» Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering «
★★★★ 4/5 stars
Pub Date: March 5, 2024

“A wise friend once told me, “You can’t f*ck up what’s meant for you.”

» synopsis
Billie & Cassie used to be inseparable, but now in their 30s, their lives have taken different paths & friendship has become strained. But when Cassie's infant daughter goes missing, she turns to Billie, her oldest friend, for help.
Told in dual POVs & timelines, Bye, Baby explores how friendship changes over time,
uncovering the dark secrets that bonded them together, & the events that pulled them apart in the present.

» Read if you like :
- Dirty Dancing
- cats named Willie Nelson
- Character driven stories
- 90s/2000s nostalgia
- NYC setting
- Dual POV / Dual Timeline
- Toxic friendship drama
- Influencer trope
- Themes surrounding motherhood

» my thoughts
Although this one is marketed as a thriller, I'd call it more of a domestic drama that explores complex (& sometimes toxic) female friendship. What it lacks in twists, it makes up for in nail-biting suspense!

The flashbacks were well placed & relevant, adding depth to the current timeline. I found it so easy to empathize with the characters, especially Billie - from having a “boys” name, to feeling a little left behind in life. Even if I didn’t always agree with her actions, I appreciated the character development.

I was so anxious while reading, I had no idea where this story was going. I couldn’t imagine how on earth there could be a satisfying resolution, but I was pleasantly surprised! It wrapped up nicely in a way that felt realistic.

I highly recommend the audiobook too! Helen Laser & Karissa Vacker did an excellent job narrating.

I like the writing style & I definitely want to read more by this author! If you’ve read any of Lovering’s other books, drop me a rec!

*I would suggest checking trigger warnings

Thank you to netgalley, st martins press and macmillan audio for the opportunity to read + listen to this ARC ◡̈

When the hook sells you on your “Best Friend” stealing your four-month-old baby and not for a fun day out, it makes you question what kind of friendship these people have or what type of person would do that. Since we already know that there’s a kidnapping involved, I was interested in how the author would play it out. Did the girl have psychological issues? Jealously problems? A friend posing as a good friend, but in reality, she is a stranger out for greater gains? The possibilities were endless. Neither one of those outcomes was chosen.

Billie and Cassie. This is a classic story of childhood friends bound together by a shared history and unmentionable secrets.

I enjoyed that this story is told via multiple different timelines. The book begins when Cassie discovers her 4-month-old baby is missing. From there the story takes us on a flashback journey to Billie’s and Cassie’s pre-teen and teen years in Red Hook, New York as well as the periods of time immediately leading up to the baby’s disappearance. The present timeline encompasses the days immediately after the disappearance.

My feelings about this book are complicated. I liked this book. I didn’t like this book. I liked Billie. I didn’t like Billie. I liked Cassie. I didn’t like Cassie. My feelings are a mess and, I suspect they are supposed to be. Billie’s codependence issues with Cassie were maddening and crossed a line into almost stalker level. Cassie’s self-absorption with wealth and status was equally maddening. It was hard to like either of them. Cassie treated Billie like trash, and Billie in turn was an equally bad friend to others in her life due to her obsession with Cassie.

At the end of the day this book is a tangled web of actions and decisions that invoke some degree of empathy for the characters, but potentially not enough to redeem either of them. I wanted to shake both of them and yell at them to just grow up already. They both had such tunnel vision surrounding their respective obsessions that they were blind to the positive factors that were present in their lives.

So, clearly, I didn’t like this book, right? Honestly, I am not sure. The degree of emotions that Lovering drew out of me about these characters, combined with the haste at which I turned the pages to find out what was going to happen regarding the baby snatching, makes me think that the author got me in the end.

Carola Lovering's latest thriller is told from the viewpoints of the two main characters, Cassie and Billie. The story starts off with the kidnapping of Cassie's baby and then alternates between different timelines both before and after the kidnapping. I was very hooked by the opening chapter of the book but for me the middle of the book seemed to drag a bit. The ending was very good but overall this was more of an in depth character study rather than a thriller. I still enjoyed this book but wished I would recommend it to friends with the warning not to expect non-stop twists and thrills.

Thanks to St. Martins Press, NetGalley and Carola Lovering for the ARC in excange of my honest review (Anticipated published date 3/5/24)

What drew me into reading this book was the title and the summary regarding a stolen baby from a best friend.

