Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

☆☆☆☆
Kindle Edition, 304 pages
Expected publication: April 30th 2019 by Crooked Lane Books
About the Book:
Everyone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take her babies and replace them with her own…creatures. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. Everyone, from her doctor to her husband, thinks she’s imagining things. A month passes. And one bright summer morning, the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. But when they’re found, something is different about them. The infants look like Morgan and Riley―to everyone else. But to Lauren, something is off. As everyone around her celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies. Determined to bring her true infant sons home, Lauren will risk the unthinkable. But if she’s wrong about what she saw…she’ll be making the biggest mistake of her life. Compulsive, creepy, and inspired by some our darkest fairy tales, Little Darlings will have you checking―and rechecking―your own little ones. Just to be sure. Just to be safe.

This is the debut book by this author and I am officially wowed. This is a book about love in all its incarnations. What love means in a mother/child relationship and the complications of life upon their love. The prose is delicious and lends to a quick read, the tale is horrible and commands immediate consumption. This book was well thought out and well written. There were lulls here and there, but for the most part, I couldn’t put it down.

This book is marketed as a mystery-thriller, but I think emotional angle was also a strength of the novel, as well as it being spooky. The story is so tragic and scary at the same time. I love that it has an almost sinister feel to it but also has those heartwarming moments worked in perfectly.

The character development was done nicely, I felt like I was living the story with the characters. The telling of this book’s story is jarring, emotional, and beautifully sad. The open ended nature is so perfectly frustrating in its delivery. I highly recommend this book to everyone who has even a shallow spoonful of empathy. It is such an important read.

Thank you NetGalley, Crooked Lane Books and Melanie Golding for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.

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