Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have a bond that matches that of any close sisters; however, they are not actually related. This bond was formed during their childhood at as foster children at Wild Meadows Farm under the care of Miss Fairchild. Miss Fairchild was an unpredictable, cruel, and traumatizing caregiver that left the three girls with scars to last a lifetime. Fortunately, in an act of desperation, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia get away from Wild Meadows Farm thinking better days are ahead. Unfortunately, when a call from the police comes saying that the farm has been sold and demolished leading to the discovery of bones under the house, the girls are literally thrown back into their childhood. Asked to travel back to where it all happened to answer the police’s questions unearths all kinds of old memories, but also raises the questions of who the bones belong to and who put them there?

Hepworth’s “Darling Girls” is an emotional rollercoaster. Reader beware that you’ll start this book, not be able to put to down and feel some kind of way the whole time. As Jessica, Norah, and Alicia recall their time at Wild Meadows Farm you feel as though you are there along with the girls, feeling all the same emotions as them. The novel is fast paced, with twist and turns along the way - Hepworth even saving the biggest twist for the very last chapter. Clear your evening and pick up this novel, 4/5

Domestic suspense page-turner. Loved it. Three girls find themselves in a foster care home with an unpredictable caregiver battling her own childhood demons. Before long the three girls have bonded as "sisters" to protect themselves and each other. When infants begin arriving on the scene they are cared for by the sisters, but not all of them are willing to share the caregiver's attention and love with these new faces. Intense at some points.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this novel about being a child and treated by everyone around you as a pest, a nuisance, something to be made money off, with no value or love given.

William Faulkner said "The past is never dead. It's not even past." This is true for a lot of things. People talk today about the good ole days when people didn't let things bother them, they had more grit, gumption in intestinal fortitude back then. They didn't and the current state of politics and the world shows this. Our past feeds us, keeps us scared, keeps us lonely and distant from those around us, makes relationships difficult as trust is usually the first victim to our past. Humans lie to themselves, say it was long ago and far away, and over. However it never is. Like bones finally coming to the surface, the past has a way of catching up to a person, and destroying what one has made. Darling Girls, by Sally Hepworth, is a thriller about the past set today, when the secrets, lies and even bodies are proving what was once forgotten actually is true, and how the past is never really the past.

Alicia, Norah and Jessica are three girls brought together by shared circumstance, and problems sent to be fostered out in the countryside on a very large farm. Miss. Fairchild is their foster mother, a woman who lives by a particular set of rules, and demands complete obedience to these rules. Rules are not made to be broken, and the girls will pay for each transgression. The girls are not related, but each have their own problems which in a way unite them. Alicia has OCD with a compulsive need to organize things, even if it goes against the order of the farm. Norah has issues with anger, bursting out into volcanic rages with violence and ending just as quick. And Jessica with such feelings of self-doubt and fear of being alone, which makes Jessica act in strange ways. The girls flee one night, never seeing Miss Fairchild again, though haunted by their time there. However the women they have become are dragged back, as a body has been found on the property, and questions are being raised about what happened on the farm. Something the women have never shared.

A very good story that skips a lot of the tropes of this kind of woman in jeopardy story/ unreliable narrator novel. Hepworth is a very good writer, and has excellent plotting skills, not needing tricks to keep readers engaged. The women all are distinct characters with clear voices and readers won't be wonder who is who or why. In addition the characters are all interesting including some of the supporting ones, who really fill the story out well. This is kind of a rough tale as stories about foster homes tend to be, so a little warning to readers is given here. However this is a well-written very engaging story, and one that is highly entertaining and very smart. Another very good story from Sally Hepworth.

WOW this was a great ride!!!!!!!!

I loved all three woman and their quirks! From Jessica's OCD, type A nature with the loving permissive husband to Norah with the anger issues, to Alicia that has so much love in her heart. As someone who has worked with a lot of foster youth, I really enjoyed reading about group homes and foster youth as I feel it helps humanize the very broken system.

This is a tale of sisterhood, I really enjoyed seeing how all of them were there for each other in the ways that they knew how. Miss Fairchild is terrifying and I can't believe all the gaslighting she put the girls through. I really enjoyed how it went back and forth from the children's youth to 25 years later when they were grown.

I think this was such an interesting look into the impacts of childhood trauma. I love it and I would highly highly recommend.

Darling Girls was thoroughly engaging from start to finish with great pacing. I felt attached to all three protagonists from early on, and the transitions between past and present worked perfectly to highlight the lasting trauma the main characters carry with them: The novel’s antagonist was compelling as her intentions were never fully clear always leaving me guessing what her next move would be, the little glimpses into her own past throughout the novel were a nice addition as well. Highly recommend this book to everyone once it releases! I might just give it a re-read upon its publishing myself. Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers of Darling Girls, and Sally Hepworth for allowing me to read the novel in advance and share my thoughts!

4.25 stars

I really enjoyed Sally Hepworth's latest DARLING GIRLS. This one I liked as much Hepworth's THE MOTHER-IN-LAW, and I felt that her few books in between fell a little flat for me.

In this one, we have a trio of foster sisters: Jessica (OCD and has her own organizing company), Norah (angry and impulsive), and Alicia (low self-esteem). They are called back to town when a dead body is found under their foster mother Miss Fairchild's house. Each of the women is distinct, and - while simplified for the novel - it was easy to tell them apart because each had her own voice.

During the novel the reader is recounted with descriptions of living in the home with Miss Fairchild when they were foster children. It is intriguing, and interspersed the reader gets scenes of one of the women with their new therapist.

What I really liked about this novel is there weren't out-of-left-field twists, and there was pretty good characterization that dealt with childhood trauma and how it needs to be dealt with before it perpetuates.

