I absolutely devoured this book. I am a huge fan of domestic thrillers/toxic female friendships and Carola Lovering tackles that genre so well!! Her female main characters are so richly examined and full of flaws that you just can’t look away (which is coincidentally one of her other books titles, also amazing)! Carola has become an auto buy author for me.

Bye, Baby is a gripping novel of suspense that delves into the intricate dynamics of a female friendship. This compelling story unravels the complexities of a bond forged by childhood secrets, revealing a relationship that is both life-affirming and toxic. From the moment I started reading, I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from its pages.

This was a great read! I really enjoyed the story and the plot. It kept me engaged and excited to see what was going to happen next. A solid 4 star read!

Even though this is a thriller on the surface, I think it's actually a psychological story about female friendships at its heart. It's about what happens when we're on the outside. What we're capable of when we're pushed and excluded. It's about female friendships and how amazing and how toxic and how complicated they can be. It's about what happens when we do things we never thought we were capable of.

The characters here are not likable. You're not rooting for either of them. And yet they both endure things no human should have to go through. And they are both deeply messed up. It messes with your head quite a bit as you read this story. It's like an accident you can't look away from.

with gratitude to netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Carola Lovering is a master of psychological suspense novels. Staying out of the thriller genre, Lovering's newest Bye, Baby offers a look at a strained friendship and what lengths Billie and Cassie will go to try to keep their friendship intact but also forget the past. It's best to not too much going into this novel, but just know that it will suck you in and keep you turning the pages. Lovering is so good at exploring the complicated world of friendships and how they evolve over time. I absolutely loved this one!

SO FREAKING GOOD. Did I hate both FMC's? Yup. Did I read this book in one sitting because I couldn't control myself? Yup. I highly recommend this is you can digest a book filled with unlikable characters who do sh**** things. This was thrilling and so well written.

I really enjoyed reading this book and couldn't put it down! It was a story of two best friends and how their lives grew apart and changed from when they were kids. Although I found the ending to be lacking...I would still recommend as I keep thinking about their friendship (almost one-sided) and how our lives end up being so different that what we might have imagined as kids.

Talk about going on a trip. This book navigated a friendship over the span of many years and there are plenty of bumps along the way. The author did a fabulous job making the storyline relevant and keeping it moving especially when going back and forth between the two main characters’ POV AND past and present. Unlike many stories, the first twist happens pretty early on and had me shocked. I thought this was really well done. There are characters you don’t want to like but do, some that you love, and some that you love to hate. I thought this was great. The ending fell a smidge flat, but I still enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to psychological thrillers fans.

I want to thank the author Carola Lovering, the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this ebook. I was not paid nor was I required to make this review.

Not a bad story, but not really for me. Although it seemed like the set-up for a twisty thriller-type, it was pretty straightforward. Nothing that happened in the present or the past really surprised me and I found most of the characters pretty unlikeable.

Entertaining! Billie is a single, childless world traveler with a dreamy job and some serious childhood trauma. Cassie is the newly married mother of a newborn who lives to post her extravagant life online. The two women are former best friends who share a secret... And an obsession that threatens to upend their lives. This novel is packed with unlikable characters--I couldn't cheer for any of them, but I was definitely interested to find out what happened!

Bye Baby is one of those stories you can't put down. Neither of the main characters, Cassie and Billie, are truly likeable. But their shared past endears them to your heart. One woman's love for her child, another woman's love for her lifelong friend. When the worst happens, you'd never suspect someone so close. Highly recommend this twisty tale.

Thank you for the opportunity to preview Bye Baby. My daughter told me I would like this book. She was wrong. I loved it. This is written well and told in two voices. Cassie and Billie.
These two friends tell their stories of their lives as teens till today when they are in their thirties. But these two women are tied together by secrecy and as they navigate their lives and become adults each one tells their story to the reader. And thru the pain and tough times their friendship changes and evolves. Cassie has always been selfish and Billie a people pleaser and Cassie has abandoned Billie to New York society and as Billie watches from the sidelines. She is so hurt that one incident will change their lives and Billie knows there is no turning back
Excellent and real 5 stars

This book was so easy to get into. It had me on page one. Interesting story of how friendships change. I will definitely read more from this author.

3.5 Stars

This is my third book by Carola Lovering and it was a pretty satisfying read. It was in my favourite format of different points of view and past and present timelines. This wasn't so much a thriller as a social commentary on women's friendship and motherhood. When the friends grow up they grow apart and become two very different women. The reason for their continued toxic friendship is slowly revealed and peeled away layer by layer like an onion. And just like an onion, it will make you want to cry.

There are many issues in this one sexual abuse, classism, Alzheimer's disease and of course the downside of being an influencer. I think the author tried to throw too much into the mix so some parts felt a little watered down, especially Billie's mom and her sickness. I did love how the story showed the relationship is one-sided and why it faltered. Lovering knows how to write an engrossing story. I understand how the social media aspect was needed for the plot but it bored me to tears.

