I was supposed to like this. That's what everyone said. I felt like this entire story was a whole lot of nothing going on. The characters were extremely unlikable, the story slow and plodding.

Rounded up from 3.5. I found this dark, domestic tale to be fascinating in the telling, but the end left me with many unanswered questions. Lauren's character was very well-developed. Her anguish during childbirth, the uncertainty of parenting new babies multiplied by two, the disappointing new dad, and the threat of the dark woman. . . She truly bonds with Riley and Morgan and knows them as her own. The complementary view of Harper, the police sergeant aided in moving the plot along, giving the reader respite from Lauren's melancholy view of the world outside. At the end of it all I found I was disappointed in the development of Harper's character as well as that of Patrick, the husband. The ride to the finish felt rushed and I needed an epilogue or something to tie it all up.

Thank you to Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this debut thriller in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book, but I wanted more. I felt like the author left a lot relationships hanging, which was disappointing.

This is a fast-paced story that keeps the reader off balance throughout. Could the babies be changelings? Is it all a delusion? In the end, nothing is really as it seems.

My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Is Lauren an unreliable narrator? Has she experienced some sort of mental breakdown? Up to you as you read this mixture of mystery and fable. Lauren's convinced that the woman who appeared in her hospital room replaced her twin boys with......changelings. No one believes her (would you?), even her husband, who really should have been more sympathetic. And then DS Jo Harper does. Jo investigates what happened that night and then again in a park when the boys disappeared for a bit. This is creepy but not too much so and it will make you think about what shapes our thoughts. It's quite atmospheric and never, to its credit, goes off the deep end into the woo woo stuff. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. I didn't expect to like this as much as I did but it's well written and will suck you in from the start and not let go until you, like Lauren, know the truth.

It is a quick, entertaining read. A psychological thriller that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. Throughout the entire book, I was wondering if the bizarre things happening to Lauren were real or a figment of her imagination. Lauren has an encounter with a creepy woman who wants to switch her twin babies with changelings. Lauren freaks out and calls for help, but no one believes her. The doctor believes she imagined it.

This book is excellent in its portrayal of the difficulties of coping with parenthood. Lauren’s situation is different. She had postpartum depression although her situation almost deviated more toward postpartum psychosis than depression. Lauren was overwhelmed, miserable, tired, and lonely. The way she was feeling, aside from the paranoia of someone being out to get her, was easy to relate to. It’s not easy being the primary caretaker of babies especially without much support.

The story is told from the perspective of two people: Lauren and Harper. Harper is a police officer investigating Lauren’s case. Her perspective was boring although it did give extra incite to Lauren’s situation. I didn’t understand why she was inclined to believe Lauren. Her personal issues were of no interest to me whatsoever.

The ending was alright. Things ended up the way I expected them to. In some ways, the ending was as ambiguous as the rest of the story.

Little Darlings is about a woman (Lauren) who thinks her twin babies have been switched for something else. Everyone around her thinks she's suffering from delusions, including her husband, but she's determined to get her real babies back. This book really kept me questioning what was real and what was in Lauren's head. It isn't far-fetched to believe that a new mother of twins with a very unhelpful and disconnected husband would have a mental breakdown. It's happened plenty of times. I don't have kids so I can only imagine the affect this book would have on a mother. I loved it!

There has been a lot of buzz around Little Darlings lately, and not without cause. This soon-to-be-published debut of Melanie Golding is without doubt something special! Little Darlings is not your ordinary psychological thriller and instead offers a fascinating mix with folklore and fairy tale elements. A hint of the surreal is mixed with suspense and a mental health angle in such a fluid way that really makes the folklore stories come alive... It's without doubt an intriguing mix of genres and different elements that will keep you wondering until the very end. Little Darlings is basically three different storylines in one: one one side we have detective Harper, her history and the investigation, on another side we have Lauren Tranter, her newborn twins and her home situations and as a third element we have the supernatural mixed with a mental health angle. This might sound like a bit much, but the plot is constructed and developed in such a a way that makes everything connect seamlessly. My favorite part of Little Darlings are the folklore elements, which give the story an unique touch as well as adding a healthy amount of suspense to the story. Is it all real? Or is it part of the postpartum depression Lauren seems to be suffering from? These questions will keep going round and round in your head and will keep you wondering ever after you reached the final page. Oh yes, Little Darlings has an ambiguous ending you can interpret both ways... And this time around, this technique really worked for me and added an extra mysterious vibe to the overall story.  As for the characters... I'm not sure I actually liked most of them (although I did like Harper and her stubborn insistence to investigate the case), but they do fit the story in general. I confess I had a strong dislike of Patrick though, and the final reveals involving his character and actions were not really satisfying. But that was only a minor blip compared to my general feelings for this wonderful mix of folklore and reality.

Is it a fairytale, a ghost story, or a portrait of postpartum psychosis?

