That was wild. That was like a 90’s lifetime movie (which, obviously, I love).
Can’t Look Away is told in then and now from Molly and Sabrina and limited Jake POV.
I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, but man oh man, Sabrina was that crazy, stalkerish ex-girlfriend and she played the long game my friends.
Molly and Jake’s relationship was tumultuous and there were things that were fairly predictable happening.

Overall, if you like drama with a hint of suspense then you’ll enjoy this one too!

Thank you to St. Martins Press for an advanced digital copy via NetGalley in exchange for review.

Oh Molly. She was in love with Jake ten years ago but that didn't work out. Now, she's married, fairly happily, to Hunter, mom to Stella, and living in Connecticut. She's lonely, though, so when Sabrina, new to town and to Molly's yoga studio extends a hand, she takes it because she wants a friend. At the same time, Jack's tribute to Molly- Molly's Song- it heading up the charts again, bringing up old feeling. Especially from Sabrina. Canny readers know that Sabrina has a secret and what it is. What happens next, though. well, no spoilers from me. This plot isn't unique but Lovering has created memorable characters and will keep you guessing. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read.

This novel was bananas In the best possible way! I’ll definitely be reading more Carola Lovering in the future.
Molly and Jake have the kind of all-consuming first love that you dream about. The kind where he writes a song for her and it goes to #1 on all the charts and rockets Jake’s band to stardom. But Jake also has a crazy ex with a capitol ‘C’, SiSi, who will stop at nothing to destroy Jake and Molly’s love. She seemingly succeeds.
Fast-forward 5 years and Molly is married to Hunter and raising their daughter, Stella. But what happened with Jake? And why is Sabrina still trying to ruin Molly? A fast-paced thriller that will make you reminisce about your 20s and maybe your own first love.

*Special thanks to.NetGalley and the publisher for an e-arc of this novel.*

Enjoyment: 5
Total rating: 4.71

Jake and Molly fell in love at first sight. But their love story ends in heartache for both parties.

Years later, they both move on, and Molly is now happily married to Hunter living in a small town. They are having problems conceiving their second child, and Molly doesn't feel like anyone understands the pain of her struggles. But then, newcomer Sabrina moves into town, and after two casual encounters - at Molly's work and at the doctor's clinic - they become fast friends. But Soon, both of their lives will collide as their past comes back to haunt them.

I am a huge fan of Lovering's plotting. Her characters are compelling, relatable and are believable. They make real decisions a non-fictional person would make and I find that very refreshing. I also love how her love/intrigue triangles make sense.

She teases us by slowly releasing information, much like that pixel puzzle. Slowly you start seeing it more clearly, until you have the whole picture. It makes for a satisfying reading experience. Without spoiling anything as it is my personal taste, I absolutely adore her endings. So satisfying!


Disclaimer: In exchange for an honest review, I am thankful to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing a copy of Can't Look Away.

Carola Lovering knows how to tell a tortured love story that hits in all the right places. Love at first sight, star crossed lovers and obsession are all woven together in this wonderful web of deceit.
The love between Molly and Jake is a once in a life time love that never goes away. I was mesmerized, smitten and furious at the way their relationship played out. I needed them to find a happy ending, and I’m sure you will too. But, of course someone else is always waiting in the shadows.
“To be obsessed with someone or something is to adopt a singleminded drive that reduces the rest of the world to sheer insignificance.” If ever there was a quote from this book to sum up Sabrina, this is it. She is ruthless in getting what she wants, no matter who she hurts. I love how her character was written, and could feel her intense need for Jake. She is everything Molly isn’t, and not in a good way.
I loved this twisty, heart wrenching story. If you’re a fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid type love stories, this book is for you.

I thought this was a thriller, but it's really more of romantic suspense - rooted in obsession and revenge.

Molly Diamond can't believe she is dating Jake Danner, the gorgeous frontman of a hot new band. Their love for each other is passionate and deep. It should be a love that lasts a lifetime - 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘺.

Years later, Molly is raising her beautiful daughter Stella with her husband Hunter in a Connecticut suburb. They are trying desperately to have another baby via IVF. Molly is missing her friends from Brooklyn, so Molly finds it lucky when Sabrina drops into her life and befriends her. But it's not a coincidence on Sabrina's part.

