Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

 

🌸 Book Review (Spoilers!): Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

⭐️ 4 out of 5 stars | Genre: Domestic Thriller / Psychological Fiction
🚨 Big spoilers ahead! If you want to be shocked by all the Amy-related reveals yourself, stop reading now!

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📍 Darling Girls — Twisty, Dark, and Totally Hooked Me

This book had me glued. I needed to know what happened at Wild Meadows. And let me tell you — Sally Hepworth delivered twist after twist after twist.

It’s dark, it’s layered, and it kept me guessing the whole time.

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🧵 The Full Plot — Clear on the Two Amys!

👧 The Foster Sisters

We meet Jessica, Norah, and Alicia — three foster sisters who grew up together at Wild Meadows.
➡ Their foster mother, Miss Fairchild, was absolutely awful.
➡ She emotionally and physically abused the girls and manipulated them in terrifying ways.

When they lived there, there was also a foster baby — a 2-year-old girl named Amy.
👉 The older girls adored her and felt responsible for protecting her.

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🚨 The First Big Twist

One day, the sisters decide to report Miss Fairchild to the police.
BUT — when they do?
➡ The police say there’s no Amy.
➡ No records. No trace of her ever existing.

What really happened?
Jessica, desperate for Miss Fairchild’s approval, secretly warned her that they were about to report her.
➡ Miss Fairchild made Amy disappear — and wiped out all evidence the baby ever lived with them.

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💀 The Present Day

Fast forward to now:
✔️ A child’s body is found buried at Wild Meadows.
✔️ The sisters — still close as adults — wonder if it’s their little Amy who vanished all those years ago.

Meanwhile, Miss Fairchild, now in prison, is spilling her “life story” to a prison psychologist… or so it seems.

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🧠 Miss Fairchild’s Story (The One She Tells)

Here’s what Miss Fairchild claims:
✔️ She was abused by her stepfather John growing up.
✔️ John molested her.
✔️ John got her pregnant. 
✔️ She had a baby — her biological baby, Amy — and tried to escape with the baby.
✔️ John killed baby Amy to punish her.

She says this trauma is what drove her to foster kids, and later illegally adopt.

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🤯 The True Final Twist

But that’s not the real story.

➡ John never molested Miss Fairchild.
➡ That original baby Amy wasn’t hers at all.
➡ Baby Amy was the child of John and Miss Fairchild’s mother — her baby sister.
➡ Miss Fairchild resented this baby for “stealing” attention.

One night, when left to babysit, Miss Fairchild killed her baby sister Amy.
👉 Her mother buried the body on the property and helped cover it up to protect Miss Fairchild.

Years later, Miss Fairchild named one of her foster babies Amy — the toddler the sisters knew — in some twisted, guilt-ridden attempt to recreate the sister she killed.

So the body found?
➡ It’s baby sister Amy — the first Amy.

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🧠 My Take

✅ I didn’t see any of this coming. Every twist hit me like a ton of bricks.
✅ Atmosphere was on point. Wild Meadows was haunting.
✅ Loved how the sisters stayed close despite everything.

❌ That final twist? Maybe one too many. It made me feel like Miss Fairchild dodged accountability for way too long.
❌ I almost wish it had stopped at the foster Amy reveal.

Still — I flew through this book.

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✨ Final Thoughts

I’m giving Darling Girls 4 out of 5 stars.

✔️ Dark, twisty, and unforgettable
✔️ A must-read if you love complicated family secrets
✔️ Be ready — it does not hold back

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📚 If You Liked This, Try:

🏚 The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell — creepy family mysteries
👭 The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth — dark sibling drama
🔪 Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell — another shocking missing-child tale

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🛒 Buy Darling Girls

👉 Get it on Amazon (affiliate link)

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💬 Let’s Talk!

Did you see those twists coming? Did the two Amy situation break your brain like it did mine? Drop a comment — I want to hear your thoughts!