Little Darlings

Little Darlings is a creepy, engaging, hair-raising tale, one which I was happy to review. The addition of the dark fairy folklore regarding twins made this novel so much more sinister.

A new mother’s worst nightmare is the premise of Little Darlings.

Lauren Tranter is the new mother of twin boys, Morgan and Riley. She’s overwhelmed, experiencing postpartum depression and if that wasn’t enough, one of the nights while she’s still at the hospital, a young woman with twins wants to exchange/take her babies. Lauren runs away and hides in the bathroom and calls the cops. Of course, no one can find the woman and her babies. They all think it was Lauren hallucinating. She’s tired, she was given medications during delivery so the conclusion is that she was imaging the whole event.

DS Jo Harper reviews the report the next morning and something about the event pushes her to meet Lauren and to further investigate it. Jo believes Lauren. She knows something happened to Lauren at the hospital. Sadly, her boss doesn’t agree with her and using the police resources is not something he wants to agree on. Jo doesn’t want to leave the case and she starts using her own free time to follow some leads.

Then the worst happens. While on an outing with the babies a month after they were born, Lauren falls asleep on a bench and when she wakes up, her babies are gone. Jo is called to help with the kidnapping. She finds the twins but when they returned them to Lauren, she shockingly screams that they’re not hers!

I liked both Lauren and DS Jo Harper. It was interesting not knowing if Lauren was imagining it all or if it was real. The folklore at the beginning of every chapter really helps with the eeriness. Jo had her own reasons for investigating the case involving babies and she tried her best to help Lauren.

Little Darlings reads itself. The whole story was spooky. It had my attention from beginning to end.

I heard this could become a movie. Perfect script for one.

Cliffhanger: No

4/5 Fangs

I recently read a great book called Little Darlings by Melanie Golding. This story is part thriller, part mystery with a bit of horror thrown in for good measure. Lauren and Patrick have just had twin sons, Riley and Morgan. One night in the hospital Lauren meets a creepy, insistent woman with two children who wants to swap babies. The next day, the odd lady is gone and the staff maintains they know nothing about this unusual patient. After it happens repeatedly and the strange woman actually physically grabs Lauren, the police are involved. Even after Lauren takes her new children home, the strange woman reappears. But being a new mom, under stress and completely exhausted, Lauren quickly becomes an unreliable narrator and the reader doesn’t know who to believe, especially when the police woman working on the case finds evidence that Lauren might be telling the truth. This becomes even more complicated when Lauren falls asleep while resting after pushing a double stroller through a riverside park. She wakes to find the babies and stroller missing. The children are quickly found, still in the stroller, looking the same and unharmed but the new mom knows they are not her children.

This story is creepy, atmospheric, and engaging from page one. It moves quickly to a satisfying end staying on topic the whole way, making the book impossible to put down. While I think many of us love psychological thrillers this one may hit home with more people. Thankfully, not many of us have a spouse that kills for sport but oh so many readers are new moms, full of doubt, questions and very low on sleep. This book plays on all those experiences that are so common making this story one to really send a shiver up your spine.

If you are ready for a twisty, suspenseful read, this is a great one. Needless to say, if you are about to deliver your own little bundle of joy, don’t pack Little Darlings in your hospital bag.

This book started out well — I thought it was brilliant that the author has delved into ancient tales about evil faeries to construct this novel. Unfortunately, as the story goes on the whole plot fell apart for me. First of all, the characters are flat. We never really get to know Lauren and her (eventually rather awful) husband Patrick. The policewoman, Jo Harper, is the most rounded of the characters. At the end of the book the author thanks her editors and others, and for the life of me, I cannot understand that they did not see the holes in the plot …

Is Lauren psychologically unstable? She seems so, but more so at the start of the story than later on, when she’s in a mental facility, drugged out of her mind. Why does Patrick seem to be loving and protective, and then, keeping up appearances for Lauren, seems to be a liar, dishonest, and probably unfaithful? Why would the fairies/faeries want to steal Lauren’s twins, only to actually want them back? Why does Jo Harper become almost obsessed by a 125 year old skeleton from the lake (which could be haunting Lauren), when we know such a discovery would not really interest the police much?

In any case, if you want an excellent synopsis, (with spoilers), but spelling out the weakness of this tale, read the two-star review by N. Ahyee. It’s very comprehensive and contain all my own objections against this story.

Worst of all, the ending leaves us up in the air. Poor helpless Lauren, the mother, is a victim — but it seems she will never get out of the mental institution. Very unsatisfactory ending.

The best stories are the ones that find you burdened by a heavy emotional attachment to the characters, and thoroughly invested in their ensuing trajectory. Little Darlings plays on some of our darkest fears, with artful prose and an uncanny understanding of the human condition.

Id been patiently (ok, a little impatiently) waiting for this one and it did not disappoint! Something tells me well be seeing a lot more from this talented author – I truly hope so anyway!

I haven’t read for over 10 years due to becoming poorly and having no concentration.
This is the first book I have read and wow, I couldn’t have picked a better book!
This is fantasticly wrote. If I were to write a book it would be just like this.
I can’t stop telling people about it.
I do wish I knew what happened to the characters at the end but I guess that’s for me to decide.
I will be watching out for this lady’s next novel that’s for certain.

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