𝐂𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐲 offers the emotions of love and heartbreak with the suspense of stalking and manipulation. I didn't feel it had the thriller atmosphere; instead, the romances, yes plural, took center stage. Tension does build as the timelines jump back and forth. I also didn't feel this had big twists or turns, but it delves into first loves, sacrificing for love, and those who won't let go. I flew through this one!

🎧 I listened to the audiobook from @macmillan.audio and it was fantastic with excellent narrators: Caitlin Davies, Karissa Vacker & Zachary Webber.

Thank you to @stmartinspress for a gifted copy.

THIS BOOK!!! I have no words it was soooo good. Definitely way more of a romance than a thriller, but I was all in. The relationships between Molly and Jake and Molly and Hunter were just so good. Sabrina was crazy, but added a lot to the story and I really loved the ending!! So so good and definitely in my top books of the year.

Wow!. I was blown away by this book. Did not see the twists coming. Just loved the story. Completely engaged thru the whole thing.

I loved this book. Love story, suspense, psychological thriller, it was a combination of all those factors. It took me back to my own twenties and my 'first loves'. I think most people will find bits of themselves within these pages.

The characters were vivid and relatable. (even the unlikeable Sabrina made me feel sorry for her) I don't know if I could have made all the difficult decisions Molly did but she did them for the right reasons - for her daughter.

The ending is bittersweet - but it's the only logical way it could end.

What are you willing to do for a second chance with the one that got away? The dark story of Molly, Jake, Hunter, and Sabrina addresses what happens when you can't look away from your addictive, obsessive first love.

Wow! From the beginning, I was invested in this domestic suspense drama that focuses on love and secrets. With POVs from three of the four main characters, all of the characters are well defined and intriguing. The dual timelines give insights into everything leading up to the present day where all four characters find themselves together in the small town of Flynn Cove, CT. With all four in the same place at the same time, the past and present collide.

While Can't Look Away can't boast of surprising twists or thrills, Carola Lovering's storytelling is excellent so I didn't miss either. You know what's coming and simply can't look away. The unraveling of this tangled web of secrets is oh so compelling and entertaining!

I alternated between reading and listening to Can't Look Away. The talented team of Caitlin Davies, Karissa Vacker, and Zachary Webber narrates this captivating listening experience. They bring the nostalgic Molly, the calculating Sabrina, and self-absorbed Jake to life, keeping you riveted to every detail of their shared history and hidden agendas.

Get ready to get hooked on this binge-worthy drama!

Rating: 4.5 Stars rounded up to 5

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Macmillan Audio for early digital and listening copies of this book.

Can't Look Away is domestic drama/suspense from Carola Lovering.

"Ten years ago, aspiring writer, Molly Diamond was the girlfriend of Jake Danner, the frontman for the hot, new band - Danner-Lane. Now she's given up writing and living in Flynn Cove with her young daughter and husband, Hunter. Molly struggles to fit in with the other women of Flynn Cove until she makes a new friend in Sabrina. Molly finally feels like she has someone to confide in.
But Sabrina has her own reasons for being in Flynn Cove. As her secrets unspool her connection to Molly becomes more clear. And Molly's secrets - the ones she kept buried for ten years - are being threatened."

If you love a novel full of obsession and revenge - this is the book for you. This is not a thriller even though there are a couple of twists at the end you'll probably guess. There is tragedy too.
You probably know someone like Sabrina - obsessed with revenge and ruining a life or two, no matter the collateral damage. Molly, who is struggling to find her way. And Jake - the musician with a hit song, who can't seem to get out of his own way.

Good choice if you're looking for drama (but not a thriller)

Carola Lovering’s books are often categorized as thrillers, but they are really in a category of their own in which they’re driven by suspense despite being able to see the direction of the story and its characters.

Main character Molly is struggling to fit into the exclusive suburban town she recently moved to with her husband (Hunter) and daughter (Stella) when she meets Sabrina. Sabrina seems like a breath of fresh air and a real friend as they connect over yoga and fertility issues, but things get complicated when Molly realizes that Sabrina is married to her ex Jake. Not just any old ex, Jake is the “one that got away” – the love of Molly’s life.

