“Cherry LaRouche escaped the claws of Darling, Louisiana at sixteen. When she is forced to return after her mother’s death, Cherry and her children move back into her childhood home where the walls whisper and something sinister skitters across the roof at night. While Cherry tries to settle back into a town where evil spreads like infection, the bodies of several murdered children turn up. When Cherry’s own daughter goes missing, she’s forced to confront the true monsters of Darling.”
⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Publication Date: August 23rd 2022
Darling is not like any books that I have read before, and while it took a while to get to where it wanted to be, it was a good read in the end, and with the ending that it had, it was not at all what I expected.
Cherry LaRouche left Darling when she was younger, and as soon as she could, but after years away, she is drawn back after the death of her mother, with her childhood home how hers after the wishes of her late mother. Cherry never had a great relationship with her mother, which may be one of the reasons she left in the first place and never looked back.
After the death of her mother, Cherry was set on not going back to Darling to live in the house left for her, paid for a set amount of years, but an encounter with her creepy landlord changes her mind, and it seems that from then on, she can’t catch a break. She has two children, Jonah, her first born, with special needs, and Daisy, her youngest, and as we are introduced to the town of Darling, it doesn’t seem like the best place to raise children… Especially after bodies of missing children start to show up.
I feel like this book kept the same, steady pace throughout until the last handful of chapters, and during the slow pace, I did tend to find myself becoming confused with the story, and I don’t know if it was just me not following properly, or if it was intention on Yardley’s end; trying to incorporate Cherry’s past trauma of living in Darling into the current story of her living there. If it’s the latter, hats of to the author, they executed it well.
The last few chapters, like I previously said, took a completely different turn than those that came before it, and they were page turners, and I didn’t expect anything that I read towards the end. If you’re after something that keeps you guessing any possible outcome, Darling is the one for you!
Thank you to Black Spot Books for the advance copy!
Much love,
Tea Stains and Book Spines 