Billie and Cassie have been best friends since they were children. Cassie always said that she was going to marry rich. Billie just always wanted to be a Mom. Their friendship like all friendships has their secrets and sometimes secrets can alter a friendship. Cassie has fulfilled her fantasy to marry rich while Billie has not been as fortunate. She is still not married and her dreams of children are fading away. Billie tries to keep the friendship with Cassie but doesn’t seem to fit into Cassie’s new lifestyle of extravagance and IG followers. Now Cassie has a beautiful baby daughter, Ella, and the jealousy starts to rise within Billie. After blowing Billie off with an excuse, Billie checks Cassie’s instagram and sees that she is actually having a lavish party. Anger and jealousy take over and Billie takes Ella. This is not a spoiler as the book starts with Billie holding Ella. We will go from past to present to see the friendship evolve and then dissolve. Buried secrets will come to light. This book was a very fun read and kept me reading throughout. Even though it’s a great thriller, it does show the close and pure friendships between women. Thank you to Netgalley, St Martin’s Press and the talented Carola Lovering for the ARC of this great read. Don’t miss this one!

4.5 ⭐️ rounded to 5

I’m a huge fan of Carola Lovering, so I was really excited to check out her new thriller Bye, Baby. Lovering has quite a gift for writing slightly twisted characters, and the characters in this novel were no exception.

Billie and Cassie have been best friends since childhood. During the start of the book, it’s obvious they are experiencing some kind of fallout. As the story unfolds, it jumps between past and present, exposing the cracks and fragility of their friendship and the bond that keeps them returning to each other.

While Bye, Baby has some elements of a psychological thriller, it’s very much a novel about the twists and turns of friendship. The characters in this one were very interesting. I didn’t dislike Billie, but I struggled with her lack of self respect and her obsession with Cassie. Cassie was just insufferable. She’s conceited and snotty, and I really disliked her. I don’t want to give too much away about each woman, but while I didn’t necessarily like either one, seeing how they build in personality both together and apart throughout the story was really compelling.

While this wasn’t a complete 5 stars for me, it was pretty close, and I really enjoyed it. Carola Lovering is a fantastic Author and I truly love her writing. I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next! Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for gifting me an ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Book Review ✨

Psychological Thriller
4/5⭐️

Pub Date:
March 5 2024

A book about friendship more than anything. Cassie and Billie have been best friends for years- growing into themselves. They have a dark secret between them. As they enter adulthood and grow apart, things get complicated.

I really did love this book. Both main characters were very unlikeable in my opinion but I definitely had a favorite. I thought Cassie was just awful. This book was giving mean girls, meets desperate housewives, meets one of us is dead.

This is definitely a PSYCHOLOGICAL thriller. As a woman there was several times I thought “PREACH SIS”. I think everyone should be pumped for this to be published! Check out the trigger warnings before diving into this one.

Bye, Baby's cover intrigued me just by the book's cover. I know "you shouldn't judge"... but consider this book's cover judged. I love thrillers that involve best friends. They always involve deep dark secrets that bind people together. "Friends" that have nothing in common anymore besides their past. The added social media influencer aspect made this book even more fun to read as it is current with the times. Loved it.

Carola is the queen of toxic relationship stories and Bye, Baby was another hit for her! This book gave me so much anxiety, but in a good way as I was waiting to see what would happen to Billie if Cassie ever found out her secret.

Both Billie and Cassie can be unlikeable throughout the book, but I sympathized with Billie the most. While I feel like she should have just owned up to taking Cassie’s baby, I also understand why she did it. Cassie was a horrible friend to her and while she should’ve just walked away from her, I understand why she kept thinking the Cassie she grew up with would return.

While not a typical thriller, this book did have me unable to put it down and guessing what could happen next. While I love all of Carola’s books, this one is a top read for me!

It was hard to put this book down. Keeps you interested and intrigued. Different than what I usually read but I really enjoyed it.

Billie hears her best friend, Cassie, screaming after her daughter is kidnapped. She’s surprised to remember she took the baby. Billie and Cassie’s secret history is told before the kidnapping occurs.

This story combined a few of my favorite themes… best friends, wealthy snobby mothers, and an influencer. There was also a backstory and flashbacks that added a lot of depth to the current story. I loved how Cassie and Billie’s relationship development was done; it was true to life and familiar to me.. especially that desire to hold on. This was a great read I wasn’t able to put down.

