That ending!
I’m a huge Sally Hepworth fan, and this new one is definitely one of my favourites by her.
The story centres around 3 young girls, and a foster home that they all must endure.
Jessica, Norah and Alicia all arrive to Wild Meadows under Miss Fairchild’s care due to different circumstances. The girls quickly form a bond, under the often cruel and terrible care from their foster Mother. They are afraid to let anyone know about the horrible situation at Wild Meadows, for fear of being split up, and being separated from one another.
Fast forward to years later, they receive a call from police, stating the foster home is being torn down and bones of a child have been discovered underneath the house that brought more pain to girls that had already suffered so much.
The story is told from the POV of Jessica, Norah and Alicia as well as interviews from a psychiatrist named Dr Warren. We aren’t sure who this interviews are with, and they are creepy, as well as heartbreaking.
Back to that ending… Ms. Hepworth got me. What a twist and turn of events. There are a few twists along the way, but that last one, wow!
I highly recommend this book due to be released April 23, 2024.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

As a huge Sally Hepworth fan, I was ecstatic to get a copy of Darling Girls! Few books suck me in the way hers do and she has a knack for creating such unique relationships between all her characters that I rarely find in other thrillers. I am not used to her books being as twisty as this one but I really enjoyed this aspect of it. As an avid thriller reader I often am not shocked by plot twists anymore (sadly) but a couple of the ones in this book got me. I would say this book was definitely a bit darker than some but she made some choices that kept it from being too dark or grim to be enjoyable. This was another win for me from Sally Hepworth and I will forever read all her new releases!!

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth is a domestic psychological thriller following three survivors from events that happened in a foster home. It is a highly recommended page turner.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are sisters by choice and remain close after a traumatic childhood. They met at a foster home called Wild Meadows Farms and all endured abuse from foster mother, Holly Fairchild. Twenty-five years have passed and the house is currently being torn down to build a McDonalds. The excavation has unearth human remains and now the police have asked Jessica, Norah, and Alicia to return to Port Agatha for questioning. Returning to Port Agatha and talking to the police brings back the pain.
The narrative follows the point-of-view of four characters -the three sisters and an unnamed person talking to a psychiatrist. Additionally there are past and present timelines so we meet the sisters as adults and also as children enduring the machinations of Miss Fairchild. As adults they are all still suffering from some repercussions from their childhood traumas and the past chapters detail what happened to them.

The well-written plot is very intriguing, twisty, and will immediately grab your attention. However, where the novel really shines is in the fully-realized characters who resemble real individuals with faults and fails. They immediately garner your empathy and support. The subject matter, abuse of foster children, is weighty and grim. The bond the three sisters-by-choice have, based on their shared experiences is more intense and enduring than that which many biological sisters share. Even Miss Fairchild felt like a real person

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of these sisters in both the present and the past. The person talking to the psychiatrist is not revealed until later, but that story line is is also interesting, even though the psychiatrist seems incompetent. Included in the narrative are even some light moments of humor that help with the dark mood, as do the three large dogs. The twisty ending was a surprise but there was one reveal that actually fell flat for me and lowered my rating, but any Sally Hepworth novel is worth reading. Thanks to St. Martin's Press for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, X, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

4.5 stars

I usually enjoy books from this writer, but this upcoming novel felt particularly strong to me. After (in my opinion) a slightly slow introduction to the book, the plot picks up and stays intriguing until the conclusion. I liked and appreciated the sisters, the ending to their stories were satisfying, and the ultimate conclusion to the book was not one I saw coming, which was fun as well as surprising. All in all, this was a twisty, emotional story with multiple perspectives and facets, all of which tie together nicely in the end.

Title: Darling Girls
Author: Sally Hepworth
Pub Date: April 23, 2024
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jessica, Norah and Alicia are three sisters who become family when they are all placed under the care of their foster mother, Miss Fairchild. The sisters all have different personalities and backgrounds but they form an unbreakable bond while under the manipulative and psychologically abusive care of Miss Fairchild.

Twenty five years after they break free from this life, bones are found under the foster home that they grew up in and the sisters are forced to revisit memories that they have tried so hard to put behind them. Unsure if they are witnesses or suspects, they cooperate with law enforcement to help solve the mystery of who was murdered and buried under their childhood home.

The story is told through the points of view of all three sisters and alternates between past and present. Through each of their perspectives, we learn about how their lives have been affected by their childhood. Can this trip home help heal some of the scars from their past? This book was a page-turner for me. I felt for each of the girls and found myself rooting for them to find the freedom they deserved. It was twisty, suspenseful and emotional. My feelings about Miss Fairchild were up and down and the twist at the end wrapped everything up perfectly!

