Sally Hepworth Books: Reading Order & Personal Life

Every few months, a reader discovers Sally Hepworth the same way: someone hands them a domestic thriller with a twist they can’t stop talking about. The Australian author has published steadily since 2015, and a 2022 Sydney Morning Herald profile described her as the full-time worker in a family where her husband runs the home (Sydney Morning Herald profile).

Number of novels published: 9 (as of 2023) ·
New York Times Bestseller status: Multiple titles ·
Most famous novel: The Secrets of Midwives (2015) ·
Latest novel: Darling Girls (2023)

Seven facts from the record, one pattern: the public data is settled, and the uncertainty starts exactly where the personal questions begin.

In what order should you read Sally Hepworth books?

There is no official sequence, because every Hepworth novel is a separate story with its own cast. The cleanest approach is chronological by first publication, with one caveat: Australian release dates often run ahead of US editions, which is why the same title can carry two different years depending on the bookstore.

The mainstream publication sequence, reconstructed from reading-order databases (Book Series in Order’s author database), runs:

• The Secrets of Midwives (2015)
• The Things We Keep (2016)
• The Mother’s Promise (2017)
• The Family Next Door (2018)
• The Mother-in-Law (2019)
• The Good Sister (2020 in Australia, 2021 in the US)
• The Younger Wife (2021 in Australia, 2022 in the US)
• The Soulmate (2023)
• Darling Girls (2023 in Australia, 2024 in the US)

Some order pages add the earlier Love Like the French (2014) at the start, and a few already list Mad Mabel as a 2025 or 2026 title at the end (Wikipedia’s bibliography). Treat those as the unstable edges of the catalog.

Standalone novels vs series

• Every novel is a standalone story; no characters or plots carry over from one book to the next (Book Series in Order’s series notes)
• There is no series order to memorize, only a publication order
• You can begin anywhere without spoiling anything

Recommended reading order for beginners

• Start with The Secrets of Midwives if you like watching a writer find her voice
• Start with The Good Sister if you want proof of her skills before you commit to the backlist
• Jump to The Soulmate (2023) if you want the twist-driven recent style and don’t care about chronology

The pattern: the order question matters less for plot continuity than for watching her voice tighten from domestic fiction into sharper psychological suspense.

What is Sally Hepworth’s most famous book?

The title most often listed first, and the one most readers meet first, is the debut: The Secrets of Midwives (2015) (Most Recommended Books’ order list). It is also the book that established her habit of placing family secrets inside professional settings — midwifery, in this case.

Which book is considered her best?

• The Secrets of Midwives (2015): the most-listed first title and the standard entry point
• The Good Sister: the Ned Kelly Award winner and the strongest critical marker in her career
• The Soulmate (2023): the recent thriller that anchors current order lists

Awards and recognition

• The Good Sister won the Ned Kelly Award for best crime fiction in 2021
• Multiple titles have reached the New York Times bestseller list

Reader favorites and the best-book debate

If you search “best Sally Hepworth book,” you’ll mostly see The Good Sister and The Secrets of Midwives competing for first place, with The Soulmate and Darling Girls filling the next tier in recent lists.

The pattern: fame belongs to the debut, and the award belongs to The Good Sister — a rare split that tells you both books are worth your time.

The implication: a reader looking for a single answer will find two, which makes the choice a matter of personal preference rather than objective ranking.

Does Sally Hepworth have ADHD?

The honest answer is that no public source settles it. None of the interviews, profiles, or podcast descriptions gathered for this guide includes a statement from Hepworth confirming an ADHD diagnosis.

What has Sally Hepworth said about ADHD?

• No interview confirms a diagnosis
• No publisher bio mentions it
• The topic is absent from long-form profiles

ADHD speculation on social media

• Reader forums pair the term with her suspense novels, usually without evidence
• Speculation often assumes intense psychological fiction is autobiographical; that assumption is not proof
• The question keeps appearing in search engines, which tells you how persistent the association has become

Mental health and writing

Her novels repeatedly put mothers, sisters, and wives under extraordinary stress; that is the genre’s engine, and it does not require the author to have lived every version of it.

The catch: the ADHD question says more about reader curiosity than about the author’s medical history, and that distinction is exactly the one the record supports.

Did Sally Hepworth and her husband split?

The record has two clear phases. Through 2022, the marriage was intact: the Sydney Morning Herald profile that year described her husband as the CEO of the home. A 2026 episode description for the iHeart podcast Unleashed tells a more recent story, saying Hepworth discussed surviving her divorce, ended a 20-year marriage, and no longer believes marriage is a good deal for women (iHeart’s Unleashed episode description).

Current relationship status

• 2020 Booktopia profile: living in Melbourne with her husband, three children, and a dog
• 2022 Sydney Morning Herald: marriage intact, family roles clear
• 2026 podcast description: reports a divorce and a changed view of marriage

Family life in interviews

• Profiles consistently mention her three children in a protective, matter-of-fact way
• Her interviews keep the boundary between public career and private household unusually clean

The pattern: the confirmed part of her family life is well documented, while the post-2022 part rests on a single report — an asymmetry worth remembering whenever a headline turns a rumor into a fact.

