Darling Girls
by Sally Hepworth
Narrated by Jessica Clarke

Rating: 3.4/5.0 Stars

Darling Girls was a decent enough story. The characters were a bit underdeveloped for my liking, but the story revolves around three sisters, who found each other in the foster system while they were at Miss Fairchild's. While their time there wasn't the most pleasant, they are all called back to their former home when it's discovered that a dead body was buried under the house that they all lived in. What really happened at Miss Fairchild's? Who is the child buried under the house?

For a story revolving so much around the three main characters, I still felt like I didn't really get to know them or care about them. The story was mildly interesting, though pretty darn predictable. The saving grace came from the twist at the end of the story. Overall, it's a decent story to listen to, though I'd recommend others before this one.

Thank you #NetGalley, the author and Macmillan Audio for the chance to listen to and review this ARC!

Darling Girls was my first read from Sally Hepworth, and while mostly enjoyable, was much different than I had expected. I went into it assuming it was a thriller. There is an element of mystery in wondering who the bones under the house belong to, but apart from that this is more of a character-driven contemporary fiction.

Darling Girls follows three women, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia, in two alternating timelines. We see them in the present as they learn of the discovery at their old foster home, and in the past as they faced horrible abuse at the hands of their foster mother. I much preferred the present timeline to the past. Even though it is not a trigger for me, I just found reading page after page of constant child abuse depressing and overwhelming. My heart ached for the girls, and I was often tempted to skip those parts in search of justice I hoped would come. While it was interesting to see what became of each of the girls, there weren’t many shocks or surprises until the very end.
 
I was grateful to also have an audio copy to follow along with. It was very well narrated and kept me motivated to finish despite the difficult subject matter. I do think it would have benefited from a different narrator for each perspective, but I was still able to follow along without getting lost. Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for my gifted copy!
 
While this book was “just okay” for me, I can see why it has gained so many five-star reviews. For those who enjoy a more dramatic, character-driven novel, this one will be for you! I will definitely be giving some of Sally Hepworth’s other books a try, and I am hopeful one of her others will resonate with me a bit more.

Whoa… what a crazy story. I was shocked with the last chapter how the story she told was a lie and she actually killed her baby sister. I mean she is a psychopath so I shouldn’t have been but I was not anticipating that. Really liked this story. Keeps you in suspense and draws you in.

Another great domestic thriller from Sally Hepworth! I couldn't put it down -- I will definitely be recommending this to fans of Liane Moriarty and Ruth Ware.

Jessica Clarke brings Alicia, Jessica, Nora and Mrs. Fairchild to life in Sally Hepworth's latest summer thriller, Darling Girls. In the audiobook, each character were given distinctive traits and tones which helped me distinguish who was speaking during the dialogue. The past and present timeline was handled well and the story was fascinating. Jessica Clarke was a masterful narrator.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the gifted ALC.

This book had a slow start to me but it definitely gets better! This was my first book by Sally Hepworth and I plan on reading more of her books.

This book follows three foster sisters that are pulled back to their foster home years later because bones were found under the home. This book was written in the perspective of all three sisters, which was great because we got everyones POV.

The story keeps you reading but is overall very basic. The ending is pretty predictable but still a great read.

The authors voice could’ve been more convincing and more enthusiastic

Thanks Netgalley for this ARC

I love Sally Hepworth!! Sadly, I had forgotten I had gotten an advance audio copy of this book so I missed listening to this one. Instead, I read my preorder. :-)

This book did not disappoint! It was another hard to put down twisty read from the queen of thrillers! Yes, I said it!

Loved the dual timeline and multiple character pov’s! Quite a few twists but definitely check for the trigger warnings.

I love the other books I've read by this author and enjoyed this one too. We go back in time with Jessica, Norah, and Alicia to their years in foster care where they experienced psychological abuse (some were hard to listen to and I'm guessing there were trigger warnings in the printed versions) and we also get their POVs in the present after toddler's bones are discovered under their old foster home. There were a few plot twists up to the end which kept me guessing!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an audiobook copy of this twisted thriller.

This book was quite a ride. The second half of the book moved pretty fast and was filled with twists and turns. This book was a little darker and more disturbing than I expected, but the author still wove a very captivating story that kept me turning the pages. There are some trigger warnings (death of a child, abuse) but I would definitely recommend this book. I received this book from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Three foster sisters, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia, are reunited as adults when a dead body is found underneath the foster home they grew up in. They’ll have to help solve the mystery by piecing together their memories of childhood. Unfortunately, that time was filled with trauma and abuse at the hands of Miss Fairchild. Told through alternating timelines and perspectives, the mystery is slowly solved. And yes, like all good thrillers, there are twists and turns.

