Another Sally Hepworth book that I binged in less than 2 days! Pretty sure I could’ve finished it in 1 day if ya girl didn’t have to work. 😂

Oh god. The way this book made me so angry and frustrated! Miss Fairchild is just a very effective villain. I hated her so much. 😂

So this book is about foster children and their relationship with their foster mom. After all three children aged out, they all went on their lives but still remained to be very close to each other. One day, all of them received a phone call from a detective asking if they can return to the small town where their foster home was because they had found human bones buried under the house… and that’s basically the plot!

For my thriller babes, you would definitely binge this one!!! Short chapters were also a great motivator to keep flipping pages 😂 I love how the story was told in past and present timelines and it didn’t confuse me at all even if I was listening to it in audio!

I love reading about the different personalities of the 3 female leads and how they react to certain situations. This book is also somehow about parenting and fostering children. That being said, I would just like to add heavy trigger warnings for child abuse. It was difficult to read about it sometimes.

Overall, this is another 5⭐️ thriller read for me and I highly recommend it to everybody who loves a good quick, bingeable, and twisty thriller!!

Thank you @netgalley and @macmillanaudio for the audiobook!

💭Tell me about your current read in 1-3 sentences and I’ll try to guess what you’re reading!

Read as an audiobook narrated by Jessica Clarket.

This was an expertly crafted psychological mystery. The foreshadowing throughout the book gives the reader just enough information to guess some reveals, but keeps others close to the chest. The twists that took me by surprise were satisfying rather than coming out of nowhere, and the increasingly tense atmosphere gave me a building sense of dread throughout. I enjoyed the audiobook format a lot, and the narrator did a great job with the characters and dialogue.

The antagonist of this story was a huge highlight for me. A character who is manipulative, clever, and unhinged is absolutely terrifying if done well, and the author really nailed it here. The main characters were sympathetic and flawed, and I felt that their individual responses to trauma was portrayed in a nuanced way. Heavy content warnings for CSA, general abuse within the foster care system, and substance abuse. Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this ARC. This is my honest review.

5/5 Childhood trauma and healing featuring three flawed protagonists and one mastermind of a villain.

"Darling Girls" by Sally Hepworth is a women's fiction mystery and psychological thriller. I found it interesting.

This story is about three foster girls taken in by Holly Fairchild, who seems really sweet at times and then is very angry and cruel other times.

In the future, when the girls are adults, they are called back to the town that they grew up in because human bones have been bones underneath the house. The mystery is whose bones they are and who killed that person.

This novel is told from four points of view, each of the sisters and a mystery one talking to a therapist. Each of the sisters shares from two time periods, "now" and "before" - when they were kids. Dialogue feels realistic. The main characters are well defined.

Trigger warnings: extensive child abuse, teen rape, pill addiction, alcoholism, near drowning

Characters - 5/5
Writing - 5/5
Plot - 5/5
Pacing - 5/5
Unputdownability - 5/5
Enjoyment - 2.5/5
Narration - 3/5 Jessica Clarke. Sometimes, I couldn't tell the voices of the sisters apart
Cover - 4/5 unrelated
Overall - 4.3/5 rounded down to 4.

If the trigger warnings don't trigger you much, then you may really like this mystery thriller.

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and Sally Hepworth for providing this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

This book was so tragic, and captivating! I really liked how many emotions they bring you through, how you can feel so much hate towards a character and then have some remorse for them at the end: I thought the ending was wrapped up very well

At first I thought this was going to be a retelling of “Annie”, and then it got a little twisted. The storyline was gripping, but not too intense, with a couple of unexpected surprises. This was a quick read for me and I enjoyed it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read and review this book prior to publication.

This riveting thriller was an audiobook I absolutely could not stop listening to! Jessica Clarke‘s performance kept me wanting to absorb every detail as the stories of Jessica, Norah, and Alicia childhoods with Miss Fairchild unraveled.
Three sisters you can’t help but feel so much empathy for as they try to solve a mystery that has brought them back together where their sisterhood story began, Wild Meadows foster home. I would highly recommend anyone looking for their next favorite thriller to listen to!