How many books has Sally Hepworth written?

The commonly cited total is nine novels through the 2023 publishing cycle. Beyond that, the count depends on which lists are included: Most Recommended Books’ order list counts 12 titles in its 2026 reading-order list, folding in the earlier self-published title and newer listings.

Complete bibliography

• Love Like the French (2014) — appears on some order lists as an early title
• The Secrets of Midwives (2015) through Darling Girls (2023/2024) — the stable nine-novel run
• Mad Mabel (2025/2026) — listed on some order pages, not yet consistently confirmed

Year-by-year publication timeline

• 2015–2019: one novel each year
• 2020–2024: market-staggered releases as Australian and US editions split
• 2025–2026: no confirmed title in the sourced record, only order-list entries

Upcoming releases

Say “nine novels through 2023” and you’re on safe ground. Say “ten or more” and you’re trusting lists that run ahead of official publication.

The pattern: the stable count is well documented, but the boundary between catalog and speculation is exactly where the order-list dates start to diverge.

What is Sally Hepworth’s latest book?

The latest title the order lists consistently agree on is Darling Girls — 2023 in Australia, 2024 in some international markets, as the reading-order list above shows. In the sources gathered here, it is the endpoint of the stable catalog.

Plot summary of Darling Girls

• A domestic thriller centered on three sisters
• Published after The Soulmate (2023) in the mainstream sequence
• Described in order lists as the most recent full-length novel

Critical reception

• No review quotes are reproduced here because the cited record doesn’t include one
• The order lists consistently position Darling Girls as the current endpoint of her catalog
• Reader reception places it in the same conversation as The Good Sister and The Soulmate

What to watch: a newer title, Mad Mabel, is already showing up on some order pages, as noted earlier. If a publisher confirms it, it becomes the next true update to this guide.

The implication: Darling Girls is the confirmed latest, but the catalog is in motion the moment an order page adds a new entry.

Sally Hepworth’s books compared

Four of her most-discussed novels, one pattern: the debut is the standard entry point, and the post-2020 thrillers anchor every recent order list (Most Recommended Books’ ranking).

The trade-off: start with The Secrets of Midwives and you’ll see her develop; start with The Good Sister and you’ll see her peak first — the backlist will fill in the before-picture.

How to start reading Sally Hepworth

Five small steps make the backlist feel manageable, whether you’re planning a personal readathon or a book-club schedule.

1. Choose your entry point: The Secrets of Midwives for the arc, The Good Sister for the award
2. Read the 2015–2019 run in order to watch her craft tighten
3. Accept the market-staggered dates as a quirk, not a puzzle — the same book can land in Australia a year before the US
4. Skip freely: because every novel is standalone, nothing spoils anything
5. When you reach Darling Girls, check for publisher announcements before trusting any “new” title on an order site

Why this matters: the backlist is short enough to finish in a season, and the standalone structure means the only real mistake is letting the date confusion talk you out of starting.

Sally Hepworth’s career timeline

Eleven moments, one pattern: annual releases built her early career, then market-staggered dates stretched the rhythm.

The pattern: the first five novels arrived almost annually, then the rhythm loosened precisely when her international readership started demanding simultaneous releases in two markets.

What’s confirmed, what’s still rumor

The gap between what’s documented and what’s circulating is the real story of Hepworth’s online footprint.

• Sally Hepworth is an Australian author of domestic thrillers and suspense
• Nine novels were published through the 2023 cycle
• The Good Sister won the Ned Kelly Award, and multiple titles made the New York Times bestseller list

• ADHD diagnosis: no public confirmation exists
• Divorce after 2022: one podcast description reports it, but no printed profile has confirmed it
• Mad Mabel as a 2025/2026 release: listed on some order pages only
• “Best book” rankings: subjective and inconsistent across lists

The pattern: the confirmed list is built on awards, publication dates, and family basics, while the rumor list is built on speculation and a single podcast description.

Quotes from the record

Two voices define the public record: the author’s own, and the bookseller who documented her household.

“I’m the full-time worker and my husband is the CEO of the home.”

— Sally Hepworth, in a 2022 Sydney Morning Herald profile

“Living in Melbourne with her husband, three children, and a dog.”

— Booktopia’s Ten Terrifying Questions, 2020

The takeaway: these two quotes mark the boundary between what Hepworth says about herself and what others report about her — a boundary that matters more as the divorce rumors circulate.

Why the order still matters

The books are standalone, so no plot penalty awaits a reader who jumps around. The real cost of skipping the order is missing the transition from early domestic fiction to the sharper thriller writer who collects awards and keeps landing on bestseller lists. For a reader starting the backlist in 2026, the choice is clear: begin with The Secrets of Midwives and read forward to watch the craft sharpen, or open with The Good Sister and work backward to see where the confidence came from. For Australian readers, one extra step matters: check the local release date, because the home-market edition usually lands first.

The catch: the order question becomes a question about watching a writer’s evolution, not about plot continuity.

For those wanting to read her novels in the correct sequence, a detailed reading order guide provides a clear path through her growing bibliography.

Frequently asked questions