Another great book by Sally Hepworth. The story intrigues you from the start and you can't help but keep reading to find out what the heck is going on. The multiple POV was easy to follow even if there were many. One thing that I love about this book is how my brain is constantly trying to figure out what really happened and who is the mysterious unknown POV. Every time I thought I got it I was served with another plot twist. This book touches sensitive subjects but is well written. One thing I also loved was how we got so many twists literally all the way to the very last chapter. Sally Hepworth is definitely becoming an auto buy author for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are foster sisters, raised in the same foster care home as young girls. They are all coping with their trauma as adults when they are called back to the site of their foster home when an investigation is held after bones are discovered underneath the location of the house. They also meet their carer, Ms. Fairchild once more. Each is then forced to confront their pasts, and decide upon their futures in this domestic thriller.

The story switches between the past and the present with each character’s perspective. It is a dark foster care story, so some might approach this book with care as the subject matter and foster care abuse is prominent in the story. At times, it was difficult to read because of the abuse endured by the children.

I appreciated the author’s respect and acknowledgement in the afterword. She discusses her research and tenderness towards foster children and advocates basic human rights and applauds our everyday heroes who foster with love and work to improve the system.

Darling Girls is another twisty domestic suspense novel by the Queen of this sub genre. The characters were intriguing, the story chilling and disturbing.

I was really proud of myself for figuring this one out, but of course I should have realized that the true twist would come within the last few pages of the book! This was a dark and twisty domestic thriller about three girls in foster care who go back to the town in which they were fostered after a police investigation begins when bones are found at their the site of their old foster home. Their former foster mother, Miss Fairchild, was emotionally and psychologically abusive, leaving the reader to wonder who the bones belonged to, and how they fit into the story. It was told in the point of view of the three sisters; Jessica, the perfectionist, Norah, the one with rage problems, and Alicia, who has issues with self-worth. The story is also jumps back and forth from the past to now. I found it to be extremely faced paced and kept me enthralled- I could not wait to figure out how the mystery was solved. The twists were great, and I loved the ending. This is a very dark book with difficult subject matter, therefore it might be beneficial to read about trigger warnings prior to reading if needed. Overall, I enjoyed my time with this one, and will continue to read any and all Sally Hepworth books in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy of this book. All opinions within this review are my own.

When life hands you lemons, be a nasty, manipulative person? This was a perfectly fine thriller. It had intrigue and madness, but also too many characters. I struggled to keep them all straight. The main theme that stood out to me is that there was a ton of unaddressed mental illness in all of them. And in the end, why is all the child abuse happening?!

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, St. Martin’s Press, and author Sally Hepworth for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I’m a huge fan of Sally’s books and this one didn’t disappoint! It was interesting to get to know the sisters as adults and learn about their traumatic childhood. Mrs. Fairchild had major mommy dearest vibes. And as bits and pieces were revealed it only led to more questions on my end. There are many twists and turns all the way up to the very end!

💙 Foster Care
🏠 Found Family
♒️ Multiple POVs
⚖️ Dual Timelines

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5
Spice Level: 🧼 Squeaky Clean

This is a psychological thriller that lets us into the lives of three sisters growing up in a foster home and what seemed like a perfect foster mother but is she.? When the home is demolished and human remains are found the sister memories have to be confronted and dealt with.
Darling Girls can be dark at times but is a compelling read that lets us into psychological abuse, unreliable memories, and the healing process for the three sisters.
If you enjoy thrillers with twists and turns, this one’s for you.

‼️‼️‼️‼️ARC REVIEW‼️‼️‼️‼️

Thank you to Net Galley and the St Martin’s Press team for allowing me to review this book!

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth
Release Date: April 23, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Wow y‘all this book was a wild ride. I love a good psychological thriller and this book was insane. It was super fast-paced in my opinion. I did not want to put it down, and when I did put it down I was still thinking about what would happen next.

There were so many points where I thought I had this book figured out and I was totally wrong.

The author builds up the characters in a way where you truly feel like you are with them through this experience. I could see it playing out in my head like a movie, which I absolutely loved.

This book does cover more difficult topics of trauma so definitely heck trigger warnings. However I highly recommend this book if you love a thriller that will put you on the edge of your seat.