From the very beginning, we know that Sabrina has not just accidentally landed in Molly’s life. Told from Molly, Sabrina and Jake’s perspectives, the book switches between past and present giving us a glimpse at Molly and Jake’s epic romance and how they eventually ended up married to different people in the same town. The way it’s written, it’s not a thriller in the traditional sense because, as the reader, we know what’s going on and can easily put together the pieces, but watching and waiting for the characters to figure out the pieces is what makes the story such a suspenseful page-turner!

For me, knowing Sabrina’s true motives made me devour the novel so much faster as I waited for Molly to find out and really built up the suspense. I just want to add a sensitivity disclaimer for prospective readers that this book does include fertility issues and miscarriages as I know firsthand how difficult it can be to process the loss.

Needless to say, I absolutely loved this book just as much as her previous story, Too Good To Be True, which I reviewed a few months ago. I also recently picked up Tell Me Lies at a library book sale and can’t wait to read that one too!

✨ARC Review✨

Do you ever get over your first love? What if you get a second chance with your first love, do you take it? Do you take it if you are happily married to someone else? After all of that, throw in someone who is obsessed, and will use whatever means they can to get what they once had. You now have a recipe for disaster, AND a good psychological mind scramble of a book!

This was a great take on toxic relationships in the form of a psychological/romantic suspense narrative! Molly and Jake had a connection…they locked eyes at a concert and the rest was history. Sabrina and Jake also had history…a more obsessive one, but history nonetheless. When life takes these individuals on different paths, Molly and Jake fizzle, and they end up with different people. They are brought together with their respective spouses years later, but was it at random, or all part of some grand toxic plan?

This was quite the page turner with lots of twists! It is gripping, fast paced, and certainly binge worthy! It gave off You vibes in the sense that one character will go to great lengths to get EVERY detail about another character, entering into stalker mode, to be able to insert themselves into the situation. A true “Joe Goldberg” is in these pages! My only let down was the ending! I hoped for something more twisty, especially for the build up, and it ultimately affected my rating.

What’s On The Pages:
-multi POV
-dual timelines
-psychological thriller
-romantic suspense
-obsession
-toxic relationships
-wanting what you can’t have

⚠️CW/TW: infertility

✨Rating✨
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

A special thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this eARC! Can’t Look Away is out June 14th!

This was my first book by this author. The story quickly drew me in. We start out the story on the day Molly and Jake meet and fall in love. Then we fast forward to the future where Molly is living in a small town and teaching Yoga classes. Sabrina shows up in her class and they become fast friends. The rest of the story keeps flipping back and forth between the past and the future and the intertwined lives of Molly, Jake and Sabrina. It is part love story, part obsession and part thriller. I enjoyed the overlapping story lines and trying to figure out how Molly ended up where she did. It was a page turner that I didn't want to put down! Thanks so much to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an ACR of this book.

Great book!! Great characters!! Great storyline!! Not sure I'd classify this as a mystery or thriller... more like a dramatic love story maybe? But that love story, boy was it amazing! I didn't know who I was rooting for more, Molly's past or her present.. definitely worth a read! Highly recommend.

In this dual-timeline book, twenty-three-year old Molly Diamond is going to grad school, working as a barista and in her spare time working on her novel. An aspiring writer, Molly dreams of being published one day but other than that she really isn't sure what she wants to do with her life. Then one night, at a concert in Brooklyn, she locks eyes with the lead singer, Jake Danner, and can’t look away. Molly and Jake fall quickly and deeply in love, especially after he writes a hit song about her that puts his band on the map. Jake and Molly seem destined to be together, but fate has something else in mind for the two of them. A decade later, Molly is married to Hunter, the guy she was just good friends with while she was with Jake. They have an adorable little girl named Stella, who is almost 6, and they live in Flynn Cove, Connecticut. Molly never did get her novel published, instead she teaches yoga, and she is having trouble conceiving again. She doesn't feel like she has anything in common with any of the women in Flynn Cove... until Sabrina walks into her yoga studio. She feels an instant connection with Sabrina, and when she runs into her again at the office of her fertility doctor, Molly feels like she she has finally found a friend. But Sabrina has her own reasons for moving to Flynn Cove, and for befriending Molly. And as Sabrina’s secrets are slowly unspooled, her connection to Molly becomes clearer––as do secrets of Molly's own, which she’s worked hard to keep buried.
This book was so good. I couldn't put it down. I love this author's books, and this may be my new favorite. I am a big fan of dual-timeline books, and i really enjoyed the way the chapters alternated between past & present, and told in the different voices of Molly, Jake, and Sabrina. You really got a well-rounded view of things, and saw things from different perspectives, and through the different characters' eyes. Sabrina was really a piece of work, let me tell you. I won't say anything else about her because I don't want to spoil anything, but you slowly find out more and more about her as the story unfolds. I highly recommend this one!

