Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read and review Darling Girls audiobook.
Three foster children are brought back to the town where they were raised in foster care. Bones were found under their foster home after it was demolished. They must dig through their past, that they’ve tried to forget, to help with the ongoing investigation.
This book was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. The characters were very well developed and likable. The narrator was wonderful and fit this book perfectly. From beginning to end I couldn’t stop listening to this book. There were unpredictable twists and turns throughout the book. This is my first book from this author and I can’t wait to read more of her work. Read this book, you won’t be disappointed!

It was an interesting book. I like the emphasis of abusive foster care system, and internalized trauma that adults carry because their venerable childhood was shattered. Especially when foster parents put more efforts into keeping façade that actually caring for children. Here there was interesting psychological portrait of three foster sisters who survived abusive and narcissistic caregiver. My main problem with this book didn't come with its concept, but rather with lack of depth. I felt like the author pushes boundaries, but enough to brush them gently like with feather and then just move on, instead staying there for a moment and explore what this actually mean. And I understand, that we as an audience to this story, should come to some conclusions on our own, but because of that the ending came out to be shallow and nonsensical. Overall this is yet another companion audiobook to keep you engaged but just enough to have you doing something else in a meantime, otherwise you get bored super quickly.

Oh, Sally Hepworth. Not typically a thriller gal, I end up reading thrillers if they're by her. Darling Girls was a bit slow to start and, to be honest, I had no clue where it was going until the very end. I found the ending satisfactory and enjoyed the mystery, but my favorite part of the story was the relationship between the sisters, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia.

The sisters are not biologically related but became sisters during their time with foster mother Miss Fairchild, a seemingly loving, but abusive woman. When they finally broke free of Miss Fairchild, they thought they were free of her. Years later, detectives come knocking, letting the sisters know that bones were found under the house they spent so many contentious years.

The audio was engaging. I love listening to thrillers because it's like a true crime podcast. A winding mystery, this thriller keeps you on your toes and wondering what twist will come next. I enjoyed it!

Love, love, LOVED this one! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was perfect with voices and inflections. The dynamics between the characters was interesting and I loved the twisty webs of plots woven into each other. Highly recommend!

Darling Girls was an addicting suspense novel. The nail biting twists and turns paired with the multitude of narrators caused this book to be a real page turner. If you’re looking for great twists and wit, this is the novel for you.

Great listen! Told from multiple points of view which always makes for good listening. Be aware of trigger warnings. Solid 4 stars

This little gem needs no introduction. Released last year in Australia, it’s now been released in the US.

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

Three girls, all from the foster system end up living together at Wild Meadows, a farm run by Miss Fairchild. There, they develop a sisterly relationship tying themselves to each other with a bond stronger than a blood. After discovering a body was found under the house they were raised in, past and present collide as they come to terms with the brutality of their upbringing.

Ahhh, Sally never lets me down and Darling Girls is no different. A little darker than her previous books but with the familiar twists and turns and sharp focus on families and women as we’ve come to expect, with another stellar domestic thriller. Ooh, and an ending that’s simply mind blowing! 🤯

If you’re after an unputdownable book that’s easy to read and transport you away, grab this one - you won’t be disappointed.

Huge thanks to @macmillanaus for an early copy 💌 and the wonderful team @macmillanaudio for the totally immersive audiobook 🎧 read beautifully by Jessica Clarke 😍

If you don’t follow Sally you should! Currently in the US to promote Darling Girls for its recent publication, her stories are hilarious. One of the most down to earth Aussie authors showing the world how she travels … one funny step at a time - and she’s a snack! 🤩😂 #snackgate #laundrygate #iykyk

I wanted so much to like this but I found myself a bit confused at times. Also, at one point I just truly lost interested it took a while to finish it. Perhaps reading it would've been better than audiobook. I wish the author much success with this book.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

Darling Girls was a WILD RIDE! I loved it so much! The audio was fantastic!! The book was incredible and it was one of the best thriller books I have read in long time! Let’s start by saying, screw you Miss Fairchild. She is one evil, evil person. If there is one MESSED UP character, it is her! Wacked. I’m not sure I have too many more words for her. She angers me. 😅 The foster girls, Norah, Jessica, and Alicia had all of my sympathy. No one believed them and I knew growing up, they would have issues. Being brainwashed their entire life, they were continuously told they were the lucky ones. Their entire life was a lie.

I enjoyed the dual timeline a lot. It was easy to follow back and forth. After bones to a child were found under the home the girls grew up in, they were thrown back into their past. Does anyone believe them or is this finally their time to find revenge?

This is a multi-layered story focused on three foster sisters growing up on a farm estate under the care of Miss Fairchild. Years later, a body is discovered buried under this estate and the 3 sisters are interviewed, reopening old wounds and revealing hidden mysteries about their time with Miss Fairchild. Amongst the variety of confessions lies the real truth, but you will have quite a ride to endure to sort through this tangled, tragic tale. Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

Thank you so much to MacMillan Audio for the complimentary audio!

This book is out NOW!

This is my 3rd Sally Hepworth and probably my favorite of them. There were so many layers to this and it kept you guessing until the very end. I think it good have been shortened a little bit as the middle dragged.

I had thought it was going to go one way but it ended up going another. We got a peek inside the past lives of these characters and learned what it was like growing up in the foster care system and how it shaped them for their future.

The narrator Jessica Clarke was great but I did find it challenging with her having to do all 3 point of views. I wish we would have gotten other narrators for all the girls. I think it would have helped to distinguish the characters more.

Overall I really enjoyed this!!