However, this story is really about the friendship and demise of Cassie and Billie. I really enjoyed the alternating points of view from both characters and going back and forth from past and present day. This book also constantly shifted me from liking and disliking each character at various times throughout the book. It was definitely a page turner and the ending left me wanting to know more.

I feel that this book is very relatable regarding friendships, parenting, trauma, and much more and that is another reason why I enjoyed it.
5 stars all the way (and I am picky about giving out 5 star ratings) Looking forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you so much to St Martin's Press for the advance copy!

"That's the problem with trauma. You can decide to change how you think about it, time can fade it, but it's never going to disappear."

This is my 3rd book by Carola Lovering and once again I am just amazed at her skills. She has such a way of pulling the readers into a world where you are just pulled into this world of lies and deceit.

We learn the whole premise of the book in the prologue and it sets the stage for the rest of the book. I wouldn't say that there was a clear villain in the book as both characters are unlikeable at different parts throughout the book. Though I will say I did not like Mckay at allll even if her intuition was spot on. I did feel bad for Cassie after the kidnapping and her paranoia as a result of it.

Even with the crime of the kidnap and the fall out after it, the root of this book is the deep friendship between Cassie & Billie. Billie had such a sad teen years and what she had gone through no person should have. Though it made the bond between the girls stronger it also led to a lifelong secret that was always a dark cloud over them. This also shows how some friendships tend to grow apart as adult which is normal but when the kidnapping of her baby happened, the only person she wanted by her side was Billie. I don't want to go into too much detail of what happens in the book as it would take away from the fun in reading but its a ride.

"You're my best friend, Baby."

I like that we got both point of views from each of the characters as well as chapters that had stories from their past. It gave the readers a sense of their relationship and how it shaped them as adults. And this is also a reminder that friendships are complicated.

I think I was waiting for some other shoe to drop and there was a small plot point that I felt didn't get a satisfying enough closure for me.
It was addressed and then kind of tossed aside but I thought maybe that could have been played with a little bit more.

The whole premise of the book was so fascinated and I just couldn't stop reading because I needed to know how it ended. And this is my reminder that I still need to go back to read Carola's first book Tell Me Lies.

If you are looking for a book about toxic friendships that just builds and builds - give this one a try!

4.5

This book!!!! Everything about it was amazing. I didn’t want to put it down. The first book in a while where I was like okay another chapter. Ugh everything about this book was 10/10!!

4.5 I LOVE Carola Lovering’s books!! She is so consistent at delivering propulsive books and messed up relationship dynamics.

This story centers a toxic friendship instead of a romantic relationship and I ate it up. Cassie and Billie are childhood friends who have definitely been through it all together. They have drifted apart as they’ve entered adulthood, and Billie doesn’t want to accept that. I was STRESSED from about the halfway point and I did not want to put this down. All of the characters are deliciously terrible, which Lovering always excels at.

I always want to point out that her books are not typical thrillers- they feel much more like dramas but there was a hearty serving of suspense in this one.

Another hit by this author!!

I really enjoyed this one! The story centres around Billie and Cassie, childhood best friends who are connected by an event in their past but currently have a strained relationship, largely due to Cassie’s marriage to Grant (who is loaded with old money), their months old baby, and her focus on documenting her entire life to her 40k followers on instagram. The plot switches between Billie’s and Cassie’s POVs, both in the past and current timeline, uncovering the ups and downs of their often tumultuous relationship.

I thought Billie and Cassie were so well developed and complex, and I could understand their psyche and motivations for their actions. I also thought the secondary characters were well done and added a layer of realism to the story. There was really good pacing and while there weren’t any huge revelations or twists, the story was intriguing, engaging, and I was fully invested in what would happen. I liked that nothing was black and white and again, each situation was quite complex, and I could see both perspectives (even if I didn’t agree with one or either of them lol). I will note the trigger warning for sexual abuse/r*pe.

Overall a really enjoyable and quick read and a solid 4/5. Thank you to net galley and the publisher for the ARC!

The story starts right off with drama. So you go in from the very beginning already knowing the main plot. We then backtrack to see just how we got to this point. I was immediately invested in the friendship between Billie and Cassie.

Billie and Cassie have been friends since school. Now they both live in NYC. Billie works for a traveling company and gets to explore and see all parts of the world. Cassie is a social media influencer, putting her entire life online for the world to see. She is married to a wealthy man, has a new baby, and owns a clothing shop.

