I received a copy of this book from Harper Collins in exchange for an honest review.

Sore and exhausted, Lauren is attempting to rest after a hard labour during which she gave birth to twin boys, when during the night she is visited by a sinister stranger who appears to be trying to take her newborns. Others convince Lauren she was seeing things, and eventually she returns home to care for her babies but she can't shake the feeling that somewhere out there someone is waiting, and her sons are in terrible danger.

This book was a fantastic, creepy read that left me a bit shake in all the best ways and a little bit scared to sleep with the lights off, From the very first chapter, this book had me hooked as we immediately met Lauren recovering from her labour and already she was a character we wanted to look after and root for. There was something really powerful for me in the image of an exhausted new mother alone in a hospital bed trying to figure out how to be a mother and then having to activate her protective stance almost immediately. I felt cold and uncomfortable picturing Lauren alone in the room, seemingly without much help or comfort from the nurses in the hospital.

My emotions quickly turned into anger and frustration as Lauren moved from the hospital to home and had to not only deal with her fussy twins but also an inept and selfish husband - which I'm sure is a feeling a lot of new mothers have to deal with and someone how swallow down! The way this was written and how Melanie Golding was able to really get all the emotions needed out of the reader was genius.

I did like the police officer in this book, though I wasn't expecting the chapters from her POV. And I could have done without the tope of the 'detective having personal history with the subject matter in the care' and that's why they care so much but I do think it was done fairly well here too. We did also have the stereotype of the immoral journalist who would do anything for her story which as a former journo I'm not and never a fan of but could deal with here.

Little Darlings perfectly tiptoes on the line between thriller and horror and you never really know when things are going to get a bit dark and grisly and a face might appear at the window. I loved the fact the reader had to decide what they thought was really going on - supernatural or post partum psychosis. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of tension.