashleigh Patel contacts the women to ask questions about human remains found buried beneath their old foster home, the girls are pulled back into a world they’d rather forget. Throughout the story, Miss Fairchild’s own psychotherapy sessions are revealed in snippets. We get a glimpse of her own childhood and the horrors that made her the cruel woman that she was.. This was definitely a slow burn and did not initially draw me in the way that some of Hepworth’s previous books did. The ending was actually great but I’m not totally sure that the slow lead up was worth the big reveal. Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to advance read this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This was damn fabulous. the Soulmate was not my favorite Sally Hepworth novel, but Darling Girls has easily slid into the top three of my rankings of her work. Dare I say number two even (The Good Sister will be just so hard to top for me) and I think this is reminiscent of all of the things I loved about that title.

I received a complimentary egalley of DARLING GIRLS by Sally Hepworth thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley. I also received the advance listener copy thanks to Macmillan Audio!

DARLING GIRLS follows sisters and foster care survivors Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. The three came together under the care of Miss Fairchild. On the outside their home situation looked good, but behind closed doors their life was a struggle. Even so, the three become friends and family, doing their best to avoid Miss Fairchild’s anger. When a body is found under the home where they lived with Miss Fairchild, the trio is asked to come back and answer questions, either as witnesses or suspects.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as I started this book and part of that came from not really initially liking any of the women in the present day. As we got more of their backstory with the switches between their POVs and those of their younger selves, I really wound up feeling a lot for these women and the way they were brought up. Working adjacent to foster care myself, it is certainly a broken system and the horror in this one was that such a situation isn’t something that would be out of the realm of possibility.

I think the author did a good job of balancing the narrative between past and present and bringing various secrets to life. There were certainly theories I developed as I was reading. Some proved to be close to accurate, but I stayed hooked the whole time to find out the answers!

DARLING GIRLS comes out on Tuesday!

“Darling Girls” by Sally Hepworth was a fast paced can’t put down book. This book has so many twists that you don’t see coming.
Jessica, Norah, and Alicia grew up together in the same home. They did not have the best upbringing but they stuck together. Now they are all grown up and something terrible happens that brings them right back to their childhood. As they are facing the past they each have things that are happening to them currently. As they rehash the past how will it affect their current lives?
Highly recommend to everyone. This book is a must read and highly enjoyable.

I really enjoy Sally Hepworth’s books and I especially enjoy this one. I loved the way she mixed up the traditional ‘dysfunctional family’ dynamic and found it enhanced this story so much.

Twenty-five years ago, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia all found themselves living at Wild Meadows, a foster care home, until one event led them to be moved. Now, all three ‘sisters’ are being pulled back to Wild Meadows, with the discovery of a body under Wild Meadows. While all three try to battle their own personal demons, they must also come together to rediscovery their pasts while being at the center of the investigation.

Primarily told through the eyes of all three girls, both in present day and past, we also hear a story from an unknown person which added to the story’s intriguing plotline. I really enjoyed getting to know each of our main players and how they came to rely so heavily on each other. Their stories are entirely different which makes the characters seems so much more real to me. The contrast between Norah’s explosive personality, Jessica’s OCD, and Alicia’s detachment was equally displayed and made each girl’s story stand out all the more.

While the pacing was a bit slow at first, this was an excellently done thriller. With plenty of twists, it also touched on the foster system and while it can be triggering for some, none of the events we’re too heavily graphic. The overall friendship and sisterhood portrayed is what makes this story. I rotated between reading and listening to the audio version of Darling Girls, and you really can’t go wrong either way! Highly recommend.


Darling Girls comes out April 23, 2024! Huge thank you to St. Martin’s Press and MacMillan Audio for my advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion. If you liked this review please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my instagram @speakingof.books or on Tiktok @speakingof.books

This was the worst Sally Hepworth I have read in a long time. I do not know if she intended this book to have such a sensitive and high shock value but that is what was presented, page after page. This book has many trigger warnings and is very violent, as well as graphic. After a full book of rape, graphic child abuse, graphic rape of children it does not make me ever want to read a book by this author ever again.

THIS IS NOT OK!!! WTF??!!

I did not even want to give this book 1 star because of the disturbing, nauseating content.

I cannot and will not recommend this. Child rape and abuse is never again, even in a book. Thanks to Netgalley, Sally Hepworth and St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 4/23/2024