It seems like Cassie tries disregarding anything that had to do with her life before meeting her husband and being surrounded by wealth which is just what she has been striving for since she was younger. Billie tries very hard to keep her friendship afloat with Cassie and it is upsetting to see the way she is treated.

You will have a hard time putting this book down. It is a very suspenseful story with not much thriller so my suggestion is to keep that in mind. It is a great story with a broken friendship and watching how things unravel over time. My heart went out to Billie.

This is told through dual POV’s between Cassie and Billie. It is also told between the past and present time.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a book of friendship - - both found and lost. It's a book of love - - parental, friendship and romantic. Told in alternating viewpoints between Billie and Cassie and in different timelines, the reader is given the history of their friendship and also an understanding of where both of these girls "came from." The things that happened in their young lives when they were growing up definitely influenced the people that they became.

Billie and Cassie were almost inseparable for years but when Cassie married her trust fund husband, Grant and began her journey into marriage and family. At that point, Cassie determined she wanted to become someone different and forget the past - - and Billie was a solid reminder of where she came from. But Cassie felt like family to Billie and she couldn't understand the distance that Cassie was placing between them.

When a situation occurs involving Cassie's baby and Billie doesn't come clean with what truly happened right away, it leads to a secret that she's running from and the lies just continue to pile up. At some point they will catch up to her and she risks losing everything including her new boyfriend, Alex who is a policeman.

There were times I was frustrated with both of these characters because they each did things that were pretty unkind or just plain wrong. Yet at times, you could explain it away for them too - - which was equally bad. It was a very convoluted storyline at times. You knew things were not going to end well but you just had to keep reading to see how it was resolved.

AUDIOBOOK: The narration was really spot on for these characters. I felt myself pulled into the story and completely locked into what was going on. If you're an audiobook fan, I highly recommend this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for early copies of both of the ebook and audiobook.

This felt a lot like reading a Sally Hepworth book, in that it's billed as a thriller, and while there are some tense moments, I really wouldn't think of it that way. This is essentially about friendships, and how they evolve over time. 
*
Cassie and Billie have been best friends since they were 12, but since having a baby, Cassie has been pulling away. The relationship between the two women felt so realistic, and while I wanted so much more for Billie, it was understandable how she longed for things to be as they had been growing up. 
*
I really liked the flashbacks to the girls growing up, and everything that happened to them, to show how their friendship was cemented, but also how the later personalities started to show up. 
*
I also really liked how this put front and center that not every woman wants to have kids. 
*
Yes, there's a kidnapping, that happens in the first few pages, but this book was so much more than a generic thriller, and I really enjoyed reading it!

Bye, Baby is a great psychological thriller. What exactly binds Billie and Cassie for so many years? Their friendship is quite unique and definitely not the healthiest. We know from the first chapter that Billie kidnaps Cassie’s baby but learning why she does it and how it affects their friendship kept me turning the pages.

I LOVE this author and freaked out when my request got approved on NetGalley. Thank you SO much to the publisher for the ARC of Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering!

She is an auto-buy author for me and this book did not disappoint. My favorite elements were the 'influencer' commentary and the descriptions of New York City. I'm obsessed with books that bring in current topics and 'influencer' culture is a big thing nowadays, so I really appreciated the commentary in this book about it. And as someone who's only been to New York City in passing, I am also intrigued when books are set in or mention the New York ways of living.

Beyond that, I thought the two main characters were really fleshed out and complex, and I liked that neither were characters you wanted to root for 100% - I switched back and forth so many times on who was 'right' and who was 'wrong.'

This is probably my favorite Carola Lovering book I've read thus far, with Tell Me Lies being a close second. I can't wait to pick up the finalized copy in March!

I absolutely loved this twisty novel told from alternating perspectives. Bye, Baby, while completely fiction, touches on how sometimes the friendships we treasure from our younger years, are not what they want them to be as we grown into adulthood and people change. A perfect suspenseful novel about the trials and trbulations of friendship and what happens when you make poor decisions.

Billie and Cassie were best friends as kids. But besides being bound together by their love for Dirty Dancing and by one horrible secret, they’ve otherwise largely grown apart. Nowadays, Cassie is a mom and popular influencer, married to a wealthy man-Billie not fitting into her posh lifestyle. Billie, meanwhile, is single and childless, yet missing the bond that she and Cassie used to share, still hopeful they can get it back.