Whatever it may be, Little Darlings is riveting, scary, and creepy as hell. I have always regarded babies with some suspicion but this book completely validated and exacerbated my fear of infants.

This book would be a perfect baby shower gift if you are a mean friend.

*Many thanks to Makeanie Golding, Crooked Lane Books and Netgalley for providing me with ARC in exchange for my honest review.*
I rarely request and read horror novels but I decided that I might try Little Darlings even though the Author was unknown to me. And it was a good choice! The city of Sheffield with its rivers makes a perfect setting for the plot. The story revolves around an alleged kidnapping of infant twin brothers.Their mother, Lorraine Trantner, is convinced some evil power threatens the lives of her newly-born sons but it seems she is unable to prove ther fears. Some personal problems from the past also make her an unreliable witness. The only person who gradually begins to believe her is a female detective and who acts in order to try to reveal the truth. The atmosphere in this horror novel is well presented and original passages from folk stories and tales add to it. The story develops at a pace which I found satisfying even though it was not a real page-turner for me.

Melanie Golding is a slow storyteller. She gets her time, she doesn't rush things, she wants to settle the reader in the unsettling course of events, building the story step by step. Maybe this is one of the things that made me read it so slowly, but I am honestly not saying this as a bad thing. The author knew very well how to install all of us in the atmosphere.

The book is very imaginative in a very common way. Yes, there are tons and tons of retellings about great stories, but I don’t think many people thought of the idea of retelling some gruesome folkloric tales.

An excellent book to make sure your blood would chill in your veins and to activate your paranoid antennas, Little Darlings by Melanie Golding is a very well-documented and well-written gruesome tale in the real world.

Upon giving birth to twin boys, Lauren Tranter, is overwhelmed and trying to quickly adjust to her new role. What she doesn’t anticipate is being accosted in the maternity ward by a strange woman threatening to take her babies. As memory and reality begin to blend, Lauren becomes more anxious about the truth until her fears become realized.

“You are the lucky ones, you and yours.”

Assigned to the case, Detective Sergeant Joanna Harper feels a certain affinity to Lauren’s situation and is willing to exhaust all resources to identify the abductor and get answers. Harper soon discovers that all isn’t black and white, as folklore and an older crime share similar details to Lauren’s eerie experience.

“Something else was looking at her, out of the eyes of her babies. That creepy, evil woman – she’d done it, somehow, exactly as she threatened she would.”

As this plot unfolds, the nature of Lauren’s claims becomes less plausible causing many to question her mental state; however, she isn’t willing to sacrifice what she knows to be true. Acting on instinct and then what she believes to be fact, Lauren does the unthinkable but to her she doesn’t have any other choice.

“She had to play the game, even before she knew what the rules were.”

From the beginning, the narrative is akin to a pendulum whereby certain facts lead the reader to believe one theory, then a twist highlights the opposite may be true. Not exactly knowing where sure footing may be is part of the thrill of this story. Inspired by dark cautionary tales, the supernatural component offers a distinct atmosphere and almost seduces from the hard reality that Lauren may be mentally unstable.

For me, I thoroughly enjoyed the forgotten history and folklore elements of this investigative thriller, as I wanted to believe Lauren. While Harper seemed to humanize Lauren’s predicament, her investigation simultaneously added tension when evidence was contradictory. While I have my theory of the truth, it’s a continual evaluation of what may be credible. The weakest plot point was Harper’s possible romantic interest, but it wasn’t enough to detract from the larger theme. Ultimately, I was invested this book and the plight of these characters.

Little Darlings is a story about human vulnerabilities and perception. It will appeal to those who enjoy supernatural mysteries/thrillers and explanations that can be open to multiple interpretations.

Although it does not work exceptionally well as a mystery/thriller (the inclusion of the police investigation and the ensuing point-of-view chapters felt more than a little distracting and superfluous to the main plot), in Little Darlings, Melanie Golding has managed to provide a truly fascinating portrayal of the challenges of early motherhood and the terrifying realities of postpartum depression and psychosis. Sleep-deprived and paranoid, the wanderings of the protagonist’s mind lend itself wonderfully to the fantasy-or-fiction guessing-game of magical realism and the folklore of Changelings. And, through presenting the conditions in such a way, it manages to create a terrifying reality that does not seem much different (except from a few nappy changes) from the slasher flick Nightmare on Elm Street. Because, when too little sleep blurs nightmare and reality, can you ever really trust your own mind?

This was creepily good. Not my usual read, i'd say it's a domestic drama with a little fantasy/folklore thrown in. A mother recently gives births to twins and is convinced a woman is trying to take her babies and replace them with her own creatures. The writing was an incredibly interesting take on postpartum depression vs folklore and I found myself constantly trying to determine which case it really was. The writing was so real towards both aspects I really couldn't make up my mind either way through out. Kudos to the author on being able to portray each one so realistically. The story arc was interesting and masterfully done.