Even though there is a lot going on in the plot itself this is definitely a character-driven story and I really liked that about it. These were some pretty messed up women, one of whom has every right to be that way. I really felt for Billie and could empathize with what she was going through, but it is not an excuse for what she did. I was really happy when she finally got herself together. This is a book I will be thinking about for a long time so for that reason I am rounding up to four stars and that is saying something because I rarely round up.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for the ARC! This is a new to me author but I really loved her writing- the book kept me really engaged and interested the whole time. I liked the multiple POVs and the glimpses back into the past- it gave great context to the characters. I found Billie irritating- I just wanted to shake her! But I found her more redeeming in the end and was happy with the book overall! Looking forward to more wild rides with this author.

Bye, Baby, by Carola Lovering was not at all that I expected. It is not a thriller and the mystery is very slight and somewhat predictable. There are secrets, most of which take place in the earlier of the dual timelines. The author does a nice job of labeling chapters so that both the timeline and the narrator for any chapter is clear. There are a great many unlikeable and selfish characters, which makes the novel rather difficult to read. The conclusion does tie together all the narrations and history, and for at least one central character, Billie, her life appears salvageable.

At its most basic level. Bye, Baby is about a toxic friendship. As children Billie and Cassie are such good friends that there is no room in their lives for another friend. The beginning of Bye, Baby opens with an event from the middle of the novel. That event seems determined to make Cassie a good friend and Billie a bad friend. Their friendship ends up being far more complex and the nuances of their relationship more deceptive than is initially understood, and thus, I would urge readers to pay close attention to the clues that appear throughout the narration.

Halfway through Bye, Baby I was so irritated by Cassie and her use of social media to share every single moment of her life and to such a degree, I was not sure I was going to be able to finish the novel, but I I am glad I struggled through.. As it turns out, Cassie and all her friends are so selfish and irritating that I quickly realized that Lovering was playing with her readers. As she slowly began to unwrap this childhood friendship, Billie began to grow on me. Her childhood was so appalling and so tragic that it is clear that Cassie was a much needed escape when they were children. As adults, this childhood friendship and the secret that truly was not much of a secret, changes into a toxic relationship, primarily because Cassie is totally focused on creating a superficial life populated by superficial people. Old childhood friends, especially someone like Billie, who holds such a damning secret, is best kept at a distance. If Lovering's goal was to expose the superficial lives of wealthy influencers, she does succeed in that goal.

I will be honest. Halfway through Bye, Baby I was pretty sure this would end up being a 2-star novel, but then I wisely sat on the book and thought about it for a couple of days after I finished it. Bye, Baby stuck with me, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the way that author Lovering was manipulating her readers. This is not an easy novel and will likely need two readings to understand the underlying story, but in the end, I was glad I read it.

Thank you to the author and to publisher, St. Martins Press, for sending this ARC for me to read and review. All the comments are my honest response. I took a lot of notes while reading Bye, Baby, which is when I realized that my initial thoughts about this novel were more complex than I had expected or even understood.
Thank you also to NetGalley for suggesting this novel.

I had the pleasure of reading an ARC of Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering.

This book is a great example of how the dynamic of a friendship can change over time and no matter what you try to do, sometimes people just grow apart with age.

I enjoyed the 2 perspectives of Cassie and Billie and the dual timelines. I could feel the rollercoaster of emotions from both characters throughout the story. Lovering does a great job at making you feel for both characters and I often found myself switching sides.

I will look for more books by this author!

Billie & Cassie are the best of friends, until they aren’t. When Billie confesses what’s happening to her behind closed doors, Cassie steps in to save her. Flash forward to college, and Cassie decides she needs to dream bigger, leaving Billie in the dust. When Cassie has a scare within her family, she reaches out to her old best friend, Billie, for comfort.



This novel was more of a work of literary fiction than a thriller. It took a deep dive into friendships and the way they change into adulthood. I enjoyed the book, but there weren’t any real twists that you expect in a thriller.

Damn. 😮‍💨
This thriller put me through a roller-coaster of emotions! I felt every single emotion!! My heart hurt, I was MAD, disgusted and ready to get inside the book to cause some damage to some characters! Lol I was invested!

There is no slow burn for this one. Off the bat you know Cassie's baby has been kidnapped by her oldest BFF Billie. It keeps you so invested on discovering why, how and what happens next. It's dual POV that alternates between the past and present timeline. So you really get to see how these friends became so close and what led to them being in their current state. This was great and I'm excited to read more from this author!
Thank you to the publisher for the ARC

I'm having trouble placing this novel into a specific genre. From the description I thought I would be reading a domestic thriller, while there are some tense moments in the book, it's more of a general adult fiction with a bit of darkness in the plot.

Bye, Baby centres around two lifelong best friends bonded by some secret trauma. However, Billie and Cassie start to drift apart as the latter becomes a wealthy wife and new mom with a large following on social media. The difficulty Billie has in letting go of her friend Cassie allows the reader to explore the darkness of their past while also untangling a very tense conflict in the present.

Without revealing too much, I had some difficulty reading the passages about the present day conflict. The scale of the debacle Billie finds herself in was so outlandish it made me cringe. I found myself skimming some of those chapters.

Overall, the novel has some unlikeable characters and the resolution felt a bit too neat, but I enjoyed the ride and found myself absorbed in the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a free digital copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.