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

Wow! Sally Hepworth is the Queen of thrillers! Just when you think you’ve figured out how it’ll end, she throws in another twist. I loved the plot with the bond of the sisters & the mystery woven in. Thanks for allowing me to read an early copy of this! I loved every page!

This book was heart wrenching, looking into the individual lives of foster children and the sometimes horrible lives that children can sometimes be put into. This book was interesting and held my attention for all the right reasons! What a plot twist at the end that I would have never imagined! I was smitten with the plot and the character build! What a great book! What a page turner! Thank you at NetGalley for providing me this book for an honest review!

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Australian author Sally Hepworth is a master at producing twisty family-drama novels set in her homeland. Her latest incorporates two timelines.

When construction crews discover bones buried beneath Wild Meadows Farm, police question three young women. Alicia, Jessica, and Nora once lived at Wild Meadows with Miss Fairchild, a manipulative, demanding foster care mom. Miss Fairchild ran Wild Meadows with an iron fist and doled out heartbreaking punishments. Despite not being related, the three girls bonded and remained best friends as adults.

They realized they needn’t be related to be sisters.

As a reader, I worried this novel—given the subject matter—would turn dark and unsettling. I should have trusted Hepworth. She handled the foster care topic deftly, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Like Hepworth's other novels, this was masterful storytelling. I never doubted Amy was real, and having grown up in a household where fear was common, I could relate to the sisters. I'm glad justice was done in the end, and it didn't surprise me that Fairchild was an unreliable narrator.

I like the way Sally writes and structures her books. This story was a bit much as I once fostered and I have adopted. Those topics run throughout the book and at times was difficult to read about abuse. Four stars. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I really liked The Soulmate and was looking forward to another Sally Hepworth, despite being more over the domestic thriller genre than not. Unfortunately this one did not work for me. I found the child abuse descriptions very disturbing and too graphic for my tastes. This is the third adoption/fostering book that I have reviewed recently. I'm not sure exactly what has made this the topic du jour but I'm not enjoying the dark nature of these stories at all. I also found the characters difficult to relate to, even granting them slack given their circumstances. This was not a good fit for me at all.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia had less than ideal childhoods, all leading to them staying at Wild Meadows with their foster mother, Holly Fairchild. Now, twenty-five years later, the sisters are living as relatively normal lives as could be expected. However, their trauma resurfaces after bones are found under their old home. Now the three are forced back to the town, and the woman, they've avoided since childhood.

I genuinely was on the edge of my seat during the last 100ish pages of this book, unable to relax until the truth was revealed. The ending was unexpected, the characters are relatable and complex, and the present to past/backstory transition is smooth. This book is fantastic! I hadn't heard of any of Hepworth's books before this, but the rest of her work has promptly been added to my TBR list.

Another hit by Sally Hepworth! HOW does she come up with such solid stories that keep me wanting to read just one more chapter!?!

Darling Girls is well-written, very well thought out, gripping, filled with twists, and shocking! Told from different points of view of the girls who were raised in the same foster care home, they get a phone call telling them human remains have been found.

Trigger: mistreatment of children

I’m going to start by saying because this was an ARC copy it obviously needed some spelling and grammatical edits. Typically I wouldn’t mention this but they were pretty obvious and more than normal which made reading it a bit choppy. HOWEVER, this was still a five star for me and here is why… (I’m going to try and explain without giving to much away). At about 50% one of the way through the book a major twists reveals itself and you think you can deduce the rest of the book…until you read the last chapter 🤯. I have never been so convinced I knew how it was going to end and then been wrong.

Darling Girls is more than a well-told story of three girls who’ve (barely) survived the corrupt foster care system in Port Agatha; it’s a glowing affirmation of the bonds connecting one’s true family. I immediately connected with the main characters and felt pulled directly into the plot of the story. Plenty of twists and turns with a kick-in-the-pants surprise at the end.

This book kept me guessing and my head spinning until the end!

I really enjoyed the dynamic between the three foster children. Each coming to Wild Meadow with back traumas and then collecting more during their time together. Jessica’s relationship with Ms. Fairchild was one that broke my heart in different ways. The relationships felt realistic and well developed.

It took awhile to get to the *juicy* bits of this book but I found myself waiting for bed so I could dive back into this story!

I rated this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars!

Thank you for allowing me to read this advanced reader copy!

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley and was SO THRILLED to get to see the newest read from Sally Hepworth. I’ve been a fan for years, though this one broke me of my “Sally Does No Wrong” opinion.

The story of three foster sisters seemed promising, despite holding a dark edge, but the deep dark of the story wasn’t salvaged enough by their “chosen family” relationship. While Hepworth hit on the pain and trauma of foster care (and it’s early corruption) she didn’t provide enough of a twist (it was good and earned her a star, but wasn’t strong enough to COMPLETELY wow me) and only offered a small glimmer of goodness/hope in the aftermath of the storyline.

I wanted to love this like I’ve loved many of Sally’s other novels, but I struggled to keep reading as the coercion, manipulation, and painful choices of each character continued to pile onto the plot line.

An interesting story about foster children, who are now adults, and grew up in a foster home, Wild Meadows, with a mercurial foster mother. When bones are discovered buried on the property on the property the, question is whose bones are they. The story moves between the past and present to piece together the full picture of the girls and the life before and present..

This was story had me hooked from the beginning until the end with its twists and turns.

Darling Girls is another great book by Sally Hepworth. This book is about 3 girls who are in the foster care system and end up living in the same house. Amid abuse, the girls become “sisters” even after leaving the foster home. After bones are discovered under the house, the girls go back to find out who they belong to. Here begins the twists and turns of the story that will keep you guessing and engaged in the story until the end. If you enjoy books by this author, you are sure to enjoy this one as well.