This is a dark and haunting book about three women that grew up in the foster system that have to return as adults to the house they grew up in. This was the first Hepworth book I've read and I absolutely loved it! The writing was absolutely amazing and gave me chills. It did start off slow but it built up and was haunting yet so so good. I can't wait to read more by this author!

Sally Hepworth just didn’t disappoint! Even though fiction, this book is heart breaking and shows a glimpse into the absolute terribly broken foster system and the trauma/violence that children can experience when they are part of it. The story told in alternating timelines from the point of view of the girls is intriguing and keeps you wanting more.

Lots of good twists and turns in this story. A depressing story of the treatment of foster children but with an uplifting storyline of the bond formed between three foster sisters.

My favorite Sally Hepworth since The Mother-in-Law! I read this in a day! Jessica, Alicia and Norah all end up in foster care due to different circumstances in their preteen years. All three girls end up going to Wild Meadows to be fostered by Miss Fairchild. All three girls face borrows while at Wild Meadows. Fast forward to present day, Wild Meadows is demolished and human remains are found on site. The girls are called back to a place they never want to return to.

So incredibly wonderful, in that deeply disturbing kind of way. The story within these pages will stay with me forever!

Something terrible happened at Wild Meadows. Many terrible things, actually. And now, 25 years later, the truth is coming out, in the form of human bones found as the deceptively charming white farmhouse is finally being torn down.

Australian author Sally Hepworth, who will be in St. Louis Monday, specializes in female-centric suspense. In “The Younger Wife,” sisters cope with their father’s decision to divorce their mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, and quickly marry again. In “The Good Sister,” my favorite, a delightfully quirky woman, likely “on the spectrum,” leans heavily on her sister, until their roles change.

Hepworth’s latest, “Darling Girls,” again focuses on sisters, but these three are bonded not by blood but by shared experience. All three were fostered at Wild Meadows Farm, ruled by the terrifying Miss Fairchild.

Jessica was the first, taken to Wild Meadows at age 4 after the death of her mother, a Chinese immigrant. She was enchanted by Miss Fairchild, who “looked like a fairy princess. She had wavy golden hair, blue eyes, and wore a white dress covered in tiny blue flowers. … She smelled of flowers!”

Jessica’s idyllic first years with her foster mother soon fade. Small cruelties become bigger ones. Money is tight, and Miss Fairchild takes in a second foster girl, Norah, who is 10, about the same age as Jessica, and suffered molestation in previous placements. Then comes same-age Alicia, whose beloved grandmother never gets out of the hospital.

Sally Hepworth
Australian author Sally Hepworth specializes in female-centric suspense.
Courtesy of author
The girls unite to get through the miseries of life with Miss Fairchild, pinky-swearing to stay together. As adults, they couldn’t be more different, but they remain a tight trio. As such, they are all left reeling by the discovery at Wild Meadows, traveling there to talk to police. Are they witnesses? Or are they suspects?

Hepworth takes her time getting through the story, building portraits of each of the three both “before” and in the present. Other chapters take place in the office of a psychiatrist, Dr. Warren, whose mystery patient narrates in the first person. Do the math — this means seven time lines to keep track of.

Jessica’s idyllic first years with her foster mother soon fade. Small cruelties become bigger ones. Money is tight, and Miss Fairchild takes in a second foster girl, Norah, who is 10, about the same age as Jessica, and suffered molestation in previous placements. Then comes same-age Alicia, whose beloved grandmother never gets out of the hospital.

The girls unite to get through the miseries of life with Miss Fairchild, pinky-swearing to stay together. As adults, they couldn’t be more different, but they remain a tight trio. As such, they are all left reeling by the discovery at Wild Meadows, traveling there to talk to police. Are they witnesses? Or are they suspects?

Hepworth takes her time getting through the story, building portraits of each of the three both “before” and in the present. Other chapters take place in the office of a psychiatrist, Dr. Warren, whose mystery patient narrates in the first person. Do the math — this means seven time lines to keep track of.
After misbehavior, Norah is dragged “to the basement. The pitch-black basement. That, of course, was the point.”