I enjoyed this one. The characters all had very unique personalities and voices. The abuse the girls suffered was pretty traumatic, so avoid if that’s a trigger for you. Hepworth also tried to infuse humor and some romance storylines in the modern timelines to balance the tone. I wasn’t fully sold. I felt like it was a bit cheesy against the murder mystery backdrop.

The audiobook was very well done! The narrator managed to capture each character with a different voice which is a challenge with so many female characters.

Thanks to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the AudioARC!

Such a good story! Really kept me interested and when I thought I had figured something out there was a new twist that surprised me!

This was SO good!!! Super super dark and unsettling, trigger warnings galore but what a great thriller…. I truly couldn’t put it down. Highly recommend

Honestly, without the twist at the end this would have been just okay. It was predictable. Really liked the characters, however.

Sally Hepworth does it again with #DarlingGirls, a thrilling mystery about sisters, secrets, and murder.

From the outside, Jessica, Norah (“with an -h,” please!), and Alicia are very lucky girls, despite the sadness of their early years. Foster children as a result of various family tragedies, they’ve each landed on the idyllic Wild Meadows estate under the doting care of Miss Holly Fairchild.

But that’s just what it looks like from the outside.

From the inside, things look very different. Miss Fairchild’s “darling girls” are manipulated and mistreated in a myriad of ways, and they learn early on to tread carefully around the whims of their foster mother.

The girls form a bond that is as strong as that of any biological sisters, and they rely on each other well into adulthood — especially after human remains are found on the estate where they spent their childhood! ☠️

Every Sally Hepworth novel I have read deals with emotional, real topics, and that is what I love about her books! This story is no exception, so be warned, it has plenty of triggers: child abuse, mental illness, drug addiction, overdose, and childhood trauma.

🌪 But it also has love, loyalty, and that 𝑺𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝑯𝒆𝒑𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝒕𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈!

This book hooked me from the beginning (glad I was on a long road trip so I could listen to the entire book in one day!).

If you enjoy a good family drama with a twisty side of mystery, put this one on your summer reading list!

Thank you to @sallyhepworth @netgalley @macmillan.audio for the advance copy!

I absolutely loved this book! Now, the content definitely won’t be for everyone, so be aware of your trigger warnings. Don’t try to tough anything out, if it’s not content you can handle, respect your boundaries.
There is some pretty well detailed scenes of child abuse. These are flash back scenes. That may be a spoiler to some people, but I honestly feel like it’s necessary to know going in. I, personally, really related to these characters, so for me it was like I was deeply connecting them.
I love a story where you’re not sure who to believe. Unreliable narrators? Maybe, but really, who knows?! You can’t trust anything anyone is telling you, regardless of who is speaking. Did I mention there are multiple Past and Present POVs?! One mystery narrator, and 3 identified speakers tell us this twisted tale, and I ate up every second.
5 stars, all day long.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia spent their childhood in the foster care system at Wild Meadows. From the outside, Miss Fairchild seemed like a wonderful caretaker with the best interest of the children in mind, but behind closed doors the girls faced extreme emotional abuse. Many years later when a dead body is found at Wild Meadows, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia return to the estate to face Miss Fairchild and what happened to them.

I received an advanced audiobook, and while I enjoyed the book overall, I think this format was a bit harder to follow at times than a regular book would be. The story is told from Jessica, Norah, and Alicia’s perspectives, and the plot line switches from past to present. I liked this because it helped me better understand each character and what they went through, but sometimes I forgot who was the focus of each chapter, especially early on. I really felt for the characters, even in their troubled adult years, and I wanted to keep reading to find out all of the details. This isn’t super suspenseful, but enough happened to keep me guessing and reading. I think the ending was a little anti-climactic, but I still really enjoyed this. Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Sally Hepworth for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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!

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.

🎧 𝙉𝙖𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 🎧
Jessica Clarke did a fabulous job narrating this story that had so many POVs and timelines of adult vs child. Even with the POVs of the three girls and others, it was easy to follow in the audiobook. She had an Australian accent that worked perfectly for the setting of the story!

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

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.