This story of the relationship between two sisters is told in alternating chapters. The character of Fern is well developed, and I loved how Hepworth explored the daily assaults a person with sensory deprivation must go through. Fern is convinced by her sister Rose that she can't live without her dependence on Rose, and that she will never be able to be in a relationship. Fern is content in her job at the library, where she has an understanding boss and can slip off to her "hideaway" when the stimulation of patron requests and noise become too much for her. So, when she meets Wally (Rocco) at her safe place, she has an agenda in mind. Wally "gets" Fern, and soon helps her realize there's something not quite right about her relationship with her sister. Hepworth did a good job of dropping breadcrumbs throughout the story, so you have an idea what's coming, but you'll be surprised when it does!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced reader's copy for review.

This is my first book by Sally Hepworth but it will certainly not be the last!!!! It was an amazing thriller and I totally enjoyed it!!!

Rose and Fern tell this story in alternating chapters but who is telling the truth!!! Rose and Fern end up in foster care as their mother overdoses and their is no family fit them to live with. Rose is now married to Owen but there are marital problems and he had taken a job oversees for distance between them. Rose desperately wants a baby but says that she is not able to have one. Fern has some sensory issues and Rose seems to find the way to manipulate Fern. Fern works in a library and meets Wally and begins a relationship with him.

Many events will unfold and you are not sure which narrator is telling the truth until the end of the book!!! Hepworth does a great job in spinning this tale!!!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an early digital copy of this book.

The Good Sister was a great dual POV mystery/thriller with a slow burn and lot of intricate elements. I really enjoyed how the book started me thinking one thing and then switched it up on me. I loved Fern's character and especially loved learning more about a character with sensory processing disorder. There wasn't much "thriller" to the story, but I still found it really enjoyable. Thanks to the Chekhov's Gun principle, I saw some of the important elements from the very beginning, but with a good mystery you never know what could be a red herring. This book definitely worked for me and I look forward to reading more from this author!

Sally Hepworth is a queen of domestic thrillers and The Good Sister is another jewel in her crown. You want this book on your #tbr!

The Good Sister is a fresh take on the domestic thriller focusing on fraternal twins Rose and Fern who have a complex relationship and a complicated family history.

Hepworth does a great job at creating her characters, their backstories and present day world. And a library as a primary location in the book was such a fun touch for this bookworm!

I loved the dual narratives told by Rose and Fern. They worked together to create tension and ambiguity about past events that kept me quickly turning the pages. Hepworth’s writing is smooth and engaging as she builds suspense and delivers a satisfying ending.

She’s an auto-read author for me and I’m already eagerly awaiting the next book!

Thank you to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the gifted ecopy.

This is my first book that I have read from this author, and it certainly will not be my last. I could not put this book down at all. This is a very well written psychological thriller between two sisters that truly has the reader immersed the entire read!

I love that we get to learn about aspects of someone that is on the autism spectrum and has sensory processing disorder. It is actually never stated, but implied. I am only familiar with that as I have a daughter that has been diagnosed on the spectrum, but I sympathized with the character Fern throughout the entire book.

The entire time reading, I kept thinking which one is the "Good Sister"?! There were so many twists and subtle hints throughout the book, that I seriously didn't know until the end how it was going to turn out! I thought it was crazy that both sisters who grew up with the same mother apparently had different views of how their lives were. This is a must read! I cannot wait to go back and read The Mother in Law now!

Thank you to @NetGalley and the publisher @stmartinspress for a copy of this digital ARC! This book comes out on 4/13/21!

Fern and Rose are fraternal twins. Fern is always upbeat and finds the good in people. She is on the spectrum but high-functioning and loves her job at the library. Rose is a designer, separated from her husband because he got tired of her desperate need to conceive. Fern decides that since she is healthy she will find some guy, get pregnant and be able to give her sister the child she wants so badly. She meets Rocco or Wally as Fern calls him and he is a lot like Fern.

This book is deliciously creepy. I started to get little twinges in the beginning of the story. Rose and Fern seemed so dependent on each other but as the book progressed things got more and more twisted.

I would like to thank Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy of this book.

Wow Ok! I loved this and this is one of the best suspense novels I’ve read in quite a while. Fern, one of the main characters is so well written and really portrays a character with autism very well (it never explicitly says she has autism but it’s implied). This book is an absolute page turner and perfect for readers who sit down with a book and like to finish it all in a day. While I figured out what was happening fairly early on in the book, I still felt like I was on pins and needles waiting to see what was going to happen.