“… of the love between two best friends that dies but doesn’t disappear. There’s still the soul of that love. It goes somewhere.”

Bye, Baby comes out 3/5.

Cassie and Billie became friends years ago and used to be inseparable—they’d do anything for each other. Cassie’s lifelong goal wasn’t just to marry someone with money, but someone with OLD money. She finally accomplished her goal, and now that she’s wealthy and has a baby, Billie doesn’t have anything to offer her. Cassie barely keeps in touch and only does that because she and Billie share a secret that could both get them into big trouble.

Billie never wanted children, which has led to a heartbreak because the man she loved desperately wanted them. Now she’s wary of falling for a guy again and telling him that she doesn’t want kids and getting rejected over again.

Billie is an OK character despite some very stupid things she does. I found Cassie to be insufferable in every way.

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this novel, which RELEASES MARCH 5, 2024.

Cassie and Billie have been the best of friends since childhood, and bonded together in inexplicable ways. Now in their 30s, Billie remains unmarried and childless, while the term “gold digger” is an understatement when it comes to Cassie. She married up in a big way, is a new mom, and is now an “influencer” on IG. With her new life and rich friends, she has cast Billie aside.

Billie is deeply hurt and can’t let it go. She goes to extraordinary means to maintain the friendship, which clearly is one-sided.

I admit to being frustrated with Billie’s character in the beginning, but we eventually learn why Billie is trauma bonded to Cassie and it all starts to make sense.

Carola Lovering doesn’t miss 👏🏼

I’ve loved every book I’ve read from this author. I didn’t want to put this book down. I was eager to see how Billie’s story played out. I thought the ending worked really well for this book and left me content.

Riveting from the very beginning, you will be on the edge of your seat not entirely sure what will happen to protagonist, Billie, but wishing the best for her as you are already sympathetic towards her difficult life. However, she has done wrong so you are stretched to the point where you are shouting at her, “No, don’t do it!” Yet, you are still hoping she finds a way out of trouble in the end.

Lovering has crafted a well paced story of two best friends, who are no longer best friends-but only one of them seems to know that. Jealousy, hurt, and misdirected threat, are at the heart of Bye, Baby.

Billie and Cassie have a long and complicated friendship. They hold secrets and are connected by the bonds of these secrets. But when Cassie marries the blue blooded trust fund receiving Grant and begins hanging out with his crowd and posting her grandiose lifestyle with her Instagram followers, Billie is left to wonder where or if she still fits into Cassie’s life. Then one night Cassie holds a big birthday bash, after telling Billie that she was staying in and having a quiet night, and the uninvited Billie discovers this while checking Cassie’s Instagram stories. During the party, Cassie’s infant daughter, Ella, goes missing. The story opens with Billie sitting on a sofa with Ella in her arms.

Taut and juicy, Bye, Baby delivered the drama. If not for my brain telling me I needed sleep, I would have continued reading this one all the way through in one go.

My favourite structure of before and now and sustained pacing made this book a solid read that I would highly recommend to other readers. There are a few trigger warnings outside of the obvious kidnapped baby; I will post the warnings in my StoryGraph review.

Thank you to @stmartinspress for reaching out to me to offer me this book, knowing that I would enjoy it and to @netgalley for the ARC. Bye, Baby publishes March 5, 2024. I am sharing my honest opinions on this selection.

this was FUN. The places this fiction with some slow-burn thriller elements went weren’t necessarily unexpected, but I liked being along for the ride. I loved the influencer tidbits throughout. Rich people behaving badly and unlikeable characters to the MAX

I was so bored.

The book starts with a friendship on the fritz. Two women who were inseparable in childhood and are no longer bosom buddies. Their friendship is now awkward. One is holding on tighter to the past than the other.

Fast forward to a birthday party event for one and the other not being invited (the audacity), but happens to find herself in the same building by chance. Birthday girl’s baby is hysterically crying. The sound can be heard over the party goers shrill streaks. Before you know it, the alienated friend has stolen her previous sister from another mister’s baby. That’s it. That’s the book.

Between A to B, it covers more grounds (imo too many) (paedophelia / sexual abuse, Alzheimer’s disease, motherhood expectations of women, problems with social media) - but at the end of the day it was another book about toxic female friendship. It was predictable; the narrative didn’t offer any fresh perspective.

They both just needed new friends. Upwards and onwards, as they say.