Grueling descriptions of punishments like these have to make readers wonder: Was the foster care system in Australia 25 years ago really as dysfunctional as Hepworth depicts? (In fact, we can also wonder how badly broken our own is.)

In acknowledgments, Hepworth reports speaking to former foster kids, parents and social workers. “For every villain in the foster care world,” she writes, “there are a hundred heroes.”

I love me a sally hepworth book and this one was one of the best!!! I did not expect the twists, every character was so complex and I liked them all. Great thriller!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of both the audiobook and the digital book. I ended up listening to the audio. At first I wasn't sure that I would like the audio because of the British accent, but I think the accent added to the narrative. I have read many of Sally Hepworth's books and this one didn't disappoint!

This was a slow burn, but one that really delivers in the end. I always look forward to Sally Hepworth’s wild stories and this was another gripping one. I love a good dark murder mystery with a satisfying ending. Well done Sally!

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are sisters. Their bond was forged in foster care when they endured the abuse of their guardian Miss Fairchild at Wild Meadows farm. Years later, they are forced to return to Wild Meadows when a body is found buried under the house.
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💭 Thoughts 💭
This book was strange but interesting. Neither my favorite or least favorite by Sally Hepworth, it lands somewhere in the middle. Parts of it were dark, but there were some twists I did not expect!
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⌛️ Favorite Moment ⌛️
Norah had three large dogs.. that she brought with them on their road trip home. Jessica brought treats, one dog ate the whole bag, and his farts stunk up the car. That scene had me laughing!

Told from three darling girl POVs, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia, this book is set in both the present and the past. The characters are realistically flawed and I found them easy to like. I especially loved their sister bond! Their upbringing with their foster parent, Miss Fairchild, is sad and scary. TW: child abuse. Bones have been found at the site of the house they grew up in and now the sisters have been called back to the town of their childhood in order to help the police figure out just who the bones belong to. I found the police investigation to be completely unbelievable and while I enjoyed the overall story, I didn't find it to be very exciting. That being said, the ending got me. Way to go Sally!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book had me on the edge of my seat the entire time! The characters were lovable and I felt relatable with their life quirks. Just when I thought that I had it figured out, BAM! I was wrong!

SISTERS, SECRETS, LOVE, AND MURDER... Sally Hepworth’s new novel has it all.

This hashtag made me want to read the book and I’m glad I did!

Darling Girls was phenomenal. I loved the foster sisters in this book and how they cared about each other then and now as adults. The mystery was good too. I couldn’t figure out the twist! Read this one! It’s good!

Thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review..

Sally Hepworth does it AGAIN. Darling Girls is a twisty, mystery thriller that had me on the edge of my seat and guessing to the very end. I fell in love with Norah, Jessica and Alicia – three foster children raised together who become true sisters.

The story is told from the current day and the sisters' childhood along with details about their foster mom, Miss Fairchild. Miss Fairchild is far from winning any foster mom of the year awards and creates some less than desirable conditions for the girls. Miss Fairchild is manipulative, takes advantage of the girls and exploits their vulnerabilities.

In the present day, the three sisters are back together in the town where they grew up, when the police reach out to them because human remains have been found at the location of where they grew up. Who is it and how did they get there. As the story plays out, we see the long-term impacts on the sisters from growing up in such a challenging environment. We see drug use, anger issues/violence, the inability to commit to relationships and a whole host of other things.

My heart broke for Norah, Jessica and Alicia and any of the others who crossed Miss Fairchild’s path. It was so difficult to believe what they were expected to do and how they were treated during their childhoods. As the story concludes, we find out the source of the bones and hope for the sisters’ futures.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed above are my own.

#DarlingGirls #SallyHepworth

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press and the author for an advanced digital copy of this book for review. The opinions expressed below are mine alone.