#NetGalley

Woah. My mind if blown. She is a MASTER, and this book is a full testament to that.

I haven’t read a book by her that wasn’t at least a solid B. I’ve read all of them thus far, but this? Darling Girls wins for best book.

It has the twists, the turns, the compelling chapter ends, the feelings (warm and fuzzies), the emotional freaking heights!

5 stars. All of the stars.

In this novel, a lot happens from the beginning. There is a mysterious character we don’t know about… Jessica, Norah and Alicia were raised by an abusive foster mother, Miss Fairchild, who they escaped and never looked back until bones c are found under the house they grew up raising a lot of questions, also putting them on the spotlight as potential witnesses. It was a wild ride! I did the audio and I have to admit the different characters threw me off for a second. Once the mystery is clarified at the very end it all paid out!

This was better than I expected! The ending was a bit a predicable and not as shocking as I would have liked but everything else in this story worked for me. The characters were interesting and though we followed the three sisters, I felt each POV read differently so I never forgot which sister I was reading from. I liked the dual timeline between now and before, but I especially liked anytime we were seeing the sisters before and getting a look into the treatment they received at the hands of their foster mother. I was very engaged in the story and felt myself wanting to pick it up anytime I put it down. I’m glad this one worked for me and I plan on picking up more from the author.

What a story! I was so angry, heartbroken, appalled, and an endless count of other emotions. I can see this being an extremely difficult story for many people to read so definitely look up the triggers for this one. The ending left me gasping and full of shock, I just couldn't believe it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book and how twisted the foster mother was. For the longest while I could not figure out which character had the sections with the psychologist and once it was revealed it was so crazy and twisted. I really liked the relationship between the sisters and how they leaned on each other. This was a great read.

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth is a quick read that kept me engaged throughout.

Content warning: girls experience childhood trauma in the foster care system.

Set in Australia (of course), this is told in dual time (Then and Now) with rotating points of view. Jessica, Norah, and Alicia bonded as "sisters" when each was placed into foster care with Miss Fairchild at Wild Meadows farm. Twenty-five years later, a tragic discovery is made at the farm, and local law enforcement requires the women to return for questioning. As the investigation moved forward, long-held secrets are revealed.

It was interesting to meet the women as adults and learn how their relationships developed in childhood. I wonder if the author was in a dark place in life as she wrote this because all of the characters seemed more 'troubled' than in her previous novels I've enjoyed.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the review copies of this novel.

Darling Girls is the story of 3 women who spent a few years in the same foster house when they were girls and return as adults after a crime is discovered.

I could not put this book down!! It was such a perfect slow burn, compelling psychological thriller that dangled clues so perfectly that I most certainly did not see that ending coming. I loved the dynamics of the sisters. I loved how the chapters alternated between past and present to show tidbits of their past, slowly revealing the story and highlighting the contrast with present day. It was such an effective way to see how those years shaped these women individually and created their sisterly bond. And this was all while I was gasping as things unfolded in the story. I loved it so much and didn’t want it to end.

"How do you deal with your feelings in the real world?"
"You bury them real deep."

"It's unimaginable isn't it; to think that someone would hurt a child?"

The cleverly well plotted Darling Girls by brilliant thriller author Sally Hepworth is proof this writer has spun her own subgenre, which I dub "subtle thriller."

She's able to immerse you into her created world where you feel all the emotions; pain, fear, anger, insecurity, even hunger. By the end your heart is weeping and your mind is blown.

In the present three best friends receive the same call from the police, a construction dig has unearthed human bones under their childhood foster home. They need to answer questions, and so we go back to their childhood with them.

We start with Holly Fairchild fostering 4 year old Jessica, a Chinese immigrant orphan. Subtly something is off. Holly tells Jessica she's lucky to be with her, playing into the little girl's insecurities, needing to please Holly. By the time 10 year old Norah shows up Jessica has no plans to share Holly. But Norah's survived her mom's overdose death, creepy touchy foster dads and Holly is just another wall to build her heart around. When sweet innocent Alicia arrives, after her grandma is hospitalized, Jessica and Norah are bonded over Holly's growing odd behavior, and they try to protect her, but soon they all need protection.

I was in awe of voice actress Jessica Clarke embodying the girls from childhood to adult, and then be completely believable as unhinged Holly. It's a masterpiece of voice acting.

