Title: LITTLE DARLINGS
Expected publication: 30 April 2019
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 all the stars!
Book Description:
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.
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.
My musings:
If you like a creepy mystery, and Melanie Golding’s debut
novel Little Darlings has not come to your attention yet, then I strongly
advise you to put it on your reading list right now! There is nothing better
than an urban myth to give a mystery that extra scary touch, and Golding has
gone one step further and has found various old legend to back up her story.
This creepy story had me utterly captivated, and even after finishing it I
could not shake off a slight feeling of unease that lingered in my room. Aren’t
those the mysteries of the best kind?
A young mother calls emergency services from the maternity
ward of the local hospital claiming that someone had tried to steal her newborn
twins, but noone believes her. A few weeks later, her babies go missing for a
short period of time when their sleep deprived mother briefly nods off on a
park bench whilst out walking. They are quickly located, but their mother is
convinced that these are not her babies. Everyone thinks she is crazy, but is
she?
I love mysteries where it is never clear if the MC is in
fact a bit crazy, imagining all the creepy things that are going on, or if
there is indeed something sinister at play. Little Darlings messed with my mind
in the best possible way. Yes, there is a certain supernatural element that may
seem far-fetched to some readers, but I found it utterly compelling. Especially
the premise that Lauren is convinced her babies are in danger, but everyone
thinks she is crazy. Imagine how terrifying and frustrating this must be! I
still vividly remember the constant fog of tiredness I operated under after the
birth of my first child, and how after weeks of sleep deprivation my mind
started playing tricks on me. So is Lauren really just a bit paranoid? Her
story does seem a bit far fetched ...
Golding knows how to plant a seed of doubt in the reader’s
mind very early on, which resulted in a constant sense of menace and danger
that made me snuggle deep under my covers and jump at every noise in the
darkness out there. The chapter introductions, featuring some old legends and
urban myths, only served to ratchet up tension as they lent an aura of
mysticism to the story. I still remember sitting in my grandma’s kitchen as a
child whilst the old women talked about such things. Perhaps this is why this
story evoked such primal terror in me. Whatever it was, it really worked, and I
am putting Little Darlings on my list of best eerie mysteries! Very highly
recommended to anyone who loves a creepy folk tale wrapped into the folds of a compelling
contemporary mystery as much as I do.
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