'DARLING GIRLS'.....FOSTER CARE ABUSE VICTIMS GO BACK TO A SCENE OF A CRIME ...(*****)

 Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth (2024)

         Psychological domestic thrillers don't get much better than this. And the 'domestic' part of this one involves three women, the 'Darling Girls', who together suffered terrible childhood abuse at the hands of their monstrous foster mother.

         Now grown women and bonded together as much as blood related sisters, Jessica, Norah and Alicia still struggle to cope in various ways with the trauma of their upbringing. Jessica's career as a 'home organizer' is jeopardized by her drug addiction. Norah can hardly control her impulses for anger and violence. And family social worker Alicia can't find any measure of happiness for herself as she tries to find fostered children homes where they'll never encounter the horrors she endured.

        All of them, in different ways, were forever damaged by their time spent in the care of the odious Miss Fairchild, a deceptively benevolent woman. Her home's a spacious farm, complete with swimming pool and barn for horses. But Miss Fairchild, once she drops her false mask of normality, is a real life, flesh and blood Wicked Stepmother straight out of the darkest fairy tales. And the amount of emotional and physical abuse she inflicts on the three girls finally brings them to the breaking point of going to the authorities.

        Years later, the three women have been summoned back to the town of their former foster home. Police would like to question them about skeletal remains found buried on the farm grounds, and every miserable memory of that place comes flooding back to them.......especially with the return of their hated and feared nemesis Miss Fairchild, who exists in her own self-contained bubble of thinking she's never done anything wrong.

          This is easily one of the most compelling thrillers I've read so far this year. There's no shortage of shocking, disturbing twists right up the very last pages and author Sally Hepworth, constantly breaks your heart and fuels your anger on behalf of her three lead characters. I stood in complete awe of how the final wrap-up is handled, with a skilled mixture of surprise, heartfelt empathy......and dread. For every reader who can't enough of this genre, this one's a must read.

            5 stars (*****). Put this one high on your '-summer 'must' list.