This was well-written and hard to put down! I love the look into the life of an influencer, so I enjoyed that aspect to one of our central characters. I will say to go in prepared for more women's fiction than a thriller - I wish we weren't given the first chapter and left to wonder about the kidnapped baby as the story progressed. But I did enjoy this look into the dark side of women's friendships and the bonds you gain and lose over time. Both characters are very flawed, so I could see the issues they had with each other, which made the story very realistic.

I will definitely read other books by Carola Lovering. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

The book is a fast read and enjoyable except that I had such a hard time with the choices of one of the main characters that at points I had to brace myself to keep going - a bit of second hand embarrassment/cringe. That didn't ruin anything for me and I like that ultimately the characters are complicated - there's not a good guy and a bad guy, there are just people making bad choices. And there are pieces of the complexity of female friendships really rang true. My only warning is that if I had recently had a baby, this book would have been a hard read. My kids are a bit older and that distanced helped.

Hmmm, I think I would round up to 4 stars on this one. I was enjoying the story and wanted to know how it ended, but I thought parts were dragging. I do like Carola Lovering's writing a whole lot.

Carolina Lovering’s latest novel Bye, Baby is part suspense, part women’s fiction about two women who have been friends since middle school. The story is told from alternating perspectives and flashing back and forth between now and events that happened in the past.

Cassie and Billie grow up in the same town and become friends around middle school. They are inseparable growing up, best friends and all that. Now, the women are adults and Cassie is a new mom with a growing business, married to a very wealthy man, and she posts all aspects of her life on Instagram. Billie has an amazing job of working for a boutique travel agency and jet sets off to places like Portugal and Cuba. She has an amazing job, is still single and with no kids.

The friendship between Billie and Cassie has mostly felt one sided with Billie always chasing Cassie and Cassie taking advantage of Billie. But still, Billie is so loyal to Cassie even though Cassie has become so superficial and obsessed with money, and appearances. Billie is still loyal to Cassie but Cassie has been pulling away from Billie for years in favor of her wealthy social circle. They are also bonded by a traumatic event that happened in the past.

We know from the prologue of the book that somehow Billie has possibly kidnapped Cassie’s baby Ella. We don’t know how why or how until half way through the book. With her baby missing, Cassie once again turns to Billie in her hour of need. Even though Cassie had done some cruel things to her, Billie is right there on her demand.

I really enjoyed this book and this is my forest from the author. I will be checking out more of Carolina Lovering’s novels.

Things I liked:
Alternating POVs so you get to learn about both women and the perspective.
Authors writing style.
Conclusive ending with no loose ends.

Things I disliked:
Many of the characters in Cassie’s circle. They are all insufferable for the most part.
A few parts that dragged on and could have been more concise.

Overall, I really enjoyed Bye, Baby and would recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of drama and a compelling story about friendship and loss.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed the multiple timelines of before and after. This book hooked me in from the beginning and I couldn’t put it down.

Bye, Baby was not exactly what I thought it would be, but I still ended up really enjoying it! I was hooked from the first line and felt like this one was bingeworthy. I enjoyed the topics of friendships, relationships and social media influencers that were at the forefront of this one. I also loved the past and present timelines where we got to learn more about Cassie and Billie’s friendship and what ties them together. The ending wraps up things pretty neatly but I didn’t mind it! I was also kind of expecting more twists in this one but after reading it, I would say this is less of a thriller and more drama / suspense.

Overall, I enjoyed this one and rated it 4 stars! If you are looking for a character driven domestic suspense book that focuses on female friendships and social media influencers with past and present timelines, check out Bye, Baby (out now!).

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-arc in exchange of an honest review.

Bye, Baby is a solid 4 star read. I immediately fell in love with the characters and quickly latched on to them. I did find myself rolling my eyes at Cassie and the way she was on her social media accounts. I did find myself loving Billie more.
This was my first read from this author and I’m going to backtrack and pick up some of her previous books.