I started this book before bed one night and couldn’t put it down… I finally had to stop reading when my eyelids refused to stay open, and then I finished it the next morning. This is such a good and creative psychological thriller that captivated me from the very beginning.

Told from different POVs through the book, the mystery centers on three women who grew up in a toxic and psychologically abusive foster home and are called back to the area when human remains are discovered under the property during an excavation project. These women are strong but deeply flawed and still suffering from the trauma of their childhoods, but one thing they have to show for their horrible upbringing is their unwavering commitment to one another - they consider themselves sisters in every sense of the word.

In addition to multiple POVs, the story is told in a few different timelines - the past, which was when the girls were kids, the present when they are dealing with the shocking discovery, and an unknown timeline/narrator during which an unnamed character is talking with her therapist. Believe it or not, this bouncing around didn’t feel frustrating one bit; in fact, I really liked being able to compare the timelines and characters in this way. I will say that I did not care for one of the sisters (Jessica) at all in the beginning of the book, but I totally came around to her and genuinely loved all three of our protagonists.

This book invokes some pretty heavy themes and imagery when it comes to children in the foster system, so definitely google the trigger warnings if that sounds like it might be a problem. But if you love psychological thrillers with some murder and secrets, this book will be right up your alley! I really enjoyed it and am thankful that I got to both read and listen to the ARC as both versions are awesome!

This is my second read by Sally Hepworth and was much darker than The Soulmate. It gave me the same grim unsettled feeling as 'The Push' by Ashley Audrain or 'Then She Was Gone' by Lisa Jewell.

The story is told through the POVs of three sisters (Jessica, Norah, and Alecia) who grew up at Wild Meadows foster home. A body was found under the house and the sisters are plunged back into facing their past as detectives interview them for clues. What happened at Wild Meadows? It's a heartbreaking story of survival.

Hepworth does an excellent job showing inside each characters headspace. I felt connected to all three sisters and it was a rollercoaster of emotion. There were a couple parts plugged in that made me LOL and I appreciated them so much for breaking up some of the tension. This is a heavy story dealing with topics ranging from child abuse, neglect, and addiction.

I received an advanced review e-copy St. Martins Press via NetGalley. I am leaving an honest review voluntarily.

Jessica, Norah and Alicia grew up in a foster home and consider themselves sisters into adulthood. When each woman gets a call from Detective Patel, they are asked to relive the trauma that they experienced as children to assist in solving the mystery of a body found under the foster home. As the book alternates between the current lives of the women and their traumatic past at the hands of their foster mother, secrets are revealed and the police begin to question whether they are victims or guilty.
I have really enjoyed this author in the past and found this thriller to be equally entertaining. All three of the women were flawed in different ways, presumably because of Miss Fairchild’s abuse. Miss Fairchild was wacky enough to make the story even more interesting and the twists were surprising but not over the top. It was interesting to hear her story by means of therapy sessions and I liked this creative touch as an addition to the main plot. Nicely wrapped up in the end.

This book was such a wild and disturbing ride. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so hooked on a book and so disturbed at the same time. I wasn’t even sure how to rate it. But the fact it disturbed me so much is why I rated it lower. The child abuse was a bit too much for my liking, and wasn’t necessary. There were so many twists and turns in this book that I didn’t see coming. It’s a super fast read! If you’re a fan of dark mysteries, you would most likely enjoy this one!

Thank you Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the thriller so much. Hepworth has a way of grabbing her readers and sucking them into her book. I loved the twists she threw in and I swear I had the entire plot figured out - well I didn't! Loved this book so much.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy.


This might be an author that is an auto read author now. There are multiple povs and timelines that come together nicely with twists and all.

Rating: 4/5

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia became self assigned sisters after enduring a grueling foster care experience together. Their caretaker, Miss Fairchild, was an erratic woman with a penchant for privately abusing the girls in a myriad of ways. Now adults, the three “sisters” bond is stronger than ever. Still, they’ve never been able to completely shake their tumultuous upbringing, its aftermath manifesting differently in each woman’s life.

So when bones are found underneath their old foster home, more than the bones themselves become unearthed. United as always, the women journey back to the town that made them who they are, for better or worse, to not only clear their names, but to get some answers.

Darling Girls was a riveting read from Aussie thriller master, @sallyhepworth. While this was a hard read in multiple spots, I did find it engaging and well written. Any horrors of foster experience aside, this fast paced novel also inadvertently serves as a testament to strong female bonds and the notion that family is who, and what you make it.

