My Darling Girls

Last year, I enjoyed Marina Scott’s novel, The Night Guests, and I was excited to read more from her. Today she releases her newest novel, My Darling Girls. Set between 1894 and 1904, this novel follows an opium-addicted widow named Jo. Since her husband’s death a year ago, Jo has taken over his photography business. But being a woman in the early 20th century, she gets few customers. Unfortunately, she has to accept some of the most grisly—yet best paying—gigs: photographing the dead. Jo can hear the dead speak, and when she takes the picture of a 15-year-old who just died, Jo is roped into solving her murder. There are a lot of secrets to wade through before she’ll uncover the truth.

What I Liked:

• Dealing with addiction. I don’t often read books in which the protagonist is actively grappling with an addiction, but here, it adds a dreamlike haze and makes the narrator a bit less reliable. Jo goes into drug-induced slumbers, often sleeping for a long time and having bizarre dreams. Her sense of time is off, and is the opium making her go crazy, or are dead people really asking her to solve a murder mystery?
• Seeing the dead and paying penance. Jo has been able to see dead spirits since an event years earlier, but she still fears them. Now she’s being asked to atone for her past sins, and revisiting her harshest memories is the only way for her to move forward. From humble beginnings to living a life she couldn’t have imagined, how did Jo get to where she is now?
• A mystery to solve. Fifteen-year-old Millie allegedly died due to a rapid sickness, but the girl’s spirit claims she was murdered. Who would kill a teenaged girl? What was the motive? Jo has a lot to figure out between Millie’s violent and dangerous relatives. They’re a known crime family, and Jo needs to watch her step in trying to uncover the true killer.
• So many secrets. The crime family has secrets; Jo’s husband had secrets; Jo herself is hiding more than anyone around her can imagine. I loved untangling the web of lies and half-truths. Some twists were shocking!

Audiobook:

Kristyna Zaharek narrates My Darling Girls, and her voice is absolutely absorbing here. The characters are each distinct, and the whole audiobook proved to be a quick and engaging listen. It took me only two days to get through this!

Final Thoughts

My Darling Girls is an atmospheric and gritty work of Gothic mystery. With its early-20th-century Chicago setting and themes of addiction, its feminist message and ghostly air, this is a perfect read for this time of year. I raced through this book and enjoyed every second of it.

Special thanks to Lake Union Publishing, Brilliance Audio, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy My Darling Girls here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

My Darling Girls by Marina Scott
Audiobook Narrator	Kristyna Zaharek
Audience	Adult
Genre	Gothic Mystery
Setting	Illinois
Number of Pages	251
Format I Read	Audiobook & Ebook (NetGalley ARCs)
Original Publication Date	October 20, 2026
Publisher	Lake Union Publishing

Official Summary

In 1904 Chicago, where secrets cling as thickly as the soot on every windowsill, Jo earns her living by photographing the dead. The work is quiet and cloistered, allowing her to hide from a past that haunts her: the grief over her husband’s mysterious death, a spiraling addiction, and the guilt she carries over the things she’s done to survive.

When a notorious crime family hires Jo to make a final portrait of their daughter Millie, it stirs up a spirit that refuses to rest. In opium-fueled dreams, Millie lures Jo into a realm called “the courtyard,” where the dead burn to tell her their half-finished stories.

As Jo investigates Millie’s murder, she forms a fragile bond with her sister, Grace, who’s desperate for an escape of her own. Amid the whispers of the dead is a truth Jo must confront if she is to free them all from the shadows of the past.