My first Sally Hepworth novel proved to be quite the page-turner! Just when I thought my amateur sleuth brain had put the puzzle together, the pieces would get scattered and I'd have to start over. I enjoyed the clever twists and turns, and it held my attention throughout.

The dual timeline and multiple POV’s really propelled the mystery. It was quite harrowing to read about the abuse the girls suffered at the hands of their caretaker and the trauma that followed them into adulthood. Miss Fairchild reminded me of Miss Hannigan from Annie - if she were blonde, slightly younger and 50% less of an alcoholic. While this was a fictional story, it did pierce my heart to think of all the children in the foster care system living through similar - or worse - ordeals. Found family is one of my favorite tropes and the sisterly bond between the girls was perhaps the most endearing part of the story for me.

I would definitely recommend this for a quick, entertaining thriller with dark subject matter. Do be aware of triggers for depictions of child abuse, drug addiction and mentions of SA.

⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5 Stars
Happy pub month to Sally Hepworth and Darling Girls! Thank you to Sally Hepworth, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this book for an honest review. Additionally, thank you to St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read this book for an honest review!

📅 Tuesday, April 23, 2024 is the pub date for Darling Girls. 📅

Darling Girls is a twisty adventure…part mystery, part thriller, and everything psychological. The book opens with multiple phone calls to several young women from a detective stating that an investigation has been opened to look into the excavation of human remains. For Jessica, Norah, and Alicia, trauma from their childhood resurfaces because they are asked to return to the estate and hometown in which they spent many unhappy years under the care of Holly Fairchild.

Ms. Fairchild was known in the foster care system as a reliable and loving caregiver with strong maternal instincts. She owned a spacious home that accommodated several young girls for various amounts of time over the years. Jessica, Norah, and Alicia became sisters that would literally do anything to protect each other and although their idea of love is a bit skewed, they prove time and time again that they love each other dearly.

Will being reunited again unveil more than the hidden memories of the past? Could one of sisters kill someone without the others knowing? Are they all covering for one another? Will seeing Ms. Fairchild again break the glue that has kept them strong over the years?

If you’ve read books by Sally Hepworth in the past, you’ll enjoy her newest book! It will keep you guessing. When you think you’re on the right track, additional information will be shared that throws you off the trail. Sally wrote a story with a compelling plot and characters but the ending fell flat for me. Some portions of the ending seemed a tad forced and far fetched. It wasn’t as congruent as I would have liked to the rest of the storyline.

⚠️Trigger Warning: Child abuse. Verbal, physical and emotional. Resurfacing of childhood trauma.

“The fact remained, there was more to what happened to them when they were children than even they knew.”


This book had a different kind of domestic-thriller vibe than the other books I’ve read by Sally Hepworth.

She tackled some hard-to-read topics like child abuse and the foster care system. It made the stakes feel a little higher and the ending more important.

Even though I had the twists figured out pretty early on, it was still a really compelling and hard-to-put-down book. I was deeply invested in the pursuit of justice and getting the ‘bad guy’ held accountable.

The main reason a person would not want to read this book would be if they were triggered by child abuse or their own experiences in foster care. I can see how this might not be a good fit for that.



The basic premise is that three sisters (not biologically, but bound by their shared trauma) spent a few years together in the foster home— Wild Meadows— under the care of Miss Fairchild who was anything but fair to children.

They eventually found a way to get out from her abusive hand.

Now, 25 years later, they’re forced to relive their trauma as old human remains have been found under the foster home. They have to confront their past, their fears, and their trauma, as they are both witnesses and suspects in the new investigation.

“Her testimony is compelling… You three had troubled childhoods and Norah has well-documented issues with violence. We’ve also seen enough to know that the three of you would do just about anything to protect each other. A lovely trait among sisters— but also a pretty powerful motivation to lie.”



Hepworth did a good job of creating three distinct personalities for the sisters and the ways they coped with their childhood.

We had:

Jessica: She lived with Miss Fairchild the longest and had experienced more of her narcissistic behvavior and manipulation. As an adult she is a home organizer which pairs well with her OCD. She battles her OCD with taking Valium, often from her clients’ houses… because most of them apparently need them too.