This is the second Sally Hepworth novel I’ve read and it’s safe to say I’m officially a fan! (Check out The Mother-In-Law if you haven’t already read it!) Overall I would give this 4.75 ⭐️ rounded up to 5, only because I guessed what was going to happen pretty quickly!

Thank you to @netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I went into this book blind so it was interesting to see how it all unfolded. It’s the story of 28 year-old twin sisters, Rose and Fern. Fern is on the spectrum and thinks she will never have children. Rose is married and has difficulty getting pregnant so Fern thinks of helping her sister by being a surrogate. Fern works as a librarian when she meets someone that will change her life.

This story was a page-turning thriller. Told from two different perspectives, it was interesting to find out what would happen. I also liked that Rose was a type 1 diabetic. I’ve had type 1 diabetes for almost 30 years so it’s always fun to read a book where it’s mentioned. Overall, I wanted to find out what happened and I really liked Fern and Wally but didn’t necessarily care for the premise of the story. Still it held my attention and I read it in one sitting.

Having read The Mother-in-Law and enjoyed it, I was excited to start this book and I’m happy to say it lived up to my expectations.

Fern and Rose are twins, but couldn’t be less alike. They’ve had a difficult life and are still each other’s person. Rose is the more normal of the twins, married and understanding how the world works, while Fern is on the spectrum living in her own little world, happily I might add. To me this book reads more like fiction than a thriller. You peer into their lives, both now and in flashbacks in Rose’s journal showing important events that shaped them.

I think the author does a good job of showing the struggles of Fern’s life without making it a social issue. I really enjoyed the moments where we were a librarian with her and saw her huge heart in helping others without her realizing she was going above and beyond. She is a very relatable character.

The book moved along at a nice pace and I finished it in about a day. And for those thriller lovers, I don’t want to give anything away, but there are a few moments for you too. I enjoyed the book and it’s one of my favorites of 2021, so far.

Ms. Hepworth’s books, for me, have a tendency to start on the slower side. She lolls you into a safe place and you start wondering where the story is. Then, bam...the story takes off and everything she led you to believe, is turned upside down.

Twins, Fern and Rose, are as different as night and day. Fern is quirky, with sensory issues, who loves her job and needs routine. Rose is more mainstream, married, but going thru a rough patch, always looking out for Fern. Enter Rocco, an lovable quirky character in his own right, who Fern names Wally due to his resemblance to a book character. This is a twisted story of family, reality isn’t what we always see or are led to believe. You will fall in love with some characters, and question the motives of others. Well written, excellent character development.

Thanks to Ms. Hepworth, St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC. Opinion is mine alone!

Wowza!
This was one of the best psychologicals I've read in ages!
Fern is easily best friend material, and I had a blast getting lost in her day to days.
There is so much dysfunction surrounding these sisters; it made be glad I only have a brother.
Much love to NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for my DRC.

Holy wow what a book! I really enjoyed a lot about this one even though for me it didn’t read like a thriller. I really loved Fern and how well her character was written. I appreciated the fact she was given sensory sensitivities and felt like it really made her character more real. I was thankful that unlike many stories of the past, the one who was considered “different” wasn’t the culprit. Overall really enjoyed this one and it gets 4.5 stars!

Sisters are the best and worst -- even in the most harmonious relationships, there can be an uneasy, untrustworthy undercurrent. In Sally Hepworth's THE GOOD SISTER, that undercurrent is a powerful force that threatens to bring down both sisters: Who is telling the truth, who remembers their real past, and who defines what they will be to one another now and in the future? The stakes could not be higher for Fern and Rose, coming to terms with their mother, their family life, their entwined lives, who they are and how they live. I don't want to reveal too much about this excellent story, but it grabbed me immediately by the heart and did not let go throughout until I reached an ending that satisfied, answered, and affirmed. Without wanting to spoil the read, let me assure the prospective reader that you are in for an excellent story, well told and memorable. This is the kind of book that has the power to change lives by simply telling the story of two sisters in alternating voices, leaving it to the reader to come to their own conclusions. A magnificent accomplishment by a novelist who deepens and grows with each and every book. I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my unbiased review.

The latest by Sally Hepworth, The Good Sister, is told in alternating voice of Rose & Fern, fraternal twin sisters. This novel takes you on a ride through the complexities of sibling relationships. Bonds are forged & severed, and often the reader is left to unearth good from evil. By the end, you may even reconsider your own sibling bonds, as you realize that memory is fallible & sometimes twisted to one’s own benefit. Thanks to NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Highly recommend! I am LOVING this author! You will not be able to put this book down! I don't want to give any spoilers, but you will love this book!! What a page turner!