Molly and Jake are young twenty-somethings in New York when they first meet and they fall quickly in love. But his band is rising to the top and the fame and travel soon take a toll on their relationship. Years later, Molly is married in Hunter and living in Flynn Cove, Connecticut with their young daughter. Molly doesn't have a lot of friends there, so when Sabrina moves in, she seems just like the friend she's been waiting for.

I really enjoyed this book. It was less intense than other psychological thrillers I've read, but I liked the pacing and the overall storyline. I liked the love story as much as the thriller story. This was definitely a winner for me!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Available June 14, 2022.

I loved Too Good To Be True, so when I was approved by @netgalley for this I was pretty excited. I will say off the bat-this is not a thriller. I do not know why books are being marketed incorrectly lately but I feel like it does not give the book a fair chance. This suspense is definitely more domestic than thriller.

That being said-I loved this. It’s addictive, juicy and filled with drama. We all have that one that “got away” so it is easy to relate. I will say I was rooting for Molly and Jake throughout the whole story but I did appreciate the ending and felt it more realistic. I love a good psycho-stalker story so this one worked well. I also appreciated the music intertwined throughout the story (gave me Daisy Jones vibes)

All in all this is entertaining and will keep you flipping pages just to see what happens! Thank you to Netgalley for my advance copy in exchange for my review!

Suspenseful twisty novel about a (sort of) love triangle. I enjoyed the back and forth between the past and present, as well as the POV from both Molly and Sabrina. I thought Molly was a particularly well-developed character, even if I did find her slightly annoying (so much self-doubt) at times. Still authentic. The relationship between Molly and Jake seemed real aka an accurate portrayal of two young twenty-somethings in the arts. This was a fast read, because I enjoyed it and wanted to see how it was all going to turn out.

"In 2013, twenty-three-year old Molly Diamond is a barista, dreaming of becoming a writer. One night at a concert in East Williamsburg, she locks eyes with the lead singer, Jake Danner, and can’t look away. Molly and Jake fall quickly and deeply in love, especially after he writes a hit song about her that puts his band on the map.

Nearly a decade later, Molly has given up writing and is living in Flynn Cove, Connecticut with her young daughter and her husband Hunter—who is decidedly not Jake Danner. Their life looks picture-perfect, but Molly is lonely; she feels out of place with the other women in their wealthy suburb, and is struggling to conceive their second child. When Sabrina, a newcomer in town, walks into the yoga studio where Molly teaches and confesses her own fertility struggles, Molly believes she's finally found a friend.

But Sabrina has her own reasons for moving to Flynn Cove and befriending Molly. And as Sabrina’s secrets are slowly unspooled, her connection to Molly becomes clearer––as do secrets of Molly's own, which she’s worked hard to keep buried.

Meanwhile, a new version of Jake's hit song is on the radio, forcing Molly to confront her past and ask the ultimate questions: What happens when life turns out nothing like we thought it would, when we were young and dreaming big? Does growing up mean choosing with your head, rather than your heart? And do we ever truly get over our first love?"

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Molly has a truly iconic love story in her 20s. She goes to a concert of an up=and-coming band, and the lead singer, Jake Danner of Danner Lane, falls for her, just a face in the crowd. Flashing back and forth to this romance and 6 years later to Molly, a mom of a really great kid and wife to a truly perfect husband, Hunter, the story of how that love story unfolded — and the role a third party, Sabrina, had to play throughout then and now.

OK, so where to start. I wasn't the biggest fan of Too Good To Be True by the same author so I super hesitated on this but wowow was this such a great story. It felt like a movie and I adored it. Definitely wouldn't call it even a domestic thriller. It's more like a suspenseful romance, and I was so here for it! I finished it within 24 hours!

Read if... you loved the movie A Simple Favor and devoured The Light We Lost.