While Lauren plots a way to get her own babies back, Jo discovers that a similar case happened 40 years before. Maybe there is someone stalking her? But when the babies are recovered and Lauren immediately tries to drown them in the river, she's institutionalized, raving about how they are no longer her boys. Everyone, that is, except for Joanna Harper, a detective sergeant who tends to follow her instincts and ask permission from superiors later. When she once again reports a sighting of the strange woman outside her house, everyone assumes she's hallucinating. Back at home with the babies, Lauren drifts through her days in a haze of sleeplessness and constant breastfeeding, barely leaving the house and receiving little help from her husband. She’s suddenly assaulted by a grotesque woman, who hisses, “I’ll take yours and you can have mine.” When security finds no sign of another person in Lauren’s room, she’s taken for an evaluation. Is she mentally ill, or are there darker forces at work in Golding’s debut novel?ĭrowsing on the maternity ward with her newborn twins, Lauren Tranter hears a sinister voice singing.

Just to be safe.A new mother in England's Peak District faces a dire threat to her children from someone only she can see. But if she’s wrong about what she saw…she’ll be making the biggest mistake of her life.Ĭompulsive, creepy, and inspired by some of our darkest fairy tales, Little Darlings will have you checking-and rechecking-your own little ones.

As everyone around her celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies.ĭetermined to bring her true infant sons home, Lauren will risk the unthinkable. The infants look like Morgan and Riley-to everyone else. But when they’re found, something is different about them. And one bright summer morning, the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. Everyone, from her doctor to her husband, thinks she’s imagining things.Ī month passes. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. 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. And they’re right with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. “Mother knows best” takes on a sinister new meaning in this unsettling thriller perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman, Grimms’ Fairy Tales, and Aimee Molloy's The Perfect Mother.Įveryone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest.

Little darlings melanie golding