I loved reading about Cassie and Billie's relationships and learn about their upbringing. I loved their truly dark past.

Lovering writes unlikeable, insufferable, immature women so well and I'm not sure who I disliked more.

I've enjoyed this author's books before and this one was very good also. Not exactly edge of your seat thriller or a mystery, but more of a story of friendships. Some tense moments yes, but friendships that are strained.

This story is told in two parts. It's also before and after. Before the baby was found and after it was returned. Also in the years when Billie and Cassie were first such good friends and after they grew up and drifted apart. Not drifted so much as Cassie decided she didn't want any reminders of where she grew up. Of what she was before. Of her life before she found the rich life she always dreamed of. She decided she didn't need Billie anymore.

Billie and Cassie were best friends. They did everything together. Even when Billie was going through something that no female should ever have to go through Cassie was there. Cassie helped Billie. Helped her get away from things. She was her best friend. Until she wasn't. Until she decided Billie just wasn't good enough.

This story made me so mad in places. It brought tears to my eyes. I felt so bad for Billie and I did not like Cassie. Even when they were young and professed to be the best of friends I just didn't like Cassie. She is self centered and thinks only of herself. Of what she can have. Of how many followers she can get. Of how much money she can have. She marries a very rich man and does not want anything to do with her own sister or mom and dad. She's too good for anyone except her rich friends.

Billie is more down to earth but with some problems. She's been hurt and had such a hard life. Her mom is sick and only has a few years left. Her stepdad controls everything. Including where or if she goes to college. Billie gives her whole heart to Cassie. She would do anything for her.

The only characters I liked in this book were Billie, Jane, and Alex. Cassie and her friends I would never tolerate. Though they are much needed in this book and make it was it is in many ways. But it centers around Billie and Cassie. You'll know all about each one. All of their secrets and dreams. Their fears. Their faults. Their weaknesses. This is a story of friendships that can dissolve over time.

Thank you #NetGalley, #CarolaLovering, #StMartinsPress, for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

4.5/5 stars and a high recommendation.

I did audio and ebook for this book. It was truly the best decision! I loved the narrator and reading the book along totally made the experience so amazing. I love this author and I can't wait to read more books in the near future!

Bye, Baby was a suspenseful drama and captured the complexities and dark side of female friendships. The book follows two women who were best friends as teens and young adults who grew apart with time but were held together by a secret that both saved and ruined them.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the electronic copy.

This was fine. It wasn't a mystery, more just a drama with a little suspense. I would have liked to see more of how Billie and Cassie's friendship became so fractured, especially from Cassie's point of view of them growing up. I think there were interesting conversations about motherhood. It had a lot of potential, but I just wanted it to push a little more.

OMG this book. Whew, what a wild ride!! What do you do when you hear your best friend scream bloody murder after discovering her infant daughter is missing, but you're the one who has the baby in your arms?? Bam.

Billie and Cassie have been best friends since childhood, but Cassie, whose life has been taken over by marriage, motherhood and her budding influencer platform, starts to pull away from Billie. And Billie is not having it. She's desperate to hold onto their friendship, and is willing to do anything (and I mean ANYTHING) to keep from losing Cassie.

Bye, Baby is told in alternating POVs, with a close look at how friendships change over time, and the choices you make regarding which friends to keep in your life as you get older. I LOVED this book. It's a rollercoaster, and I didn't want to get off!

What a fantastic book! It was a quintessential psychological drama, with the added layer of complicated, fractured female friendship. I was hooked right from the start, and Lovering's writing kept me engaged until the final page.

These characters were not always the most likable in the world, especially Cassie-- but the nuance of their personalities, history and shared experience revealed much more depth than meets the eye. It's awfully difficult to feel sorry for someone that takes a baby-- but Billie is a character you an empathize with.

I was a tad unfulfilled by the ending... I wanted more of a comeuppance for Cassie and Grant, but Billie's ending was satisfying.

