What a great psychological ride into the memories of three girls who shared a foster home. Hepworth does an excellent job with understanding trauma responses and the bonds that are created for those who share in it. Very interesting to be able to see into the mind and what makes a victim into a perpetrator. Some of it was hard to read with the mistreatment of children, yet Hepworth goes beyond into the characterization of these girls and how they evolved and survived as women. And with an excellent twist you probably won't see coming! #darlinggirls #sallyhepworth #netgalley #goodreads

I absolutely loved this book!! The characters were so relatable and well written. The story was intriguing and fast paced. There was not a moment where I wanted to put this book down and not see how things were going to unfold. The emotions were all over the place throughout this book; from anger to headache.

This story is a tale of three "sisters" that form an unbreakable bond through their foster care with Mrs. Fairchild. They are bonded together as they try to live their lives with the sinister foster mother, Mrs. Fairchild. This story also moves between the "before" and "now" times of these three sisters. As a result of their horrible time in this foster home, each of the three girls have a lot of deep rooted issues that carries with them throughout their adult lives. Then a bomb shell is dropped on them as there is a body found under the basement of the home in which they lived with Mrs. Fairchild. Going back to the town to answer questions on what happened in the house when they are little bring all the issues that these girls carry to a head.

The author wrote a shocking ending that I didn't see coming at all, which was honestly my favorite part! I love thinking I know how the book will end and then get blown away.

Call Hepworth is an excellent writer that keeps the story moving at just the right pace with just the right amount of details. I can't wait to read more of her stories!

Thank you Net Galley and St. Martin Press for providing an ARC in return for an honest review.

Darling Girls is a great read! It takes place in Australia where a skeleton is uncovered underneath a former foster home known as Wild Meadows. As detectives try to determine the identity of the deceased, three of the long-time residents, Jessica, Alicia, and Norah return to provide any information they may have. Each of these young women have back stories of their time at Wild Meadow, and their relationships with Miss Fairchild, the caregiver,, that are slowly revealed as the story progresses. Lots of unexpected and unpredictable events work together to bring closure to a very traumatic chapter in their lives.

Thanks to the publisher and to netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC.

Darling girls is filled with twists, some you’ll see coming, others were a big surprise to me. Overall, I enjoyed the POV switching from sister to sister so that I could get a better idea of the head space of each character.

The one thing I found ridiculous is that the three girls actually believed they made up Amy. Come on, they were all in high school, there’s no way they all individually had the same shared delusion.

Overall, another great read from Sally Hepsworth! Thank you NetGalley and St. Martins Press for this ARC.

RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5 (4.5/5)

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth is about three women who grew up together in a foster home run by an abusive and horrible woman, who receive a phone call that authorities have discovered a body underneath the house, and return “home” to aid in the investigation.

I feel like so often thrillers can kind of get repetitive for me… there’s an unreliable narrator, you don’t know who to trust, blah blah. However, THIS thriller, was fantastic and had such a unique storyline and plot to follow, that I couldn’t finish it quickly enough.

I loved the flashback timeline and multiple POV aspects of this story, and thought they added a lot to the book. So between those two, and the unique plot, this really was a great one!!

However, the story of what happened to these girls in that home is very sad and heart wrenching so please review content warnings before diving into this one!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!!

Thank you Netgalley and author Sally Hepworth for the early release copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book follows Jessica, Norah and Alicia who were fostered and abused by miss Fairchild but when bones are discovered buried under the farmhouse, they are called in by the police to tell what they know.

This was such a page turner with multiple POVs, suspense and so many twists! Release date: April 23, 2024.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have a deep, seemingly unbreakable bond. One that goes back decades to when they were girls - forced to live with an abusive and unpredictable foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on Wild Meadows Farm.

The three adult women, suffering from the effects of those traumatic years, are trying the best they can to carry on, when bones are found buried under the farmhouse where they spent those difficult years. They are questioned by the police, as a part of an investigation to find out whose bones are buried and who is responsible.

Each character has a distinctive personality and has responded to trauma differently. Relationships and relating with people are complicated. And Hepworth does a good show of this. The suspense and tension build quickly.

Sally Hepworth has become well-known for writing domestic suspense novels. Her latest offering, Darling Girls, is by far the most intense and her best one yet! You will find yourself turning the pages quickly to try to solve the mystery within. There's a lot of horrific stuff going on, so brace yourself.

I liked all three of the main characters. They were messed up from their time with Miss Fairchild and it shows. I love that they kept a connection going and always looked out for each other. Miss Fairchild was truly awful, but then there were times I felt sorry for her. It was disconcerting to have that mix. The story overall was really well-written and twisted. It kept me guessing the entire time and I couldn't predict what would happen from one moment to the next.

This spine-tingling thriller will be available in late April, so be sure to add it to your spring TBR.

(Trigger warnings below.)

Movie casting suggestions:
Jessica: Janet Montgomery
Norah: Meaghan Rath
Alicia: Catherine Bohart
Miss Fairchild (in the past): Emerald Fennell
Meera: Jessica Clark
Ishir: Raymond Ablack

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TW: child abuse, sexual assault, death of a child, drug addiction

Sally Hepworth is forever and ever a favorite thriller author for me!! I can only hope she keeps the books coming. Darling Girls was everything I had hoped it would be and was shocking like her other novels have been.

This was a great classic suspense novel. Was there murder? Yes. Did the story have you guessing which direction it was heading? Yes. Nothing too gruesome but completely captivating with some twists and turns that had you guessing to the end. The three main "darling girls" were extremely flawed adults but the story flip flops back and forth from past to present and you can see why. This book also makes you stop and think about the foster system and how it is really hard to come of out of it and function as an adult.

