From the author of Tell Me Lies and Too Good To Be True, Carola Lovering's newest novel is about the kind of addictive, obsessive love that keeps you coming back--no matter how hard you try to look away.

Pub Date: June 14, 2022
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫

At 23, Molly Diamond is a barista in NYC and dreaming of becoming a writer. She locks eyes with Jake, lead singer of an up and coming band, at a concert one night and they fall quickly and deeply in love. Fast forward a decade and Molly has given up writing and lives with her young daughter and husband Hunter in a wealthy suburb outside of the city. Hunter is everything Jake wasn't, but Molly still finds herself not quite happy as she struggles to make friends and to conceive their 2nd child. Enter: Sabrina. Sabrina and her husband recently moved to Molly's neighborhood and she finally finds the perfect friend she's been looking for. But are things really as they seem?

If you read this description and think this will be a fast paced suspense -- you would have had the same thought as me and also sadly be wrong! This is more of a slow burn domestic drama exploring questions about identity, love, family, and coming of age. For what I thought this book would be, I was pretty disappointed. If I had gone in realizing it was not a thriller, I think I would have enjoyed it much more.

Thanks to @netgalley @stmartinspress and the author for the ARC!

Another unique, fun, and intriguing read by Carola Lovering! Fantastic writing style with absolutely perfection in character development! Very realistic, fast paced, and unputdownable! Kept me turning pages, as I could not get enough! It does have some small twisty turns, chills, thrills, and shocks, but not in a regular thriller way! Highly, highly recommend!

This book was absolutely riveting!

This is a story of love and obsession and how far someone will go to get what they want.

Molly Diamond meets the love of her life, Jake Danner, when she sees him perform with his band. They fall in love quickly and move in together. Things are going well for them until Molly gets an email from an unknown sender showing Jake kissing another woman while he is on tour. Things start to go downhill from there in the relationship.

Fast forward 7 years and Molly is living in a small town with her husband, Hunter, and their little girl. Molly is lonely and does not seem to fit in well with the women in town. She is also going through fertility treatment trying to conceive a second child. When Sabrina, the new girl in town, attends a yoga class that Molly is teaching, she thinks she may have found someone in town she actually likes. This is further confirmed when she sees Sabrina at one of her doctors appointments and realizes that she is struggling with fertility issues as well. Molly and Sabrina become fast friends, but Sabrina has an agenda. Her connection to Molly is slowly revealed.

If you are on the fence about this one, just get it! You won't be disappointed.

I thought this book was great! The pace, the backstory, the flashbacks, everything came together for an easy-to-read, fast book. I loved Carola Lovering’s first book but I think I liked this one even better!!

This is a story about first love and forever love. Jake Danner is a rising rock star when he meets Molly and falls in love. As his band takes off the travel and distance puts there love too the test. Molly is a budding writer hoping to get published. Molly is his muse which has led to him writing a song about her that is a hit and establishes his band.
Then fast forward to 10 yrs later and Molly is married to Hunter and she has a daughter. Molly life looks perfect to the outside world but Molly is struggling. Unable to conceive a second child, out of place in the burbs and no longer writing, Molly is lonely. When Molly meets Sabrina at her yoga calls she thinks she finally has a friend.

When a new version of Jake hit about Molly is released, she is forced to remember and the pain and secrets of the past.

How will molly deal with the thoughts and feelings for her first love? Will Molly decide to after her dream of writing after all this time? How did molly end up married to Hunter?

The book is called Can’t look away but truly it is can’t put it down. It is an incredible journey that will keep you ip at night until you get to the end.

Thank you to Netgalley for complimentary copy.

First, I would like to say thank you to Carola Lovering, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read this ARC of Can’t Look Away!

Carola Lovering has done it again with this great read! The story revolves around the main character, Molly Diamond, and her life with three main people: Jake, Hunter, and Sabrina.

Her relationship with Jake has so many ups and downs that come with dating the lead singer of a popular band. She finds solace with a new friend, Hunter, who she ultimately marries. Sabrina comes into Molly’s life just as she needs someone who understands everything that she is going through. The question is whether or not Sabrina is really who she says she is!

