Sally Hepworth has become one of the most popular domestic suspense authors. Hepworth wrote her first novel, Love Like the French, while on parental leave with her first child. It was first published in German as Wenn du an meiner Seite bist in 2014. While pregnant with her second child, Hepworth wrote her second novel, The Secrets of Midwives, published in the US in 2015. This first brought her work to an English-speaking audience.

Hepworth’s work belongs to a subgenre of psychological thrillers known as “domestic suspense.” Domestic suspense has made its way into the mainstream market through novels such as Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl in 2012 and Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train in 2015. Domestic suspense situates the conventions of the psychological thriller in the domestic sphere, with female protagonists that are professionals, mothers, and wives. In her novels, Hepworth utilizes her own experience with family and parenthood to both establish context and drive the action of her thrillers. Domestic suspense draws on crime fiction conventions, including a dark tone, surprising plot twists, and secretive, complex characters. As such, it relies on a

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