Sally Hepworth

Last updated

Sally Hepworth
OccupationWriter
Notable work The Secrets of Midwives
Website sallyhepworthauthor.com

Sally Hepworth is an Australian writer. She is best known for her novels and The Secrets of Midwives , published in 2015, [1] and The Good Sister, which won the 2021 Adult Crime Novel Davitt Award. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Sally Hepworth grew up in Melbourne, Australia. [3]

Career

Hepworth worked in both event management and human resources prior to becoming a writer. [4]

While on maternity leave with her first child, Hepworth wrote Love Like the French, a novel about a British woman who goes to France after an accident leaves her husband in a coma. [5] The character goes to France to see what the French could teach her about living. [5] Hepworth was unable to finish the book immediately after her son Oscar was born, but the book was eventually published in Germany in 2014. [4]

In 2015, Hepworth released a second book, The Secrets of Midwives , that she wrote while pregnant with her second child. The novel is about three generations of midwives. [4] Her research for the book came from her own questioning of midwives during check-ups and reading fiction and nonfiction books on the subject. [4] KJ Dell'Antonia from The New York Times called it a "fast and fun read," with other reviews of the book coming by way of Publishers Weekly , The Sydney Morning Herald , and Kirkus Reviews. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Hepworth has continued to release a novel every year, including The Things We Keep in 2016, [11] The Mother's Promise in 2017 [12] and The Family Next Door in 2018. [13] The Family Next Door was Hepworth's first novel set in her hometown of Melbourne, a trend she continued in her 2019 novel The Mother-in-Law. [3]

Adaptations

The Family Next Door was made into a TV series of the same name, with the script written by screenwriter Sarah Scheller and co-written by Pip Karmel, Julia Moriarty, and Andrew Anastasios. The series, directed by Emma Freeman, premiered on ABC Television in August 2025. [14]

Personal life

As of 2015 Hepworth was living in Melbourne with her husband and three children. [4]

Bibliography

Publication yearTitleOriginal publisherISBN
2026 (Overseas) Mad Mabel St. Martin's Press ISBN 9781250284549
2025 (Australia) Mad Mabel MacMillan Australia ISBN 9781761266492
2024 Darling Girls St. Martin's Press ISBN 9781250284525
2023The Soulmate St. Martin's Press ISBN 9781250229700
2022The Younger Wife St. Martin's Press ISBN 9781250229618
2020The Good Sister St. Martin's Press ISBN   9781760552190
2019The Mother-in-Law St. Martin's Press ISBN   9781760552183
2018The Family Next Door St. Martin's Press ISBN   9781250120892
2017The Mother's Promise St. Martin's Press ISBN   9781250077752
2016The Things We Keep St. Martin's Press ISBN   9781250051929
2015 The Secrets of Midwives St. Martin's Press ISBN   9781250051899
2014Love Like the French Random House Germany ISBN   9783442382538

References

  1. Harris, Joyce Saenz (20 February 2015). "Fiction Review – The Secrets of Midwives by Sally Hepworth". Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  2. "Davitt Awards winners announced". Books+Publishing. 30 August 2021. Retrieved 1 September 2021.
  3. 1 2 "The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth". Pan Macmillan Australia. 29 January 2019. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Hardy, Karen (21 February 2015). "Sally Hepworth: How I gave birth to writing The Secrets of Midwives". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  5. 1 2 Galanti, Donna. "Write-On Wednesdays! Here today with Aussie Sally Hepworth". The Element Trilogy. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  6. "The Secrets of Midwives". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  7. Goldsworthy, Keryn (14 March 2015). "Short reviews of fiction by Samuel Kaye, Patrick Lenton, Bob Franklin, and Sally Hepworth". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  8. "Book review: The Secrets of Midwives". Kirkus Reviews. 7 December 2014. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  9. Dell'Antonia, KJ (7 April 2015). "Shelf, iPad, Bed Table: Reading March 2015". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  10. "Sally Hepworth recs some novels that feature midwives". USA Today. 11 February 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  11. "The Things We Keep". Fantastic Fiction. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  12. "The Mother's Promise by Sally Hepworth". Pan Macmillan Australia. 28 February 2017. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  13. "The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth". Pan Macmillan Australia. 27 February 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2018.
  14. "Screen Australia and ABC announce drama series The Family Next Door - Media centre". Screen Australia . Retrieved 6 July 2025.