I have enjoyed Sally Hepworth books that I have read in the past, but I wished this book pushed the envelope a little further. I wanted more time when the ladies were younger—taking care of the babies, how they finally left, what their school life was like. But I also wanted more time with the ladies in the present time—maybe see how they transitioned into relatively normal lives after living in such a horrible home. It had a lot of potential, but I just wanted more.

Five stars

Sally Hepworth delivers another suspenseful domestic thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat - especially when you get to the psychiatrist chapters and try to piece together who is telling that story. The story is told in both past and present from 4 POVs - Jessica, Norah, Alicia, and an unnamed narrator.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are sisters - not by blood, but by choice. They were all foster children under the care of Miss. Fairchild. Miss. Fairchild uses both physical and psychological abuse to manipulate the girls. While they escaped the clutches of Miss. Fairchild in their early teens, all three are left with lasting scars that impact them during adulthood. They have to go back and face their childhood when the cops inform them that bones were found under the home they once lived in. Whose bones are they and who is the killer?

Hepworth expertly switches between the past and the present to craft the narrative. Each of the women were impacted differently by their childhood and it comes across in their personalities as adults.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you so much to Sally Hepworth, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the eARC of Darling Girls!

Darling Girls follows the story of three girls that grew up in foster care. From the outside, Wild Meadows looked perfect and Miss Fairchild seemed like the most wonderful caregiver. However, as we all know, things are not what they seem… Years later, the sisters are shocked when they receive a phone call that something has been found under Wild Meadows. The girls go back to Port Agatha to assist in the investigation, and the reveal is shocking.

If there’s one thing Sally Hepworth knows how to do, it’s deliver a SHOCKING ending. This book had me on the edge of my seat until the VERY last page!

I thought Darling Girls was a really good story. It was interesting to read about Jessica, Norah, and Alicia – to learn about their childhood and how they came to live with Miss Fairchild. And while I enjoyed learning about them and getting to know them, I felt this story was missing the mystery and the twists and turns that I’ve come to expect from a Sally Hepworth. I should have known better. The story definitely threw me for a loop in the end.

Somehow every book by this author is my new favorite! Wow this book was twisty and twisted! I couldn’t put it down. These characters were so well written and complicated.

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth might be her best book yet.

"Jessica, Norah and Alicia grew up on a farm estate. Their foster mother, Mrs. Fairchild, had rules and punishment if her rules were broken. The girls managed to get away and never saw her again. Now a body has been found buried under the house. And the police have questions..."

This story is told through multiple POVs and dual timelines. Hepworth gets you invested in every sister and yelling at Mrs. Fairchild. As adults, each sister has something they struggle with - almost as if they're anti-heroes. There's also a separate POV that Hepworth doesn't reveal 'til near the end. I like to see characters grow and change.

There's are several surprises and twists at the end. And one big one at the very end (you won't guess it)

Great story from Hepworth.

Thank you to @stmartinspress @macmillianaudio & @netgalley for the ARC & ALC of Sally Hepworth’s latest!

I flew through this book on audio in TWO spurts! The emotion in how the narration was done, by Jessica Clarke, definitely kept me intrigued!

Told in alternating points of view & switching between the past and the present, Darling Girls focuses on themes of sisterhood, family dynamics, foster care & challenging upbringings. Situations occur that prompt the characters to have to revisit what they endured as children in foster care, under the care of Miss. Fairchild.

I enjoyed this book - as it kept a good pace, which is so important with thrillers! It also gave lots of detail and really set the ground work for the relationship between the main characters. The depth that Hepworth gives to her characters is profound & really helps readers to wrap their heads around the dynamics that come in their interactions & sisterhood.

With twists, turns & even twistier characters, Darling Girls is a combination of thriller and mystery, making it bingeable & entertaining to listen to!

4 ⭐️

Foster sisters, Alicia, Norah and Jessica, escaped their unstable and predictably unpredictable foster home only to be summoned back years later when a body is found under the house. Old memories resurface and the lasting impact of their trauma is evident in different ways for each sister. Can they heal old wounds while facing their past and trying to find answers?

I really liked this book! It gets dark at times and the first half was slow-moving - it took me a bit to get into, but I flew through the last half at nap time lol. The characters were all interesting and it tackled really sensitive topics (check the trigger warnings). I loved the alternating POVs, switching from past to present and the sisters’ relationships. Would definitely recommend!