Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

Once again Hepworth has created an incredibly complex, can’t put down psychological thriller in which her characters, secretly traumatized from their childhood which has carried over into adulthood, must face their past once again and deal with the lives they created.

Jessica, Nora and Alicia have been bonded since their childhood living in a foster home. Although not real sisters in the sense of having the same parents, their history connected them forever.

They were each foster children who were taken in as young girls to the Wild Meadows foster home in which Miss Fairchild, a never married bitter woman was their “mother”. Clearly mentally unstable, she hid it well. But, unbeknownst to anyone, what was occurring in the home was not only physical but emotional torture. They lived in fear and were afraid to say anything. Miss Fairchild was brutal. Locking them in a basement, eating off floors and making them feel useless was a daily event. All they had was each other.

But finally, as teenagers, they were able to get away from her and start new lives, but through it all, remained sisters, still taking care of each other no matter what the situation they got into. Deep down, they never forgot what happened to them and of course it affected their lives in ways they perhaps were not completely aware.

Then unexpectedly they are each called by a detective from the small town where they grew up and were told that bones had been discovered under the Wild Meadows foster home. Their nightmare house. They needed to come back to they could be interviewed.

As they travel together to a town, they never wanted to step foot in again once they left, they tell us their stories about their childhoods and how they tried to protect each other, and we learn of their adult lives and what secrets they now have which were possibly deep down inside caused by what happened to them.

When they get there, they each relive the horror in their own ways, but more importantly they need to know whose bones were under the house. Are they to blame? Did they do something by leaving when they did that caused this to happen?

And as sisters they will come together and face the good, the bad and the ugly of their pasts and try if they could help figure out if they missed something or someone all those years ago.

Darling Girls will shake you to the core with its suspenseful story and stunning ending as we all discover the mystery of whose bones lay under the house where they found each other, but where their lives were changed forever.

Thank you #NetGalley #St.Martin’sPress #SallyHepworth #DarlingGirls for the advanced copy.