“No one repressed more toxic emotions than she did… All that repressed anger and nothing to show for it. She’d been repressing anger about it ever since.”

“Panic was her constant state of being, as familiar to her as breathing.”


Then there’s:

Norah: She was second to arrive at Wild Meadow having come from a mixed-bag of foster homes prior; she had learned to use violence to both protect herself and cope with her trauma. Her adult job is ‘helping’ people pass psychometric screening tests for employment by cheating and doing it for them. She also dates, not for relationship, but transactional sex that results in handyman chores done around her house.

“If there was one thing Norah had learned from growing up in foster care, it was how to take care of things. Her methods were a little unorthodox, perhaps, but they had to be.”

“One of the things that Alicia had always admired about Norah was the fact that she was a committed liar. Not to be confused with a good liar; Norah’s gift was the ability to come up with a lie on the spur of the moment and remain committed to it against all logic and reason.”


And lastly:

Alicia: Meant to be there only while her grandma was in the hospital, worse came to worse and her grandma died, forcing her into foster care for the duration. As an adult Alicia is a social worker, seeking to care for foster kids better than she was.

“Alicia wasn’t known for her wise, well-thought-out decisions. She was the one who threw caution to the wind, who took risks, who acted first and thought of the consequences later.”

“If there was one thing foster kids needed, it was fight.”


Jessica takes charge, Norah was the fight, and Alicia was the heart.

It was heartbreaking to read about their stories— what led them there— and what happened to them after.

Hearing four-year-old Jessica think that her mother died of sadness and worrying that she might too if she was too sad just wrenches you.

“Jessica didn’t know you could die from being sad. She remembered being very careful not to cry about her mother in case she died too.”

Even though I don’t share Norah’s love of dogs or care for some of her decisions, when you read a story like this you really love a character like Norah. Her strength and her fight is essential and it bolsters the reader and gives us hope that she won’t let her or her sisters be taken down. You cheer for her fight, for her resilience, for her spirit.

I love how Hepworth shows how even in trauma, relationships matter so much. Their sisterhood was what got them through. They had each other. Resilience is a really interesting and inspiring thing to study in real life when you hear people’s stories and how they came out of it.



The chapters of the book go back and forth between present and ‘before’ and change between the three sisters’ POVs. Hepworth did a good job of writing distinct voices for each character.

We also have these ‘mysterious’ chapters of a woman speaking with a therapist about her childhood. We aren’t told right away who it is, and even after we find that out, there is suspicion to be cast on the verity of what we are reading.

[I have a spoiler comment about that at the very end of this review.]



I don’t know much about the foster care system and how it differs (or not) from the US to Australia, but I think Hepworth did a good job in her portrayal. Obviously the story revolved around the hellish side of foster care, but she also shows Alicia as a social worker and really caring about the kids and wanting to sincerely help them.

I know several families who do foster care. In the healthy and right way. Hepworth acknowledges the ‘heroes’ of the foster care system in her acknowledgements at the back of the book which I think is important. It’s not all bad. And there are lots of people who are diligently fighting for these kids and for making the system better that we can’t forget about that side too.



It was really poignant to ponder how the social workers had told the girls they were ‘lucky’ to find that home with Miss Fairchild.

Jessica contemplates it: “If you were lucky, it implied that your good fortune hadn’t been earned. You couldn’t question it, or take it for granted. You had to be grateful. Because what had been given to you could just as easily be taken away.”

I like how Alicia is honest about it with the kids she works with: “Trish is a wonderful foster mother, and it’s very generous of her to keep you on [after you turn 18]. but you’re not lucky. You lost your parents. You lost your grandmother. You’ve spent the last few years living in uncertainty. Having a stable home until you finish school is actually a lot less than you deserve.”

“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.”

