Special thank you to Crooked Lane Books for gifting me this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
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"She stared at the babies, and as she did, a smell of rotting river-weed filled her nostrils. The twins had been changed. She knew it in her soul."
“Little darlings. Lauren wished she was back in that life where the babies were her precious boys, the ones she’d given birth to, who were adored without condition. These ones, had the building been on fire, she would have happily stepped across to get away.”
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Although dubbed as a horror/mystery/thriller, I think this novel bears more resemblance to the genre of magical realism. While the premise of the book is completely and totally unsettling and creepy, I don’t think I would classify it as horror.
In Little Darlings, we find the main character of Lauren Tranter as a mother grappling with the overwhelming emotions that come with her new role in parenting not one, but two newborns. During Lauren’s first evening in the maternity ward, something horrifying and unexpected happens -- a woman seemingly tries to steal away Lauren’s newborns, wishing to replace them with her own creatures. A few other instances occur when Lauren witnesses this woman, with no one else to back up Lauren’s claims. This leaves the reader wondering if Lauren is suffering from postpartum depression, or if this sinister woman is more than a figment of Lauren’s imagination. When the twins disappear in the park one day, they’re ultimately found and returned to Lauren -- only they are not the same as they once were. Were they replaced with the creatures, or changelings, that the river woman had in her basket? While no one seems to be on Lauren’s side, Detective Jo Harper steps in to act on a hunch that there is more to this than her superiors believe.
It’s easy to see, right from the start, that Lauren is alone in this parenting gig, as her husband Patrick is quite self-absorbed and is a highly unlikeable character. As a reader, it’s easy to sympathize with Lauren and I think the author did a phenomenal job of capturing the raw emotions that accompany motherhood -- especially that of a new mother. The author also did an excellent job of crafting an unreliable narrator, keeping the reader guessing as to what was fiction and what was reality.
In the end, this was just an okay book for me. While there were some great elements to it, the ending was fairly lackluster and left me hoping for more.
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"She stared at the babies, and as she did, a smell of rotting river-weed filled her nostrils. The twins had been changed. She knew it in her soul."
“Little darlings. Lauren wished she was back in that life where the babies were her precious boys, the ones she’d given birth to, who were adored without condition. These ones, had the building been on fire, she would have happily stepped across to get away.”
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Although dubbed as a horror/mystery/thriller, I think this novel bears more resemblance to the genre of magical realism. While the premise of the book is completely and totally unsettling and creepy, I don’t think I would classify it as horror.
In Little Darlings, we find the main character of Lauren Tranter as a mother grappling with the overwhelming emotions that come with her new role in parenting not one, but two newborns. During Lauren’s first evening in the maternity ward, something horrifying and unexpected happens -- a woman seemingly tries to steal away Lauren’s newborns, wishing to replace them with her own creatures. A few other instances occur when Lauren witnesses this woman, with no one else to back up Lauren’s claims. This leaves the reader wondering if Lauren is suffering from postpartum depression, or if this sinister woman is more than a figment of Lauren’s imagination. When the twins disappear in the park one day, they’re ultimately found and returned to Lauren -- only they are not the same as they once were. Were they replaced with the creatures, or changelings, that the river woman had in her basket? While no one seems to be on Lauren’s side, Detective Jo Harper steps in to act on a hunch that there is more to this than her superiors believe.
It’s easy to see, right from the start, that Lauren is alone in this parenting gig, as her husband Patrick is quite self-absorbed and is a highly unlikeable character. As a reader, it’s easy to sympathize with Lauren and I think the author did a phenomenal job of capturing the raw emotions that accompany motherhood -- especially that of a new mother. The author also did an excellent job of crafting an unreliable narrator, keeping the reader guessing as to what was fiction and what was reality.
In the end, this was just an okay book for me. While there were some great elements to it, the ending was fairly lackluster and left me hoping for more.