Carola Lovering's latest thriller, "Bye, Baby" delivers a gripping narrative that intertwines the lives of two old friends, Billie and Cassie, in a web of deception and shifting loyalties. As a fan of Lovering's previous works, I anticipated a rollercoaster ride of drama and suspense, and I wasn't disappointed. While the story didn't keep me on the edge of my seat like a typical thriller, it kept me engaged with its compelling mystery and well-developed characters.

Billie and Cassie are intricately portrayed, each with their own flaws and complexities. I found myself empathizing with Billie's struggles while despising Cassie's manipulative behavior. Despite my dislike for Cassie, I couldn't help but be drawn into her chapters, which added layers to the story's intrigue. Lovering skillfully weaves their backstories throughout the narrative, providing depth and context to their actions.

Overall, "Bye, Baby" is a masterfully executed domestic drama that delves into the complexities of female friendship, motherhood, and marriage. Lovering's clever use of flashbacks seamlessly integrates past and present, offering readers a deeper understanding of the characters' motivations. While neither woman may be particularly likable, their flawed humanity makes for a captivating read. If you're a fan of Lovering's previous novels, "Bye, Baby" is sure to satisfy your craving for drama and addictive storytelling.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

I loved this book! It was a great drama that explored toxic friendships.

I wouldn't say it was a thriller or mystery though. Will be suggesting it to friends who typically read thrillers and want to check out something different!

4 Stars!

it kind of dragged on, the story was interesting for the first half but it felt like a much longer book than it was

Reading Bye, Baby was like hearing the most salacious, juicy gossip about people you went to school with who you couldn't stand. The book was a page turner for sure but the main characters are both pretty despicable. Rather than a thriller, this is the story of the rise and fall of a friendship through the years.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for access to this arc.

Wow!! What did I just read?! I couldn’t put this book down!! The characters were well developed and I found myself staying up way past my bedtime to finish it. Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this incredible book! I will definitely be sharing it with all of my fellow book lovers!

3.5 stars
Cassie’s baby goes missing from her home, during her birthday party. Her former best friend, Billie, has taken the child. We learn very early what happened but we don’t know *why* it happened. The story is told in alternating POVs and timelines to fill in the past, present, and future for Cassie and Billie. The first half sets up the past up until that fateful moment. The second half of the book unravels with the fallout for everyone after the baby is returned and the hunt for answers begins. No one in this story is likable (except maybe Billie’s boyfriends, past & present) but I appreciate that we don’t need to relate to characters or like them to enjoy their stories. The format was unique but it also leant itself to being fairly repetitive, though I’m not sure how it could have been otherwise and still worked as well.

This book was interesting. There was enough drama to keep me turning the pages, but the desperation of the friendship was a turn off for me. Why are you so obsessed with someone who treats you so poorly? You're not a teenager anymore, you're in your 30's. Time to move on!

A quick read with despicable characters. Lots of friend/girl/mom drama, people tied together by secrets and torn apart by actions. It was a juicy drama. There was some influencer lifestyle stuff in there too that is always interesting to me. I have read several by this author and can't wait for her next ones.

I really enjoyed this- it was very different compared to most of the thrillers, and I loved the bestie dynamic. The childfree one deff made it out on top and the other one was a total bitch.

4.5 stars. That was really really good!! I love me some unlikeable characters and social media darlings are one of my favorite people to not like. This is a very complex story of friendship and how it inevitably changes over time. People can and do change, but they also show their true colors. You just have to be willing to see it, adjust, and move on if needed. Not doing so leads to what happens within these pages.

I struggled with this author’s last book, but decided to give this one a shot. This felt way more like domestic suspense, but definitely not true thriller territory. Instead of some of her normal romantic interests thrown in her books, we get the best friends relationship, and how that evolves over time. Thrown in a missing baby, and characters you cannot connect with because of unlikeable qualities. This one was a total miss for me just like her last book.

I didn’t initially request this book because it didn’t seem much like something I would be interested in, as it seemed a little sad, but it quickly gained attention on book social media and I decided I’d give it a shot. It was something I couldn’t put down!

I will start by saying I have very conflicting thoughts about this book. I love the alternating POVs, those are always well received by me, especially in thrillers, despite this not necessarily being a thriller. Although it wasn’t, it still read like one in the sense that you find yourself continuing on and on to reveal just how toxic this relationship between these two women is and what exactly caused it.
The biggest downside for me was the characters. I found myself increasingly frustrated with them both, begging them internally to just go to therapy. We do get to see why things are the way they are, which helps in a way.
Another issue I had was that it seemed as if the author tried to fit too many differing themes into the story, which I felt didn’t lend enough significance to each one in turn. It can be hard to empathize and fully understand when things are watered down.
Despite those things, I read this book crazy fast. I really just needed to get to the bottom of things and figure everything out. The book was very well written in that sense.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for this ARC.
Publication date 3/5/24

Thank you #netgalley for this ARC. I believe Bye, Baby started off very strong and captured me quickly. However, the middle dragged far too long. Billie trying needed to stand on her own two feet & stop running after Cassie. I feel Billie should’ve grown during her distant time away from Cassie. I also felt the story was a bit predictable.

I really loved this book. It is about the complicated nature of female friendships, about trust and deceit, and, at its core, about love. It was well-paced, interesting, and emotional. Cassie and Billie are well-rounded characters, nuanced enough that you both love and hate them at times. 4.5 stars rounded up!

An interesting story of friendship, betrayal and self acceptance. Billie has a lot going on and her journey to accepting herself is long and twisting.

A good friend can be hard to find, especially a friend that's willing to keep your deepest, darkest, secrets.