The last of the story is not subtle; it is a mind blowing jaw dropping twist. By the end "darling girls" will be the most sinister phrase...and it's not what you think!

I received a free copy of this book/audiobook from the publishers via #NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

Five HUGE stars for this book. Sally has done it again with this story. How can someone so sweet write such dark and twisty novels!!!

Jessica, Nora and Alicia are raised in a foster home that was horrific at best. Years later when bones are found on the land they are drawn back into the world that they have tried so hard to forget.

Twists and turns and an ending that had me gasping out loud…Sally Hepworth at her best!!!

Thank you SO much to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the chance to read and review this amazing book!!!

SALLY HEPWORTH DOES IT AGAIN!

Hepworth is an author that just speaks to me. I love her writing, her storytelling, and her twisted storylines! Darling Girls is a stand out for me in that the characters, plot, and twists had me hooked from page one.

I loved the dynamics between the three sisters and how different they each were. It was wildly entertaining and intriguing learning about their warped functionality and how they were coping with their troubled pasts. Hepworth did a remarkable job manifesting childhood traumas with the sisters' current behaviors and personalities and I loved that psychological undercurrent to the story.

This one really kept me guessing and had me questioning things up until the final moments. I was duped more than once and my jaw may still be on the floor.

There were definitely times when this book was a little hard to read and I became emotional. Hepworth is an all star at connecting her readers to the characters and I felt such pain for the struggles they were facing.

I love how everything came together. I had about 10% left and wondered "how on earth can we tie up all the loose threads out there in this short amount of time"?! But I was wrong to ever doubt Hepworth and everything came together flawlessly without being rushed and with many more surprises around every turn.

The audio for this novel is great. The accents took a little getting used to (Aussie) but the pacing is great and it's such an entertaining read to listen to.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for the copy. Don't wait - get this one now!

Okay let me start with: Sally Hepworth and I have a complicated relationship... There are some of her works I loved and some I DID NOT like (looking at you, "The Good Sister" although I'm an outlier with that one, lol) I literally wrote in my last review: "Okay, Sally. Whatever you have next might be the determining factor of my overall opinion of your stories" And the opinion is..... Loved this one so I'll keep going back for more!

Would recommend if you love:
-decades old secrets
-multi POV and multi timeline
-bonds of sisterhood forged by trauma
-mystery with minimal police procedural

This is told from the POV (but third person) of three sisters-by-love-not-by-blood, Jessica, Norah (with an h, this is pointed out 400 times), and Alicia PLUS therapy sessions with a psychiatrist and an unknown person (I figured out fairly early on who the person was and the circumstances of the therapy sessions as well) AND 'before' chapters from the sister's POV from when they lived at the foster home of Miss Fairchild; it sounds like a lot but, for me, was super easy to keep straight, especially because each of the sisters is so different in personality and characteristics.

Trigger warnings for child abuse, bad fostering situations, addiction, SA

This is packed with secrets and had some good twists. I like that each of the three sisters is struggling with their own issues (wait, that sounds bad, not that I liked the struggle but they each had something -- they weren't perfect) but I wished they'd opened up to each other sooner. Some of their 'issues' have more dire consequences than others.

The very last chapter 'twist' was something I actually didn't see coming! Usually the last page twist just for funsies is NOT my thing but this one made so much sense I couldn't really hate it.

This book starts in the present day, when sisters Jessica, Norah, and Alicia each receive a call from the police telling them that a body has been discovered under the former house where they were all foster children 25 years ago. The book alternates between each of their perspectives in both the past and the present, as we wait to see who the body belongs to, and delve into their traumatic foster past, and how that trauma has affected them in the present day.

I have read each and every Sally Hepworth book, and I just really enjoy her style. I’d say that this one is less thriller-y than some of her more recent books - there’s some mystery and suspense, but more in a Liane Moriarty type of way (a comparison I have made with some of her earlier books as well). Don’t let the cover fool you - there is nothing summery or light about this one, and indeed those with sensitivity may want to check trigger warnings as it explores some upsetting stuff. And yet, somehow it’s still written with the lighter touch Hepworth deploys so well. I for one seriously could not put it down and was racing through the pages to see what happened.