Thanks to NetGalley and HQ Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Little Darlings by Melanie Golding is a supernatural psychological thriller and it’s brilliant! I loved it from the first page to the last. It’s filled with trepidation, horror, anxiety, dark fairytales…it’s just such a full novel!

The themes covered are many, most notably post-partum depression and psychosis, but with an horrific fairy-tale element that keeps the story engrossing. It is told from two viewpoints: the sleep deprived, anxious new mother Lauren who believes an evil woman is trying to take her children away from her, and Jo, the detective assigned to investigate the “attempted abduction”. Lauren keeps the supernatural slant to the book alive and interesting (and so totally believable!) while Jo maintains the grounded reality of the story.

It’s creepy. It’s haunting. It’s sad. The characters developed well through the story, and the emotional aspects were achingly real.

I re-iterate: I loved it! One of my favourite books of 2019! And that ending…I’m STILL trying to figure out what I believe to be true!

#netgalley #littledarlings #melaniegolding #crookedlanebooks

After giving birth to twin boys, Lauren is confronted by a creepy woman in the maternity ward asking to swap babies. After other possible sightings, the babies seem to go missing in the park one day and when they are found, they’ve been replaced by these creatures who resemble her twins but are most certainly not the same. Of course no one believes Lauren, except for maybe policewoman Harper. But is this a sinister fairytale or postpartum psychosis?

If you like creepy thrillers, then this is right up your alley. There’s this ominous, foreboding energy that oozes off the page. I couldn’t help wondering from the start if there was really this magical element or if it was just a figment of Lauren’s imagination, and the lack of certainty made the whole book what it was.

Note: if I were a new mother, I think this book would’ve creeped me out way too much, so if you have a newborn at home, maybe give it a couple months before you pick this one up.

#Little Darlings #Netgalley
Brilliant awesome read, one I definitely recommend, it’s a fantastic paced book, that keeps you hooked to the last page, gripping with a real feel of actually having been involved in the story yourself.

I'm definitely in the minority here because all my Goodreads friends loved this book. The story started off slow for me and I was bored for most of it. It was probably the half way mark before I started getting interested in it and by then, I was really debating on adding it to my DNF. The ending felt anticlimactic. There should have been more of an explanation at the end. I also found all the characters unlikable. Sadly there was nothing creepy or even suspenseful about this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for a copy of Melanie Golding's "Little Darlings" in exchange of an honest review.

Yes!!! I can finally breathe again and relax for a second!!! I am so happy that I finished this book. It had me with knots in my stomach pretty much from page one.

Being a new mom I was terrified of what Lauren was going through. I couldn’t wrap my head around it and it was TERRIFYING to say the least. Melanie Golding definitely knows how to make you feel the sadness, terror and despair through her writing. I just felt every agonizing word. For me, her book showcased the unexplainable fear that grips many new moms (I know i had many!)...Are my babies ok? Is he breathing? Will I lose him... and so on and so forth. I can’t even count the amount of times I would wake up in the middle of the night to make sure that my son was ok.
Golding has me on the edge of my seat throughout the book. I was glued to the pages. Even the way she included excerpts from Folklore really added to the authenticity of the story. It was the right amount of spine-tingling terror for me. I’m sure that the fact that I’m a new mom made it that much more terrifying for me. Overall, I really enjoyed it!

ARC received in exchange for an honest review.

Any book that I encounter with a description involving identical twins, I tend to pick up... and this one that describes identical twins and changelings?! The minute that I read the description, I was anxious to read it! And it is definitely a book that hooks you in right away! Genre-wise, this one is a bit difficult to categorize, as there is definitely more of a spooky-supernatural vibe than I expected, and more of a straight-up thriller in other sections.

Lauren is a a new mother to identical twin boys, who suffers through their rather traumatic birth, only to be even more terrified in the hospital when her infant children are threatened. Joanna Harper is a hardworking investigator, who frequently breaks the boundaries within her police team to follow what she knows is right. These two perspectives alternate throughout this fast-paced book. It is genuinely frightening at times - and definitely not a book that I would want to give to any new mother (and never to a new mother of twins!). The characters all come to life though sometimes the disparity in genres make the book seem a bit difficult to reconcile with itself. It is all certainly entertaining in the moment, but overall not as satisfying as I would have hoped... I think that Patrick in particular is a character that I wanted to see more with in the ending... it ends a bit unsatisfactory in that regard for me... But, it certainly captured my interest through until the end. It's a strong debut, and I definitely curious to see what the author will write next!

I was obsessed and enthralled from beginning to end. I was creeped out and looking over my shoulder. I checked to make sure all my doors and windows were locked, just in case. This was a fantastic book that I will be recommending for a very long time.