This is how we find Billie and Cassie - best friends for so long, sometimes it's hard to tell where on ends and one begins. Cassie is the one looking to impress, always ready to climb the social ladder to get exactly what she wants. Billie, in contrast, has had a hard life and just wants to live a life that keeps her mostly happy.

Three years ago, they were best friends forever. But then Cassie means a WASP, becomes Instagram famous, gets married, has a baby, and suddenly her WASPy friends are more important to her than Billie ever was.

Is that why Billie finally breaks?

I LOVED this book so, so much. I identified with Billie in a way that I don't normally with fictional characters. Like Billie, I have had friends that have tossed me aside simply because they're moving in a different direction as me. I understand that hurt and sorrow, especially when you've been through something with someone that you just can't replicate with someone else.

I also really appreciated that Carola Lovering chose to focus on Billie choosing not to have children, and how she's made to feel as if one day she'll simply change her mind. As a woman that has also chosen to not have children, I couldn't help but love Billie, and it really made me feel seen. I found myself highlighting whole pages, nodding right along with Billie's feelings.

Although I do agree that therapy could have been a great addition to this novel, there was another reviewer that focused solely on Billie and her problems and her need for therapy. But by the end of the book, Cassie goes right back to being a vapid social climber and I have to say she needs therapy far more than her former best friends. I disliked her for much of this book and kind of felt like she deserved a little scare when her baby went missing. Who on earth leaves a baby outside by themselves during a party? Can we say terrible mother?

Billie made this book for me, as did the differing POVs and the visits back to the past. The end was exactly what I needed and I found myself incredibly satisfied.

Cheers to the Billies of the world.

Frenemies bonded by secrets from the past are reunited when one of them discovers her baby has gone missing. This is less of a thriller, more of an in depth look at one friendship that’s turned toxic over time. Despite some heavy subject matter, things never got as nefarious as I wanted and everything gets tied up a little too neatly for my taste. Nonetheless, it was a fun lil’ romp!

This is a case of I was expecting something a bit different, but still got a book that was well written and was driven 100% by the characters that were more toxic than anything. I thought this was going to be more of a thriller, but it seemed to be a horrifying depiction of women and motherhood. Domestic drama with a dark twist?

Bye, Baby is a story of friendship, family and what happens when the people in your life no longer fit into the mold you've created for yourself. We start the book with someone taking a baby. Then we continue the journey as we follow two friends, Cassie and Billie as they navigate their lives in the past and present. They were two friends that grew up together and went through a lot in their teen and college lives only to end up as more acquaintances as the years go by and as their lives change.

I was really intrigued by the premise and was curious to see where the story would take us. Lovering always does such an amazing job at giving us characters that are questionable. I continuously wonder who I'm supposed to like or root for. Because the main characters are both so darn questionable in their actions. And Cassie and Billie or no different. Cassie is an influencer and new mom and her life revolves around her phone and posting all the 'latest and greatest'. She is wealthy and has the friends, home, husband, child and life to prove it. Life couldn't be better. Billie meanwhile is childless, traveling and enjoying what her unmarried life has given her. She may not seem as "successful" as Cassie and she may not have children like Cassie and her friends, but she still sees her lifelong friend as such. But does Billie want what Cassie has? What will she do to get it?

Bye, Baby was more of a women's domestic drama with a small side of mystery that stemmed from a past that bled into the present. It's what connected the two women. And as we read the story and understand the past, we begin to piece together why Cassie and Billie kept the connection for as long as they did. The beginning of the story was a little slow for me, but once I got through the first quarter, I blew through the rest. Seeing how these women behaved was quite disturbing yet entertaining. I loved the way Carola Lovering really dove into who these characters were, but honestly wished we got more of a thriller aspect. That's the only reason I rated it 3.5 (rounded down).

With all that said, I think I connected with Billie the most, even if her actions and lies led her to losing what she thought she cared about most. It was complicated though. Most of the women were truly awful, but having those strong feelings towards them is what made the story compelling and for me to keep flipping those pages to get to the end. Was it satisfying? Yes. Was it well written? Also, yes. I just wanted there to be more of a thriller/suspense aspect. If you go in with no preconceived notions of a thriller, then I think this would hit all the marks. Especially if you enjoy unlikable characters.

TW: Graphic sexual abuse, Rape

Billie’s and Cassie’s lives have been intertwined since they were teens. But as they grew older, they drifted apart despite being connected by a traumatic past. Sometimes secrets bring people together, sometimes they force them apart, but they always tie people together.

This story is told from a dual-POV and multiple timelines. The author did a good job at writing characters that were difficult to like. I did like Billie more by the end though, and that was an interesting journey to go on. I wasn’t expecting that to be the case, but I enjoyed how someone could make such an awful decision and that the author could convince me to see where she was coming from.

This work is also character-driven rather than plot-driven, which made for an interesting read. It did slow down the story overall and kept it from feeling like a thriller, but it was still enjoyable. There were many darker themes explored in this story. I think there were almost too many as it bogged down the primary plot, but it did help to explore the characters’ pasts and their motivations, so it’s difficult to say.

If you like slow burn psychological suspense/mysteries you’ll probably enjoy this one. DO NOT read the GR blurb if you’re planning on reading this one as it gives away too much. My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read this work, which will be published March 5, 2024. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

This book had me stressed and on the edge of my seat almost the entire time. I enjoyed this a lot more than Tell Me Lies, and feel like they both fall Into the category of “social commentary” rather than thriller or romance or anything else really. I thought the way that the relationship between both Cassie and Billie was portrayed was really relatable for anyone who has ever been in that type of dynamic. You really feel all of the emotions the different characters are feeling. I think some of the flashbacks could have been pared down but maybe that’s just me. Overall really enjoyed this and would recommend