There were definitely some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. I love how well the story wraps up at the end and how everyone seems to finally find some peace in life’s decisions.

I really enjoyed this book but not for the reasons I usually do. Can’t Look Away is a combination of some of my favorite book genres. It’s a lot of Romance and Suspense and the tiniest bit a Domestic thriller.

Ultimately, it is a story about the complexity (and toxicity) of relationships in your 20s and how we change with age and life experience. The multiple POVs and alternating timelines both past and present manage to be seamless and there are some twists that I saw coming and some that I didn’t. This is a book with a lesson to not let your past impact your present and learn to overcome your life circumstances. Most of the characters in Can’t Look Away are handling situations based on the trauma of their childhood and how they grew up. Once they come to terms with the impact trauma has had on their lives, much of the plot is resolved.

I think this is a must read for 2022! This is one of those books you feel differently about depending on where you are in life and what you’ve experienced.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Carola Lovering and NetGalley for the Uncorrected Digital Galley ARC which did not impact my review in any way.

‘Can’t Look Away’ by Carola Lovering was such a pleasant surprise! A little bit of mystery with little bit of romance and heartbreak makes this book hard to put down. Each character had such a good story and development that I didn’t know which one to root for. This novel follows three central characters - Molly, Jake and Sabrina - through breakups, makeups and friendships. We found out quickly that not everything is as it seems, though, and some people don’t have the best intentions in small town Flynn Cove. Make sure to pick up a copy of this book to find out more! Happy reading!

Loved this! Love the writing and descriptions and loved the story! Although I would not say this is a thriller/mystery/suspense — it’s more of a romantic drama because you pretty much know what’s going on the whole time thanks to the three POV.

Loved her first book and this didn't disappoint. It devoured in a day. Great plot would definitely recommend. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

There’s something about reading a book about a crazy psycho stalker that just draws me in instantly & keeps me hooked. Not really sure if that’s a good or bad thing, or if that says something about me? 🥴 BUT anyway! I thought I had this one figured out & it was so much more than I had anticipated.

I went into this one having 1 mindset & finishing the book with a completely different one. I thought it was going to be a wild ride psych thriller, and while it was wild, there were so many other layers to this story. I loved reading about Molly & Jake’s relationship and her present life. Sometimes the alternating POVs & timelines were a little confusing, but it didn’t take me long to get it figured out. I guessed a few things that went on throughout the story, but there were definitely some jaw dropping moments. I really enjoyed this one a lot & can’t wait to see what else Carola Lovering comes out with next. 4.5 ⭐️s (rounded to 5)

A HUGE thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, & Carola Lovering for this advanced copy. Check out Can’t Look Away on its pub date 6/14/22!

Can’t Look Away was nothing like I expected. It combined elements of a domestic drama with contemporary romance and women’s fiction. It was a true coming of age story spiced up with some suspense that made it hard to put down.

Although there were some unlikeable characters (I’m looking at you Sabrina) I found myself hoping she found the love within herself to have a happy ending.

All in all, it was an ok read for me but I wanted more. Maybe it’s just that I couldn’t relate to the characters and what they were going through in life. My advice would be to check out the trigger warnings (miscarriage, infertility) prior to reading & know the genre of story you are getting.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for the eARC I’m exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book! It beautifully combines elements of romance, intrigue (I do think “suspense” is a little overstated for this book), friendship and betrayal, and thoughtful evaluation of the choices we make in life, for better or worse. The different time lines and points of view of various characters was well done, and it was a book I kept wanting to get back to so I could read more. Highly recommended! Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book.

I love Too Good To Be True by the same author, so I was really excited to read this one. I sped through it! It was so well-written and the character development was fantastic. One of my favorite books I've read this year!

Thanks to Netgalley and MacMillan Publishing for an e-arc of this novel, which is due to be published in June 2022.

It was classified as a suspense novel, but I found it to be more of a contemporary romance with just a little mystery, which is not my usual read (sorry I prefer my mystery/suspense with a little romance). It was a good read with interesting characters.

I found some of the time jumps a little bit confusing, but all in all it was a good read. If you like more contemporary romance with a little suspense, this is probably the book for you.

