I’m a little conflicted on how to feel about this one. I feel like where we start at the beginning is where we end at the end. A while the middle was interesting, I kinda don’t love the resolution.

Let’s start with the good. This book probably should have just been pitched as a drama, I would have gone in with the right expectations. The tense friendship is fully flushed out. I liked how the pacing slowly revealed how the girls met and the evolution of their friendship. The flashbacks that seemed to jump all over the place really worked for me, showing all the trials and tribulations they went thru together. The exploration of female friendships and how sometimes you just grow out of those relationships really felt real.

Now, I mentioned it marketed wrong. The first sentence of the synopsis says “a missing baby” I’m sorry but the baby doesn’t “go missing” until 50% in AND we knew the whole time where she was. I think bc we got both Cassie and Billie‘a POV nothing felt high stakes bc we knew what the other was doing/thinking. I only wondered how it was all coming to a head. I wanted them to be able to work it out and be able to repair the friendship. But it became obvious that was never going to happen. Also, it became very repetitive with Cassie’s chapters after the “kidnapping” I understand she was sad and had gone thru something traumatic, but I needed some variety with her emotions

Overall, I think this book is fine. It’s not necessarily for me (only bc I was expecting a thriller) BUT I think most people will enjoy this! I hope the people who like dramas & contemporary suspense find this!

DNF - Just too over the top for me and had to quit with the sexual assault of a minor. Self absorbed rich women who put themselves over their husbands and best friend . 40% in and no thriller or mystery yet. Just a sad description of those addicted to social media and self-promotion.

I’m sorry to say that this was an average read for me. I really wanted to love it but it was a bit boring and there was nothing to feel excited about. I think there is an audience for this book. Anyone that likes general fiction about toxic relationships.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher.

Great read and great narration! It was a captivating story that kept my attention throughout. I expected more twist and turns but I thought the story moved at a good pace nonetheless.

This reminded me of that episode of How I Met Your Mother about being on the hook. Everyone is on someone's hook. Billie is on Cassie's hook and Cassie was on the hook for her more popular and wealthy friends. Billie just can't move on from Cassie.

Billie and Cassie are lifelong best friends. So how did it turn out that at Cassie's 35th birthday party, Billie is a few floors down from Cassie's luxury abode, uninvited and holding Cassie's child?

Well, there are a lot of reasons for that and we find out all of them as we go. Initially you may think she's a monster but as the story hums along, you see why she may have been unjustifiably pushed to the point of doing something bizarre.

This is a friendship drama with a dose of mystery but the mystery is just "why on earth did you do that?" but it was way more interesting than I thought. I had to suspend disbelief for a while but I enjoyed it.

The narration was great. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to listen and review.

Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering
Publish date: March 4, 2024

Happy spring, everyone! This is 4th or 5th book by a suspense writer, Carola Lovering. I have never read her book, nor, to be honest, have not heard of her, but I am not a big suspense reader. This book caught me an eye because of this brilliant cover - it's simple but beautiful, and represent the book quite well. It's a story of two female friendship, between Billie and Cassie. They grew up together in a lower-middle class of Hudson Valley, New York, best friends forever... except, well, they grew apart. Years later, they are thirty-five year old, both successful and living in New York City. Billie, a luxury travel consultant, misses her best friend, while Cassie, after marrying a rich blue-blood man, built a new life of a lifestyle influencer and a new mother with a four-month old baby. Cassie has a new circle of friends which doesn't include Billie. Billie is bitter about Cassie cutting her off, while Cassie's popular facade is just that....

To me, the beginning of the book felt very off-the-wall and unbelievable. I almost stopped reading right there and then.
I am glad I didn't though, because the situation gets explained later and the book was well constructed (good job editor) and kept my interest. I finished the book in two days - It was a fun ride. It reminded me of "the Luckiest Girl Alive" by Jessica Knoll. The author pulls together the story well and I could sympathize most of characters in the book, despite I do not share their aspirations. I would recommend the book for young people growing up in digital era who likes suspense novel, such as Paula Hawkins.

I did feel this book was shorter, like 30% shorter. At over 12 hours on audiobook, it felt longer than needed. There were a lot of details, especially the parts from the past, that felt unneeded. I also didn't get along well with the narrator - felt too dramatic and didn't care for her rendition of male parts.

Overall, this is a fun ride for the fan of female friends gone wrong trope. I would give it 3 or 3.5 out of 5 stars.

This advanced audiobook was provided courtesy of Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for review purposes. Opinions herein are my own.

This was such a good book! I loved the characters, and their story. The dialogue was realistic and enjoyable. I was very surprised by the ending!

"Bye, Baby" by Carola Lovering is explores the themes of friendship, love, jealously, childhood trauma and betrayal. The story begins with Billie West finding herself involved in a kidnapping that rocks her best friend Cassie Barnwell's world.

Narrated by Helen Laser and one of my favorites, Karissa Vacker, the audiobook is very enjoyable as it alternates between two characters. Laser and Vacker drew me in with their suspenseful style and well-developed voiceovers, giving us a sense of the tension and secrets shared between Cassie and Billie.

We see how their friendship evolves over time, as Cassie's desire to move on clashes with Billie's efforts to salvage their friendship.

Overall, "Bye, Baby" showcases Lovering's talent for crafting compelling stories. With relatable characters and an engaging plot, this audiobook is bound to captivate listeners. Special thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing an advanced listener copy via the NetGalley app.