It really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

It reminds me of my significant role as a mother and the job and privilege I have to be the adult in my home to provide a safe, secure, and loving environment for my kids. Being a parent is much more than that but it can’t be less. And the significance of that is monumental. My heart aches for the children, young and old, who have been robbed of those basic needs.

Whether tragedy or parental neglect and selfishness, so many kids have been led to believe that they are not worthy of love. That they have to earn it and that it can easily be taken away.

More than anything I pray those kids find Jesus. He is the only one who will never disappoint and the hope he brings more than makes up for the losses they’ve endured. In him they find unconditional love, joy, grace, peace, mercy, comfort, patience, kindness, and gentleness. And his hope is secure- it can’t be taken and it can’t even be earned. It’s only a gift to be received. An eternal home for them to belong and be cherished.

To know how much I’ve found in Jesus, I can’t imagine how freeing and life-changing that would be for someone who never even knew a shadow of that love and security!

The Bible even uses the language of adoption when it comes to being part of his family. Each of us is grafted in, adopted as sons and daughters! (Romans 8:14-19; Ephesians 1:5; Galatians 4:5-7; Psalm 27:10)

At the very least, I hope if you read this book it can cause you to pray for the foster kids and families in your community.



Recommendation

This is a heavier book than some of her others and at times hard to read. But if these topics aren’t triggers for you, I would recommend this book.

It’s a fast-paced story with characters that will have you investing in either their triumph or their demise.

It reminded me a little bit of Ashley Audrain’s The Push.

Hepworth, of course, has her signature ‘gasp-inducing’ last chapter, but I feel satisfied with the ending and my spoiler comment below will explain why.


[Content Advisory: 24 f-words, 18 s-words; a little bit of sexual content in the form of a brief sex scene and a character sexting; two characters are in a lesbian relationship and it’s a somewhat prominent part of the book]


SPOILER COMMENT

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[ Okay so let me just talk about Dr. Warren for a sec. At first blush he is a terrible therapist and we eventually find out that Fairchild is playing him and manipulating him to better her defense at trial because he’s a sadistic pervert. BUT… I have a different theory.

And this is where I’ve landed because I think it’s plausible, but also because this kind of story requires justice in a big way and for me to end the book thinking Fairchild is getting off is just not going to work.

So here’s the deal… Dr. Warren isn’t incompetent.. he’s actually brilliant and devious. He knows what she is and he knows how to get her to talk. HE is playing HER. She thinks she has pulled one over on him, but I picture her experiencing a rude awakening when he’s actually gotten her to confess something in her sessions that he is able to help the prosecutor use to put her away for a long time. She was arrogant and thought she could get away with it, but nope. She dug her own grave.

Dr. Warren was pretending because he could see through her; he wasn’t pervertly drawn into her antics. Somehow he has trapped her in her own game. And justice is served.

Hepworth leaves this up to the imagination and this is what I’ve come up with. Feel free to adopt this theory as well. (hide spoiler)]

I REALLY enjoyed the plot of this one. It was so engaging and suspenseful. I inferred one of the twists but not the big one. I enjoyed the dual timeline and the physiatrist parts so much. Trying to piece this one together was a charm. I just wish there was more characterization. I didn’t feel invested or attached to any three of the girls. Honestly I felt more for Holly than anyone, which was fantastic writing on Sally’s part. I’m really glad there was no plot point left untied.

4.5 ⭐ rounded up- thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio/ St. Martin's Press for the audiobook and e-book arcs of this novel. This was such a fun psychological thriller to read- I definitely did not want to put it down. Short chapters and multiple character perspectives are my favorites! I also enjoyed getting the multiple different timelines. I loved the bond that the sisters had from growing up in a foster home together while still each having their own personalities. This book took some wild turns and definitely kept me guessing. I didn't want to put it down! I only wish we might have had different narrators for the sisters in the audio version.

This was an enjoyable thriller and that last chapter made the book. I have enjoyed several books from this author and look forward to reading more of her books. This mystery is set in Australia and about three girls that grew up in the same foster home. It was well done and twisty.