I loved this book from the very first page. As an established fan of Carola Lovering, I found her new novel even better than the others. She creates such realistic characters and complex scenes, you’ll be hooked until the very end!

Yup
I really enjoyed Too Good To Be True by @carolatlovering so I was really excited to get her latest book from #NetGalley.

Like her past book, Can’t Look Away rotates between characters who become more unreliable as the story builds. We meet aspiring writer Molly, living in New York, who ends up falling for gorgeous musician Jake. We also meet Sabrina, seemingly cunning and self absorbed, who dated Jake prior to Molly. It’s clear Sabrina is obsessed, both with Jake and Molly. But what are her secrets and intentions? And what about Molly’s secrets?!

Overall I didn’t like this one as much as Can’t Look Away. I liked Molly and parts of the love story but there were too many holes in Sabrina’s storyline and the big reveal fell a bit flat for me.


3.5 stars

Molly Diamond met Jake Danner, a gorgeous musician in 2013 when she was 23. Molly was an aspiring writer hoping to publish her first novel. Jake's band was becoming more and more popular - their songs were hitting the charts and they began to tour. Molly and Jake's love for each other was instant, but they had many ups and downs over the course of their relationship. Fast forward to present day. Molly is married to not-Jake, has an adorable daughter, and lives in the affluent suburb of Flynn Cove, CT. These days, Molly is trying her best to fit in with the snobby women in their neighborhood and trying NOT to think about Jake. Sabrina, a new and friendly face, comes to town and immediately hits it off with Molly. What Molly doesn't know is that Sabrina has an agenda. She's been studying up on Molly and her arrival to Flynn Cove is definitely not a coincidence.

Can't Look Away had some of those Real Housewives vibes - money, jealousy, drama, catty women. It leaves you asking just how far one would go to keep the person they love the most, and where exactly is that line between love and obsession? This was a quick read for me and I couldn't put it down - I had to know how it would end (and for the record, I thought the ending was great)!

It feels like there are a lot of books about musicians and writers, so even though I love romances about long lost loves, where the chemistry remains through years of separation, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this novel as much as I did. It’s probably the first book (or at least the first in a long time) that has come close to comparing to The Light We Lost, which remains one of my absolute favorites.
Can’t Look Away isn’t without fault— the author asks a lot of us to not only accept that Jake would see Molly in the crowd at a concert and then have the inclination and ability to track down her number and ask her out, but also that Hunter noticed her, of all the many people at a concert, and felt a similar, instant connection. There are many of these coincidences peppered throughout, but the relationships are so well crafted and Lovering’s writing is so good, they’re rather easy to forgive.
I really liked that it’s written with the tone and tension of a thriller, but ultimately it’s a romance filled with deeply complex characters, and things don’t devolve into a homicidal melee. Love ring doesn’t need to fall back on shock value because the relationships and situations she presents, and the manner in which she weaves in their histories, are all so compelling.

YESSSSSSSSS.

Carola Lovering's debut novel, 'Tell Me Lies,' is one of my all-time favorite books about young (twisted) love. Her second, 'Too Good To Be True,' was a letdown - I feel like the plot ran away with the characters. All that to say, I wasn't sure what to expect with her third - but lucky for us, 'Can't Look Away' is excellent. I would have devoured it in a single sitting had I not asked my partner to hide my Kindle for a few hours so I could prolong the excitement of another great read by Lovering.

If 'Tell Me Lies' is character-driven and 'Too Good To Be True' is (too) plot-driven, 'Can't Look Away' is that excellent, elusive combination of both. Throughout the story, I found the characters' choices - even at their most shortsighted and extreme and conniving - to be believable because of their backstories and beliefs. Without giving anything away, I loved the ending.

I will say that, like her other novels, nearly all of the characters are white, well-educated, and well-off - but there was some exploration of financial privilege this time around. If you like stories about what could have been, about love darkening into obsession, about revenge in the digital age, about love triangles where you don't know who to root for (in particular, if you liked 'The Light We Lost' by Jill Santopolo, this is for you!) - you'll want to read this. Thank you, Carola Lovering, for another great book that brought me back as vividly to what it's like to be 22 as Taylor Swift's Red re-release today!

ARC provided by NETGalley in exchange for an honest review.