Thursday 9 May 2019

Review - Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

Little Darlings by Melanie Golding
Publisher: HQ 
Release date: 2 May 2019
Back cover blurb: THE TWINS ARE CRYING. THE TWINS ARE HUNGRY. LAUREN IS CRYING. LAUREN IS EXHAUSTED. Behind the hospital curtain, someone is waiting . . . Lauren is alone on the maternity ward with her new-born twins when a terrifying encounter in the middle of the night leaves her convinced someone is trying to steal her children. Lauren, desperate with fear, locks herself and her sons in the bathroom until the police arrive to investigate. When DS Joanna Harper picks up the list of overnight incidents that have been reported, she expects the usual calls from drunks and wrong numbers. But then a report of an attempted abduction catches her eye. The only thing is that it was flagged as a false alarm just fifteen minutes later. Harper's superior officer tells her there's no case here, but Harper can’t let it go so she visits the hospital anyway. There's nothing on the CCTV. No one believes this woman was ever there. And yet, Lauren claims that she keeps seeing the woman and that her babies are in danger, and soon Harper is sucked into Lauren's spiral of fear. But how far will they go to save children who may not even be in danger?


Little Darlings was a little different to the novel that I was expecting, but that’s not to say that I enjoyed it any less.

Lauren Tranter is the exhausted mother of newborn twins, Morgan and Riley. She is alone on the maternity ward in the middle of the night, when she has a terrifying encounter that leaves her believing her children are in danger of being abducted.

A traumatic birth, a near death experience and the exhaustion and anxiety of being a new Mother are blamed for her 999 call to the Police. Hospital security investigate and the Police are stood down, as the hospital blame the incident on Lauren's post birth mental health.

When she arrives to work the following morning, DS Joanna Harper wonders if there is more to the call than initially thought, and decides to investigate further. When she visits Lauren in hospital, she is intrigued by Lauren's story, and reviews the CCTV footage of the night.

There is nothing there.

But Harper cannot let the case go. Lauren's story was too convincing, her fear too real, for it not to be true.

When Lauren is released from the hospital and allowed home with her babies, she feels safe for a while. Until she believes that she sees the abductor from the hospital again, and that this time she has definitely come for the twins.

Little Darlings is part thriller, part Grimm style fairy-tale and borderline supernatural. I don't usually enjoy this type of novel, but I loved this one.

Little Darlings is available now via Amazon online and all good book shops.

Thank You to the publishers who approved my request via netgalley in exchange for an honest review.