ROUTE: Aurora, IL to Brownstown, MI: 347 miles (320 loaded + 27 deadhead)
Thursday April 23rd, I started my day with a shower as the pickup appointment was only at 2:00pm. The shipper was nearby and it only took around 45 minutes. There was a little traffic and some road construction near their facility that always is more difficult when maneuvering a vehicle that measures seventy-four feet long. It was a live load which took around two hours. I left the shipper at 4:00pm. The drive should have been under six hours but there’s always traffic around Chicago and it took me nearly seven. I was instructed to bring the load to our terminal as delivery was scheduled for Monday, so I wouls relay to a Local Driver. I already had my next assignment to take a load to Memphis on Sunday. I arrived at our terminal at 11:30pm, fueled the truck and shut it down for the night.
BOOK REVIEW: Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth (2024), THRILLER – RATING (****)
If you like stories with a strong FMC this one has three!
Norah, Jessica and Alicia met at a foster home when little girls in their early teens. Miss Fairchild runs the home, Wild Meadows. She’s not completely heartless but has mood swings and treats them with certain cruelty. As adults the girls have completely different personalities but are bonded as sisters from their time as foster children. Norah, is prone to lash out violently especially with the men she dates and manipulates them to do her household shores in a quid-pro-quo relationship. Jessica is married and runs a successful business making homes more efficient. Alicia is a social worker.
Twenty-five years after they had left Wild Meadows they each get a call from a local police officer from the town where Wild Meadows is located. They are informed that human bones have been found under the foster house that Miss Fairchild had recently sold. They are asked to come by the police station to try to shed light on the case. All three are reluctant because they don’t want to bring back haunting memories of their time there.
There are side stories involving each of the three women that add color to the narrative. Also, there’s an ongoing therapy sessions with a fourth character that is not identified until the very end.
Entertaining and heartfelt. The ending puts all the pieces together with two final twists.