I loved Sally Hepworth’s last book The Mother-in-Law, so I was extremely excited to get this copy of her newest book!
Rose and Fern are twins, but are very different in personality. Growing up, Rose was very much a caretaker to Fern and protected her from the outside world due to her sensory processing issues. But Fern did something bad when they were kids that only Rose knew about. Now they are grown up and Rose wants a baby, but cannot have one on her own so Fern decides to try and help her. It turns out though that Fern isn’t the only one with a secret.
I loved this book. The first half was a little slow, but once I got halfway through I could hardly put it down! I loved that characters and family dynamic and the ‘secrets’ had me guessing what would happen the whole way through! Send me any Sally Hepworth book because I know I’ll love it!

Thank you #stmartinspress and #netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. Super fast, engaging, interesting read with quite a twist at the end. I love a good domestic thriller, and I quite enjoyed that this was not one between a husband and wife. I also liked how sensitive she was to Fern's disorders and made them integral rather than secondary or like a caricature. The end was just the right twist, too.

I have loved all of Sally Hepworth's books that I've read and The Good Sister is no exception; She is such a brilliant storyteller who really excels at writing about family dynamics with all their twists and foibles. I also love her wonderful characterizations, and I think she's outdone herself with the Rose and Fern, fraternal twins who are so very different.

Fern has sensory processing issues that cause her to be overwhelmed by bright lights, loud noises, and smells; she doesn't always know what to say in social situations or always understand what is being said to her unless it's phrased just right, and she lives by routines to get through her day, so without it being said in the book it's understood that she's highly functioning on the autism spectrum. She's highly intelligent and is wonderful at her job as a librarian-just don't ask her about the printer or photocopier!

Rose, on the other hand, is a type 1 diabetic who is married, an interior designer, and has been taking care of Fern since they were little girls. Now Rose has been trying unsuccessfully to have a child and this causes huge distress for Rose and has pushed her husband away. When Fern finds out about Rose's infertility, she begins to think that she must help her, after all, Rose has helped her all of her life.

The book is told through the two different POVs of the sisters. Through Fern, the story is told during the present day where we learn about her day to day life, and most importantly when she meets a man at the library she calls "Wally" and becomes close to him, not only because they begin a relationship but because they're very similar. I just adored these two characters, and they were my favorite part of the book. Fern is just simply a wonderful character!

Through Rose's diary, we learn how she feels she must be Rose's caregiver because of her processing issues and writes a lot about the twin's childhood and their mother, who is now in a nursing home because of an overdose when the girls were younger. Her diary also reveals that things are not at all as they seem. One of the sister's memories of their childhood and a tragedy that happened is vastly different than the other ones, Just who is the good sister, here??

Hepworth's writing is, as usual, smooth and mesmerizing as she dives into the drama and family dysfunction surrounding the two sisters and what twisted surprises happen along the way. This is definitely one that you won't want to put done even if some of it is predictable in places-the characters, the fun, the cleverness, the suspense will all be worth it! Oh, I can't wait for Hepworth's next book!


Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the DRC. All opinions are my own.

I was provided a free copy of this by @netgalley and @stmartinspress in exchange for my honest review!
I have read quite a few @sallyhepworth books and love them all! All of them have surprises and unexpected twists and this one is no exception!
I loved Fern, although it never says I'm assuming she's on the spectrum, or at least has many sensory issues and hard time understanding others. It's hard to talk too much about the story without giving anything away. But if you enjoy stories where the reader is left in the dark a bit and truths are revealed bit by bit, you will definitely enjoy this one!
It comes out on Tuesday, so make sure to add this one to your TBR!
#NetGalley

Ruth and Fern are twin sisters, Fern is likely on the Autism Spectrum (though it is never directly said), and Rose watches out for her. Rose is struggling to get pregnant, and her sister wants to devise a plan to give her thing that she wants the most.

Fern meets Wally (Rocco) one day while working at the library and they start spending time together regularly. Wally is very similar to Fern which they both appreciate in each other.

Rose wants to control every aspect of Fern’s life, which people in Fern’s world start to clue in on that something is just not right with this scenario. When Fern gets pregnant, Rose devises a plan to get the baby and that is where Fern’s world starts to unravel.

Nothing is what it seems with this book. Just when you think you have figured this out, the author does a 180, which makes this story all the more enjoyable. It does get uncomfortable at times, but just enough so that you need to know what happens next. This is my second novel from Hepworth, and she is definitely somebody I will continue to read.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.