This was my first book by Lovering and will DEFINITELY not be my last. I love her writing style and creative plotting. An auto-read from now on for sure!

Congrats to everyone who worked on this book's release, and thank you for my advance copy!

Absolutely loved this book!!! I was so disappointed that I couldn't sit and read it all in one day! The pieces of it all started to come together at the end, and the author did an amazing job of keeping it exciting from start to finish! Carola Lovering continues to be one of my favorite authors!

Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering is the story of Billie West and her childhood best friend, Cassie Barnwell. They were bonded by an incident that happened 23 years ago but the inseparable pair started to grow up and drift apart. Cassie has a baby and when her baby goes missing, the only one she wants by her side is her best friend, Billie.

I know this probably isn’t the general consensus but I didn’t care for this book. Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering is a psychological thriller, while it had a great premise, all I could think was “cringe.” An old friendship, secrets that no one knows, a missing baby. There are so many interesting facets to this novel, but it just didn’t hit for me. I think that the writing was fantastic and Carola Lovering did a great job of painting a picture of the difficulty of lifelong friendships and what can happen when these friendships drift apart. I loved the different points of view, that allowed each character to tell their story and the added complexity of different timelines adds to the suspense of the novel. I just had a hard time getting through the story.

Rated 3.5 Stars.

Thank you to Carola Lovering, St. Martins Press and Netgalley for the eARC of Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering. Publication date for Bye, Baby was 05 March 2024. If you like twisty tales, take a look at this one.

What a ride! I loved the alternating perspectives so you never know who is in the right or wrong. It kept me reading way into the night and I couldnt wait to find out how it would conclude. Highly recommend! Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for approving me to read and review this ARC. I cant wait to read more from this author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an eARC of Bye, Baby in exchange for my honest review!

As much as I think this could have been significantly tighter, Bye, Baby is still a solid way to unpack weighty themes like toxic codependency and the pressures of motherhood that society inflicts against women. It's just that I've read tons of other books that also explore these same themes, and they managed to do the job in a more taut and fleshed-out fashion. With Bye, Baby, it suffers from dragging on for too long at multiple points—points where it really would have benefitted from trimming some pages in order to strengthen the material. I do admire how we get to navigate the complicated facets of Billie, Cassie, and their dynamic that undergoes quite the evolution over the years—an evolution that reaches an inevitable and satisfying conclusion.

Overall, I'm officially rating Bye, Baby three out of five stars. I wish I could have left it with a more strongly positive reaction, but it's still solid enough, and it motivates me to keep an eye on more of Carola Lovering's work.

Honestly, I kind of had a love/hate relationship with both of the main characters. The author really did a great job of giving them each enough admirable characteristics to keep you from completely hating both of them. Definitely a fascinating read, and it kept me wondering just how things would come to a close. Given this was the first book I’ve read of the author’s, I will most likely check out any other of their books.

Reading Between the Wines book review #24/130 for 2024:
Rating: 3 ½ 🍷 🍷 🍷
Book: Bye, Baby
Author: Carola Lovering
Available now!

Sipping thoughts: I love the beginning of this book and following the “kidnapping” of Cassie’s baby. And to know that her best friend Billie was the one who took her was beyond wild! The alternating POVs pulled me in, and I could not wait until I got back to see and hear how Billie was going to get out of a kidnapping charge. This book was on track to being a 4–5-star book until the ending. I do not know how I wanted the book to end but I just didn’t love the ending, so I dropped it down to 3.5 stars.

Cheers and thank you to @StMartinsPress and @Netgalley for an advanced copy of @ByeBaby.

#ByeBaby #CarolaLovering #StMartinsPress #advancedreadercopy #ARC #Kindle #Booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #bookstagram #nicoles_bookcellar #bookworm #bookdragon #booknerd #booklover #bookstagrammer #bookaholic #bookreview #bookreviewer #IHaveNoShelfControl #ReadingBetweenTheWines #fiction #thriller #suspense #mystery #MysteryAndThrillers #GeneralFictionAdult