Then one day Cassie’s child goes missing. Suddenly Cassie finds herself seeking out her childhood best friend for comfort. While Billie is ecstatic to be remembered, she also knows more about the incident than she’s letting on. But the closer Billie and Cassie become, the harder it is to hide the truth. Can their friendship be saved or perhaps more importantly, should it be?

Bye, Baby is thriller author, Carola Lovering’s latest offering of her now signature blend of twisted relationships riddled with insecurities and narcissism. I remember having similar lukewarm feelings after reading her previous offering, Tell Me Lies (although this was turned into an excellent series). However, this isn’t as much a fault of the writing as it is the characters themselves being largely unlikable people, something that Lovering does well. This story kept me going, but without giving too much away, I found myself a bit letdown by the ending. This aside, if complicated friendships with dark undertones are your thing, you might consider checking this one out.

Bye, Baby is the second novel that I’ve read by Carola Lovering. While I did enjoy the novel, I feel that Lovering has potential to be more.

The novel is touted as a mystery/thriller. But I found it to be more in line with women’s fiction with a touch of domestic suspense.

The story follows best friends Billie and Cassie through high school and adulthood. Told through dual points of view over dual timelines (past and present,) I was taken on a journey through an every evolving friendship between besties that over time morphed into an unrecognizable relationship. Proving that people can and do outgrow each other, especially when social status, marriage, and parenthood are added to the mix.

The novel should be read at face and entertainment value. I say that because there are some scenes in the narrative that may raise a few questions — especially for those readers that are fans of crime scene and investigative thrillers.

The characters are well developed, and I enjoyed how Lovering captured all of the characters’ personalities through high school and beyond. It just highlights the author’s ability to flesh out her characters and bring them to life on the written page.

Overall, Bye, Baby was a very good suspenseful read worthy of four stars.

I received a DRC from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an arc copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

WOW! This story had me on the edge of my seat! We know the premise. ... A woman kidnaps her best friend's baby! What!?! yes, it happens and I loved every angstful , twisty part of it. At one time cheering for one woman and then switching teams and routing on the other woman. This story hops back and forth in time, slowly unwinding the past to lead up to the point of now.
Really well done and like nothing else I've read. Only halfway through and the baby is kidnapped, I couldn't imagine where it would go from there. But it did! and I was NOT disappointed!
Great for fans of psychological thrillers !

Bye, Baby isn’t a psychological thriller, as I was expecting. I would consider it psychological suspense, though, and it is an intriguing psychological study of the two main characters, Billie and Cassie, separately and together.

There aren’t any likable characters - they are all flawed and need counseling for big and small reasons. Billie and Cassie tell this dual timeline story in somewhat unreliable ways alternatingly. The past timeline seems unimportant, but clues are hidden to Billie and Cassie’s psychological state in each flashback, making it essential to understanding the current timeline and choices.

I enjoyed the few surprising twists and the fast-pace. I also found the evolution of a friendship tragically intriguing - as both characters progress in their life in vastly different ways. The ending is delightfully thought-provoking, and I bought into it as a possibility, considering everything.

I also enjoyed the social media aspect. It wasn’t a vast aspect, but it is very now and fits Cassie’s psychological framework - it filled her need to present the perfect picture to the world. If you like psychological studies - you will love reading this story and dissecting the main characters!

Bye, Baby was such an interesting read. I told myself I would read this closer to the release date, but I read a few chapters and was hooked. I finished this book in less than 24 hours, the story was realistic, and I was on the edge of my seat wanting to read what led Billie to do what she did. This story is told in a dual pov, switching between the main characters Cassie and Billie. It also alternates in past and present timelines giving us insights into how Cassie and Billie's friendship started and how it got to where it is in the present.

This is about friendship, gossip, drama, and the lengths characters go to keep people in their lives and feel like they belong. The characters make mistakes and decisions that are not good, but I came out of this book empathizing with Billie and her actions. The author did a good job weaving everything together, and the writing was great. I was distracted by the past timeline, it was helpful in knowing how the friendships came together, but I think there was so much going on that I focused a lot on the present. I liked the end because it showed that some friendships aren't meant to be, and some people are toxic to be around.

Overall this was a compelling story about unraveling secrets, drama, and the history of a friendship. It wasn't really a thriller, but it was still an interesting and suspenseful book.