I really enjoyed this story...although I'm a hardcore mystery and thriller person, there were a couple of those in the story but the main focus is on childhood best friends...their past and their current. Also a bit of romance!

A quick read, I would classify Bye, Baby as a domestic drama rather than a thriller or suspense.
Toxic friendships, multiple POVs, unresolved conflict and drama.
The story builds in the first half and gets a bit twisty in the second half.
A solid read.

👯‍♀️𝙱𝚈𝙴, 𝙱𝙰𝙱𝚈👯‍♀️
𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚛𝚎: 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚛, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙸𝙼𝙾
𝙿𝚞𝚋 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚎: 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝟻, 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺
𝙼𝚢 𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝟻 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚜!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

𝙼𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜💭..
First off, who has watched Tell me lies on Hulu? 📺So friggin good, right? Well, this book is by THAT author so to say I was thrilled to get this advanced copy would be an understatement . Okay, to start..Holy Hells Bells🤌. I loved it! This one resonated with me so much! Okay, so…🤷‍♀️have you ever had a friendship that meant so much to you that you would almost do anything to hold on to it?Even when it became too toxic? Well, I have & I swear breaking it off was harder than most of my boyfriend breakups. I mean I still think about it today. ❤️‍🩹A true friendship(for women) is something so hard to come by so I see why Billie in this story had a hard time just letting it go…(no spoilers, I promise). This wasn’t necessarily a thriller either…..to me, it was a thought provoking character driven women’s drama with some mystery & suspense (alright, easier to just say thriller, I reckon). It had that trope that you critics out there are always hoping for too…a woman in her 30s who actually doesn’t want children(and it being “okay” to be that way!)

🩷I found this one completely engrossing….we have friendships, real ones & toxic ones. An academia setting..you have Harvard & a “regular” school. You get gold digging bitches & those happy to make an honest living. You get Instagram influencers & baby mamas talking breast feeding…all of this & more with the back drop of New York City!! 👌🗽To me, it was amaze balls! It hit just right! 🤌

🤏𝚃𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚢 𝚝𝚒𝚍𝚋𝚒𝚝 A missing baby. A fraught friendship. A secret that can never be told. 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚜 𝚒𝚝..𝚐𝚘 𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚍, 𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚎!

Thank you for the fun @carolatlovering 🥳!! Also thanks for this advanced copy @netgalley & @stmartinspress

I have been a Carola Lovering fan from day one (Tell Me No Lies) and every subsequent release, so i was super excited to receive an Arc of "Bye, Baby". "Bye, Baby" is scheduled to release in March of 2024. This novel is just as strong as her previous work and it explores some similar themes, most notably, toxic friendships. The main characters, Billie and Cassie are lifelong friends who share a trauma bond. Their lives take different paths, causing some anger and resentment which leads to an incident on Cassie's 35th birthday. Lovering does a great job of making you feel empathy for the "villian" in this scenario. I don't want to give away too many details here, but if you liked Lovering's earlier novels you will like this one too! Also if you are a fan of female friendship psychological drama you will really enjoy this book.

Thanks to #Netgalley and #StMartinsPress for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Five Stars!

This had me reading through the night to finish it. I was super excited for a new Carola Lovering book and was not disappointed. As a mom, anything that centers around motherhood in a thriller style book can either go really right or really wrong for me. Lovering did a good job of cultivating the anxiety without making me truly worry that something bad was going to happen to the kid, so that’s always a relief. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happened to Billie after essentially kidnapping her friend’s kid. This didn’t wrap up in a nice little bow with everyone getting off scot free and I enjoyed the way Lovering handled everything. These characters are almost all deeply flawed but this author is an expert at writing flawed characters and juicy stories.

If you love Liv Constantine and Shari Lapena, you’ll love Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering!

I was desperately in the mood for a domestic thriller and this book delivered. I ate this up in two sittings - it would’ve been one if work didn’t have to interrupt me.

Bye, Baby follows Billie and Cassie flashing back to the start of their friendship and following it through the years. We follow them in the present day where Cassie has shunned Billie and Billie ends up taking her baby.

At about 75% into the book, this was going to be an easy 5 ⭐️. I was expecting a twist or a more satisfying ending. I had about 5 ideas on the direction I was hoping the book would take and it didn’t take any of them. It was a slightly disappointing last quarter of the book.

Still really enjoyed it though. I’ll definitely be reading more from Carola Lovering.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.