3.75

I loved Darling Girls. Sally Hepworth always delivers with rich characters and dark, dreamy suspenseful plots. Darling Girls is no exception as she tells the story of the girls in their foster home in the past and what they learn in the present. It had some good Aussie flavor and delightful characters. Great book!

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth is a thriller that follows three foster sisters: Jessica, Norah, and Alicia. The story alternates between then and now, and also cycles through different narrators. Honestly, this book overall was a difficult listen for me, but let me focus first on what I enjoyed.

I loved the narrator of the audiobook; she brings emotion and believability to her reading of the story. I loved the relationship between the foster sisters, who are very well-developed characters. I loved reading of the bond they formed as children in a foster home and the support and encouragement they showed each other. In the present, they each have a separate story simmering in the background, which was probably my favorite part of the book.

Now, for the bad news: this book is filled with abuse. All the abuse. It is everywhere; it is not possible to skip over it or skim through it. So, while I enjoyed these characters and the overall story, Darling Girls wasn't really the right book for me.

I have read and enjoyed Sally Hepworth before, and I know I will be back for more Sally Hepworth in the future. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook.

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia spent several years together at the same foster home in Australia. Though not biologically related, they consider themselves sisters. A woman named Miss Fairchild raised them. Many years later, the body of a child is found under Miss Fairchild's home. The police want to interview the women to see if they know anything about this child. How much do they know and what secrets might they be hiding?

I enjoyed this story, though not as much as some of Sally Hepworth's other novels. This one was more of a study in psychology and human nature than a page-turning thriller. The audio narrator, Jessica Clarke, was enjoyable to listen to.

Note: There are trigger warnings for child abuse.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for a review copy of Darling Girls.

This thriller is expertly crafted, well paced, and downright addictive. While there are twists and turns, I didn’t find them too over the top. The characters are believable and complex—from the three foster sisters who are the main characters to the antagonist in the form of their foster mother.

The story is told from multiple viewpoints spanning past and present, which could have been confusing but wasn’t! I love stories told this way, and this one was particularly engaging for me—even as it was completely horrifying at times.

Jessica Clarke’s audio performance is truly compelling, and she deftly renders the various characters so that they are identifiable without making them caricatures.

Full review posted on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6430857936

This is my first novel by Sally Hepworth and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Darling Girls is the captivating story of Jessica, Norah and Alicia who met as foster children in the home and care of Miss Fairchild, twenty-five years ago. Each of the girls has a sad story and by being together they bond forever.
Now they must return, at the request of the Police, as human bones have been found buried at Miss Fairchild's home.
With many twists and turns and a surprise ending Darling Girls is a haunting and unnerving mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an arc of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Three little girls find themselves in foster care in a picturesque farm home. They have been told they were lucky. Lucky to have a home, lucky to have Miss Fairchild as their foster mother. But, they are not lucky. There are so many things that are going on behind the scenes that create trauma that bonds the girls into sister closer than biology.

The book swings between the points of view of Jessica, Norah and Alisha, as well as the timeline of Then and Now. We also have an unknown narrator telling their story of loss and trauma.

The narrator, Jessica Clarke is absolutely incredible. The intones and emotion in her voice keeps you riveted to the story and know which sister you are listening to with subtly differences in cadence and tone.

An incredible thriller for fans of Sally Hepworth that will keep you digging for clues.

Three girls who met in foster care and became like sisters must confront the foster mother who abused them when a body is found under the house where they lived with her. Twists and turns, love and hate, the past and the future, the lies and the truth. All of this comes together in this fast-paced. read. I loved the narrator.

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

* Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for providing the ebook and the audiobook in exchange of a honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the best book I have read this year. I am a huge thriller lover and this one hit all the right spots. The sisters dynamics was amazing, I didn't had a clue what was going on and the end made me gasp because I really didn't see that coming. Amazing 🙌

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I hate Russian dolls. They seem nice at first but when you get to know them, they’re really full of themselves. Although she may look like Barbie on the outside, Miss Fairchild is the quintessential Russian doll and Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are the Darling Girls whose devotion she craves to fill her inner void. But how could a foster child, who already carried his or her own trauma, ever have room in their little hearts to love Miss Fairchild the way she needed to be loved?

Miss Fairchild: I care about you girls. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. I’ve worried about you. You had such a rough start to live. You probably won’t believe this, but I really did try to help you.

Jessica, Norah, Alicia: We know you tried: You tried isolating us, humiliating us, terrifying us.

She barely feeds them, she’s obsessed with cleanliness and makes them clean for hours every day. She drinks, roams the halls at night, and sometimes comes into their rooms and wakes them up. The cocktails of emotions the girls experienced when they hear mention of Miss Fairchild is overwhelming: Hot, spiky jealousy, followed by all-consuming guilt. Burning shame. Black resentment. Ice-cold melancholy. They had failed to live up to Miss Fairchild’s expectations, failed to be her everything.

When Miss Fairchild adopts a toddler who falls in love with the foster sisters, Miss Fairchild asks the child, How will you survive without your darling girls? Unfortunately, the baby disappears. Years later, bones are discovered beneath the foster home. Could they be baby Amy’s?

When Alicia, Norah, Jessica unite to testify, it’s like a sick, tragic book club whose meeting place–Wild Meadows–was too small to contain them as well as the intensity of their feelings–not to mention the questions that remained: whose is the body under the house? The three of them would do just about anything to protect each other. A lovely trait among sisters–but also a pretty powerful motivation to lie.

Dysfunctional sisters, criminal charges, a run-in with a monster of a former foster mother. Sally Hepworth’s Darling Girls is an absorbing aperitif of gratitude mixed with a little horror.