Not quite a thriller, but instead a study of a teenage friendship that has turned sour.

This is a study in parasocial relationships and effect of social media on real relationships as well. There was a pretty great story here, lots of dark twists and you can see how our characters arrived at the place they’re at as adults.

I thought the relationship between Cassie and Billie to be so well done and interesting. It was a strange co-dependent, extremely toxic friendship that you can’t help but eat up.

I removed a star since there’s that trope of a character digging themselves deeper and deeper for a stupid decision. The last 20% was so anxiety inducing for me that I couldn’t stand it. And then end just didn’t sit well with me.

The audiobook was extremely well done - the narrator had very distinctive voices for each of the characters and brought them to life wonderfully!!

My Rating: 3.75 stars

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy of Bye, Baby in exchange for an honest review.

Bye, Baby is classified as a thriller, but to me, it felt more like a slow-burn suspense. While it did have some thriller elements in the story, I felt like this book was more about toxic relationships and mental health issues.

This is the first Carola Lovering book I've read, but there is something about her writing style that hooked me in and had me flying through the story. I can't wait to read more of her books.

First of all, I'm so thankful for getting this ARC. I was entering a reading slump, and this book got me through it. I was so interested in the development of the relationships and how the issue was going to be resolved, that I finished in 2 days.
Carola Lovering has great writing skills and her characters were so real and captivating. She brought out conversations that interest me a lot, like motherhood and the past traumas that affects our current relationships. Besides, I read a book not so long ago about women's friendships that felt so shallow and stupid and it annoyed me, so I'm glad I was able to read this one that felt mature and complex.
Oh, and the narrators Helen Laser and Karissa Vacker were great.
What annoyed me was that it was sold to me as a thriller... and this is not a thriller. So I was a bit disappointed with that.

Carola Lovering is one of my favorite authors so this book was very highly anticipated for me. It was not what I was expecting at all but it was so compelling- I binged it in a day. It was also very relatable - I’m sure we’ve all had complex, toxic relationships at one point or another in our lives at some level, and Lovering is the master at writing toxic relationships (I also loved Tell Me Lies and Can’t Look Away). I highly recommend this book, especially if you enjoy alternating timelines and POVs and character driven stories about female friendships.

Many thanks to both St Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Macmillan Audio for early access to this title in exchange for my honest opinion. This is not my first Lovering read and it definitely won’t be my last!
Bye Baby doesn’t come out for a week and a half but I spotted a copy at Barnes & Noble yesterday if you don’t want to want any longer!
And I will warn you, once you start this one it is IMPOSSIBLE to put it down. I started by listening to the audio (with one of my favorite narrators, Karissa Vacker, I knew it was going to be good!) - but then I arrived at a brewery for lunch which had a good playlist, so I switched to reading my eARC because I could not wait any longer to keep going in the book!
This book is more of a suspense read than a thriller, but its propulsive nature makes me feel fine calling it a thriller. It also has women’s fiction undertones - one of the main characters has a four and a half month old baby which plays a major role in the plot. If you’re the mother of a really young one, you may want to hold off on reading this one for a few more months if you aren’t good at separating what you read from your real life… Other than that, I don’t want to say too much because I think it is good to go into a thriller blind. I also did the magical thing where I figured out exactly where I had stopped reading when I switched back to the audiobook on the NetGalley app on the first try, which I don’t think has ever happened before!

I've been trying to branch out into thrillers, not my usual preferred genre. Three stars is a high rating for me when it comes to thrillers. Overall I enjoyed the plot and narration. I liked that there was no cliffhanger.

Another book labeled as a thriller with absolutely zero thrilling aspects in it. Not even sure what the point of the book is because basically nothing happens. Cassie was totally the worst. On a positive note, it was an easy listen with good narrators.

Billie and Cassie were best friends since they were kids. That is, until Cassie marries and doesn't have time for Billie anymore. Billie is hurt and when she finds out she wasn't invited to Cassie's big birthday party she makes a rash decision that changes her life.

This started off great and got a little boring for me but then picked up again in the end. Love and betrayal wow

This book wasn’t what I expected. If you are expecting a thriller then I’m going to let you know it’s not a thriller. It’s more a drama about toxic relationships.

Billie and Cassie grew up together. They lived in the middle class suburbs but they witnessed some childhood trauma that bonded them together. They were the best of friends. More like sisters. They lived together after college until they started to drift apart.

Cassie is determined to marry rich. Her character was self involved, shallow and honestly sort of relatable when it comes to being a mother. Billy is struggling to make ends meet working as a travel advisor (is this job even real?) Billy and Cassie seem to be drifting apart. This is only natural after childhood right? Many friends drift apart, grow up and move on with their lives. The problem is that Billie refuses to let Cassie go. These two women are deeply entrenched in a complicated and toxic relationship.

I thought that this book was well done and the characters were believable even though they were unlikeable. I definitely recommend this book to anyone that likes a book focused on female friendships.

Thank you to netgalley for a copy of this advanced readers copy.

I didn’t love this one. In my mind this was going to be more of a thriller than it was. It had more drama and messed up friendship issues. It definitely felt like it dragged on as when Billie had the baby I thought the book was closed to being over only to realize it was only halfway done. I like the dual narration and the back and forth timeline.

Wow. This book was interesting. I am a sucker for stories about influencers. Some of the book was really disturbing and it felt like parts were just added for shock factor. I loved the narration.