Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Sisters by circumstance, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia survived foster care with Holly Fairchild in Sally Hepworth’s latest novel, Darling Girls, available April 23. Miss Fairchild, with her demanding rules and her unpredictable demeanor, psychologically scarred each of her charges. While social workers thought they had placed the children in good hands on a country estate called Wild Meadows in Port Agatha with horses and a swimming pool, they were so wrong.

Twenty-five years later, detectives from Melbourne are asking all three adult women questions about a body recently discovered when Miss Fairchild’s home was demolished. Bound together by misfortune, the women must face going back to Port Agatha to assist in the investigation, not sure if they are witnesses or suspects.

Jessica desperately craves the love she thought she was experiencing with Miss Fairchild until the other foster children came along. Norah struggles majorly with an intense anger that has landed her in trouble with the law as she has lashed out physically toward others. Alicia, who was only supposed to be a temporary placement while her grandmother was hospitalized, becomes a shadow of herself as she struggles to redeem her life by being a social worker who places children in foster homes.

Readers have come to expect twisty plots from author Sally Hepworth, and Darling Girls will not disappoint. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her family.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 24, 2024.

I would like to thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.