Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth

First a disclaimer: I have no experience or personal knowledge of the foster care system, much less that of Australia, so I won’t be commenting on it. I have no idea if this novel perpetuates false and/or negative stereotypes or perceptions regarding foster care. I just know it’s a captivating story.

This book was great! I had no idea who the body was, all the way to the end. As a thriller it was tame, and the focus was more on the women than the mystery, so I’d agree with NetGalley and describe it as more women’s fiction or mainstream fiction than mystery or thriller, as Goodreads would have you believe.

I found all three women likeable, which is a feat since Jessica and Norah (with an H!) aren’t necessarily upstanding; being a victim of abuse and product of trauma doesn’t excuse bad behavior, only provides a possible explanation. But the unfavorable aspects of their personalities were part of their development and arcs, and by the end you’re happy for them.

Norah was somehow my favorite; I’m baffled, really, because she was the least relatable to me and debatably the least likeable. But she was also the quirkiest and a dog lover, and her service dogs chicanery was hilarious. Perhaps also it’s that we tend to love the characters who are tough on the outside, soft on the inside. That’s Norah.

I can’t actually think of a reason to not like Alicia. I admire that she pursued a career in social work after what she experienced and threw all the compassion she possessed into it. She didn’t become cynical or hard. Her ending was very satisfying.

I feel more could have been done with Jessica. One, I wish we’d had a bit more of a denouement for her. She went to rehab and repaired her relationship with Phil, who’s almost unbelievably patient and selfless, which is all great, but I don’t recall hearing what happened with the pill thieving and thus her career. If it’s there and I missed it, apologies and ignore me. It feels like a missed opportunity that she didn’t film her organizing work and make a secondary YouTube career out of it. People love watching that stuff. Then there could have been a social media aspect to haunt her. But I suppose that would have all been beside the point.

Miss Fairchild is an excellent reason why foster parents should undergo extensive background checks and psych evals if they don’t already. I’m surprised and a little confused that more wasn’t made of the deaths of her mom and John? It said she was a foster parent only ten years after the deal with her baby, so she would have been only about 25, and her mom and John died in that time, because she wouldn’t have come back to live at the house otherwise. They would have still been relatively young, like middle-aged. How did they die? I half expected she’d killed them, but nothing was said about it.

Scott was human filth and the cops were dumb. Or lazy. Or both. I was also surprised they didn’t compare the DNA of the bones to Miss Fairchild to confirm her story and the body’s identity. They just took her word for it? A known liar and abuser? But I guess that fits with their habitual incompetence in the story.

Overall, this was a very engaging tale. I sympathized with the women—even Miss Fairchild, to a point—and was impressed by how Hepworth cleverly coordinated her plot reveals to become known simultaneously in both the “before” and “now” timelines. The pace was steady, and the ending happy, which I needed.