''SISTERS, SECRETS, LOVE, AND MURDER... Sally Hepworth’s new novel has it all.''
I am a huge Sally Hepworth fan. I discovered her last year and devoured her backlist. I especially enjoy reading her books on audio. The narration is always top tier. and her characters always so fleshed out and unique. So, I obviously abandoned all my current reads to binge ‘’Darling Girls’’ and it did not disappoint! No one writes a domestic drama/mystery like Hepworth. I really enjoyed how this story centered on sisterhood and found family. I found the ending to be satisfying and SHOCKING! An easy 5 star read. Massive thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sally Hepworth is the master of crafting such interesting characters. In this book we have foster sisters Jess, a home organizer who steals pills from her clients, Norah, an aggressive 👊🏻 single woman who sleeps with men so they'll do odd jobs around her home, and Alicia who grew up to be a social worker. Norah also has dogs named Couch, Converse, and Thong because they're named after the first thing they chewed up 🤣

The story centers around the sisters' lives in their foster home, Wild Meadows, 25 years ago. Of course as we learn more about their childhood, the secrets begin unraveling. Who is the body under the house? And who buried it there?

Without giving too much away, I'd say this was suspenseful, but not overly thrilling. I figured out who Dr. Warren was speaking with, so that twist didn't get me. BUT there was a big twist in the last five minutes.

Thank you NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the chance to listen in exchange for an honest review.

Sally Hepworth is an autobuy author for me and I have never given one of her books less than 4 stars. The author's gift is being able to make her characters so authentic, they don't feel fictional. I think her books are classified mostly as thrillers, but really, to me they are more like character-driven dramas with some mystery thrown in. Always, the plots are fast-paced enough I can't put the book down, which makes it all the more amazing that I feel the characters so deeply and personally. My two favorite Sally Hepworth novels are The Good Sister, and The Mother-in-Law. Those were hard-hitting, and beautiful and extremely enjoyable to read. Darling Girls is so well written, but I just couldn't give it the same rating as I gave The Good Sister and The Mother-In-Law because it was a much more uncomfortable reading experience. Reading about child-abuse, whether active or passive, is extremely difficult for me. I was invested in all three "sisters" the book followed, but so disturbed by their childhood stories, especially Alicia's for various reasons. Seeing innocence be robbed intentionally and maliciously was painful to read. However, the mystery felt very realistic and I enjoyed the sisters' relationships so much. As always, I finished this latest book of Ms. Hepworth's and had to just take a break before starting another book so I could really think about it. How does the author knock it out of the park every time? I can't think of a bad book she has written...or even one I was "meh" about!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced audiobook copy. This book was five stars! I love the narrator point. However, my only complaint is that I wish there was different voices for each of the characters.

"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.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sally Hepworth for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC audiobook for Darling Girls coming out April 23, 2024. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I really loved the Soulmate, so I was excited to receive this book from NetGalley. The narrator was really fun and it helps she was Australian. You really get a feel for the story. I definitely wasn’t sure where this story was going and there’s a few twists along the way. It took a while to get into the story. The foster care system is a hard subject and I wasn’t expecting the theme of child abuse. I was hoping for something a little different. I didn’t really like a lot of the characters. I definitely will check out other books by this author.

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.

This is my first book by this author and I’m looking forward to going back and reading her first. I loved the multiple POV, dual timeline, and the twist where I finally realized that things weren’t adding up. You make assumptions in the beginning and it tangles you up a bit after a while and I really enjoyed that.

Audio: 4/5: Wonderful job!!

TW- Drug abuse and Foster care with child abuse.

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 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, Macmillan Audio, and Sally Hepworth for allowing me to review this twisty thriller. The narrator, Jessica Clarke, was fantastic. Her narration really added to the atmosphere and experience of the book. 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 audiobook.

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. The narrator did a fantastic job as well.

A dark read but well worth it! The way you uncover the history of the sisters as you continue through the story line continues to keep you guessing, making it nearly impossible to put down. While it's never an easy topic to digest, the author does a great job in describing abuse in a way most people don't typically understand. It's a very unique set of perspectives, I'll definitely never hear the term "darling girl" the same again.

I highly suggest the audiobook!

Huge thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Macmillan Audio for the advance copy of this title. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

If you love creepy stories, Sally Hepworth is your writer. All her novels keep you on the edge of your seat wondering what creepy turn of events will happen next. Darling Girls does not disappoint. And when you learn the protagonists are foster children with a "LOVING" foster mother, you move up the creep scale. Miss Fairchild (oxymoron of a name) and the ending...once again, you, my reader friend, will be blown away.