I have been a fan of Sally Hepworth for a few years, and I was beyond excited to be given the chance to read this ARC.

Darling Girls is a multi-timeline, multi-POV story following the lives of three women who grew up in a foster home. Their foster mother seems like the dream placement, but as time passes each girl is met with challenges, some worse than others. These trials and tribulations bring the three together as they form a bond that seems unbreakable. 25 years after leaving Miss Fairchild their one-time foster home is torn down, leading to a discovery that will bring the women back home for the first time.

This was such a trip to read. Sally did a wonderful job building a connection between the reader and each character. I truly felt protective of these girls. I loved the mysterious vibe and the journey of discovery. Even though things slowly continued to click, I was still left shocked in the end. The pace was perfect to keep the reader interested as the multi-timeline events unraveled.

A complete page turner that kept me guessing all night long. This is a psychological thriller with a lot of twists and turns and an unexpected ending. WOW. A must read.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Sally Hepworth has written quite a few books, and I have been lucky enough to read a few on Netgalley. I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Soulmate' last year so wanted to try 'Darling Girls' too!

I love a multiple POV story. I love dual timelines.

There is a lot of abuse in this book. I saw a few reviews about the trauma going too far, but as a Social Worker, sometimes it just IS that bad.

Check the trigger warnings! There are a few for sure.

This book made me mad but in a good way. 3 girls growing up in an abusive foster home and truly becoming sisters. They all struggled in their own ways and had to overcome their struggles. Such a psychological thriller twists and turns that I honestly didn’t see coming.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This was my first Sally Hepworth novel. I read in 2 days; wondering where was the author taking me. I felt the multiple timelines were great for the story being told. So many unexpected twists and turns for Jessica, Norah and Alicia. I felt Hepworth did a good job at telling the ways each girl was individually affected by their time in foster care. The fourth voice is that of their foster mother. I never expected the truth of her story. This is a story of “3 sisters” that never gave up on each other and were able to heal. While this is a work of fiction, be sure to read the Acknowledgements at the end explaining the author’s research regarding foster care.

Classic Sally Hepworth with twists and turns I did not see coming. Some of the child abuse content was a little too real, but I thought it was handled honestly and realistically. Great book. Loved the ending!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read an online arc of Darling Girls.

Darling Girls is the second Sally Hepworth book I have read, and I was excited to receive early access since I enjoyed her last book, The Soulmate. While the two stories share family ties as a theme, they could not be more different. I would be remiss if I did not note that this story is messy in a much darker way.

The narrators of Darling Girls, three sisters Norah, Jessica and Alicia and a mysterious fourth voice speaking during therapy sessions, all move the story along its twisty path to an even twistier conclusion. The novel tells the back stories of the three and their foster mother, Miss Fairchild, as their lives intersect again in the present over the mystery of the bones of a child found under their foster home.

I felt so much sympathy for these three women as you learn how their time in foster care affected their preteen and adult lives in major ways. Their heartbreaking narrative moves seamlessly between past and present, giving the reader insight into why this is so. There was also great character building of Holly Fairchild, their foster mother through the narrative and psychiatry sessions. By the time we encounter Miss Fairchild again in the present day, you can’t help but hope she gets her comeuppance for how she treated those in her care. (Her name really irked me as she is never “fair” to any “child” at any point in the story.) By the end of the story, which expands the cast of characters through a police investigation, we learn the fate of a missing child, the identity of the bones under the house, and how the main characters move forward with their lives in the aftermath of the investigation. This one was hard to put down, as I wanted to learn how it wrapped up. While I did see some light for the sisters at the end, the final chapter is a doozy!

Darling Girls goes beyond the edges of a straight psychological thriller with its depictions of a foster care system that sometimes fails those who need protections the most: the children. Make sure that you read the author’s acknowledgments at the end. It will make you think about the word “lucky” in ways you never thought of. 5/5

I am a huge Sally Hepworth fan and I’m so happy to say that this is my favourite book of hers yet!

This was a ride! The first few chapters, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it and then I got completely sucked in and couldn’t put it down. The story follows three women who were previously in foster care and their younger selves. When a body is found at their previous foster home, their lives begin to unravel and suppressed secrets come to the surface. I felt like the characters were so well done and I fully felt connected to them while reading. Overall, this was heartbreaking, twisty and a really unique thriller. The end went a completely different way than I guessed and I absolutely loved it.

I will say this was really dark and has a lot of subject matter that someone may find triggering so feel free to message me for any trigger warnings!

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐈𝐟…
✨you love multiple timelines
✨you’re craving a good twist
✨you enjoy dark storylines

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

🚨Pub Date: April 23, 2024
🫶🏻Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartins for the ARC!

Hepworth is back to showcasing her talent for writing nuanced relationships and I am here for it! I absolutely gobbled up this novel in a two days after being instantly sucked into the lives of the characters. Hepworth shines so brilliantly when she writes about the complex relationships other authors don’t want to touch and for Darling Girls she centers on three foster care “sisters” and their unstable foster parent. Hepworth captures the incredible bond between the girls forged by going through shared trauma but doesn’t neglect the complicated feelings of resentment, guilt, sadness, and hope. She highlights the issues of foster care without lecturing. None of the characters are one note which adds such richness to the novel and I really appreciated the multiple time lines woven within the novel. Hepworth surprise zingers are tucked in Darling Girls too making the entire read engaging and unputdownable. So glad to have this version of Hepworth back again!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced electronic copy. All opinions are my own.

This was my first book from Sally Hepworth and it definitely won't be my last! I enjoyed how the story was told in multiple POVs. Sally Hepworth is definitely a great storyteller.