Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

I received an ARC of Little Darlings from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Netgalley, for making me scared of twin babies.

Little Darlings is about Lauren, a new mother of twin boys, who becomes convinced that they are changelings after a brief abduction in a park. She is dismissed as delusional by everyone except for Detective Joanna Harper, who believes there may be some truth to her story.

I really enjoyed Little Darlings, and rated it 4 out of 5 stars. The prose was absolutely haunting; particularly the descriptions of the childbirth as well as Lauren's "hallucination" while in the maternity ward.

The premise of the novel was fascinating; usually books about changelings take place centuries ago, when changeling legends originated. They're also generally more concerned with faeries, rather than the very modern, suburban setting of Little Darlings. The town does have a very interesting past, though, which goes back to times when changeling legends may have been more prevalent; I think this ties together the modern and historical quite well without making the modern setting seem so far removed from changeling legends and faeries.

I also loved the unreliable narrator aspect of the plot. I love reading from the point of view of an unreliable narrator; however, I do find it a bit confusing at times, which is why I really liked the addition of Harper's point of view. Detective Harper's chapters provided clear insight into what was happening when Lauren wasn't present, as well as the background information about the previous set of abducted twins in the 1970's. Without this point of view, I think the story would've become muddled and confusing with only Lauren's perspective.

An interesting thing about Little Darlings is that it could easily go into either the paranormal or the mystery genre, depending on which point of view you are reading. It follows a fairly standard mystery plot, with a detective having point of view chapters as well as the main character(s), but it also very obviously contains elements of the supernatural, which are mainly present only in Lauren's point of view. I think this book would be good for anyone who likes the paranormal genre but wants to get into mysteries, or vice versa. As someone who loves both genres, I think Little Darlings covered everything I could want in either a mystery or a paranormal novel.

There are also quotes taken from changeling or faerie legends at the beginning of each chapter, which I really loved. I wish more books would do something similar to that, because I think it really adds to understanding.

But...there were still a couple of things I didn't like. I found the first few chapters to be a little hard to get into at first. They were mostly about Lauren giving birth to the twins and her first night or so with them in the hospital. The writing seemed to be kind of rambling, but that was probably because Lauren was on painkillers at the time.

I also really, really didn't like the subplot about Patrick being a horrible husband. I hated Patrick right from the beginning, when he was making Lauren do all the work so he could get a good night's sleep. I know he's meant to be unlikable, but, god, what kind of father and husband does that? I'd divorce him right then and there. Anyway, I think that his whole subplot with Natasha was pointless. I already hated him enough for acting the way he did; I don't think that the addition of Natasha was needed to make me dislike him more. That part of the plot, as well as Harper's constant back-and-forth about whether or not she liked Amy, and Harper's own pregnancy, just seemed like filler to me. I didn't like Amy, either. Harper deserves a lot better. And the fact that Harper's daughter was raised as her sister really had no bearing on the plot and wasn't mentioned after the first few of Harper's chapters.

Still, I really enjoyed Little Darlings...and I think there's potential for a sequel, or at least another standalone featuring Detective Harper. Fingers crossed!