"Bye, Baby" is a gripping and emotionally charged novel that delves into the complexities of friendship, secrets, and the profound impact of past traumas on the present. The story begins with a chilling scene as Billie, the protagonist, realizes her own role in the kidnapping of her best friend Cassie's infant daughter. This shocking incident sets the stage for a narrative that explores the depth of their friendship, both in recent times and over the course of two decades. The alternating perspectives between Billie and Cassie offer readers a multifaceted view of their evolving relationship, highlighting how choices made in their youth continue to shape their lives in adulthood.

Lovering's storytelling is marked by suspense and a keen sense of psychological tension, making the novel difficult to put down. The exploration of themes like the lasting impact of childhood trauma and the ways in which women's choices can affect their lifelong bonds adds depth and resonance to the narrative. While the plot is riveting and the character dynamics are well-crafted, some readers may find certain twists predictable, but this does not diminish the overall power of the story. "Bye, Baby" is a thought-provoking and engrossing novel that captivates with its exploration of friendship, betrayal, and the enduring echoes of the past.

So much more than a thriller, Bye Baby is a novel about friendship and what happens when it starts to fade away.

Billie and Cassie have been friends since they were pre-teens. They have been through so much in life together and have always been the keeper of each other's secrets. But Cassie wishes for more in life than just being poor from a small town. She wants the glamour, the fancy home, the money and vacations. When a tragedy happens that only Billie and Cassie know about, it drives a wedge in their friendship. Years later, Cassie's life is upended when her daughter goes missing and she only wants Billie around to help her. But what is Billie hiding?

Told in alternating story lines, Cassie is almost instantly dislikable. She is all about image and money and pushes Billie to the side in order to make room for her new rich friends. My heart ached for Billie who was holding onto a friendship that clearly no longer existed.

Great, quick read. Much thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this book ahead of time in exchange for a review. It didn't disappoint! Must read!!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martins press for the ARC. All opinions are solely my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ of 5

Cassie and Billie develop a codependent friendship at age 11 that follows them through childhood, young adult hood and into the 30 something’s. So how are 2 such girls with such different life goals and aspirations so closely bonded together and will that bond eventually be severed?

Growing up in New York, Billie and Cassie get glimpses into what motivates and drives the other. This is more of a drama in my opinion than a thriller. If marketed a drama relationship genre I think it would reach the audience more attracted to this particular genre.

The chapters alternate between Cassie and Billie between their friendship now and their relationship as it developed from the start. Chapters are concise and straightforward easy to understand and navigate through the narrative.

As Billie, a luxury travel consultant still works to be an important person in Cassie’s life, Cassie a now wealthy mother and social influencer has become distant from Billie while seemingly flourishing in new relationships. Will the disappearance of Cassie’s baby seal or sever the friendship bond once and for all?

Strong character development. Each character is flawed, neither more likable than the other. A study in human nature, what roles do we need our relationships to be at our different stages in life? What happens when those needs aren’t fulfilled?

Realistic circumstances make this a solid read. There are no sinister, eerie cliffhanger chapters. No guessing who did what but it’s the why one will continue reading to discover.

I was intrigued with this read based on Carola’s previous work so I was very excited to dive into this new title. The fist part was interesting enough, two friends that grew up together have formed a bond in their teens but something happens over the course of their 20’s that causes a divide in their relationship. Billie is obsessed with Cassie and follows her every move on social media to the point of obsession until one night she finds herself taking Cassie’s baby.

The story seems to come to a halt by the midway point and reading the rest felt more like a chore than anything else, most of the tension and back story had been explored by then including the big climax (of which there had been a preview already in the opening pages). I also had a hard time rooting for any character, Billie’s obsession seems odd since her own life turned out so well for her and Cassie doesn’t seem like a good friend at all? I couldn’t understand why she would continue to pursue a friendship with a person who belittled her so much. Either way the prose and style was close to Carola’s previous work. If you enjoy complicated female friendships then you’ll enjoy this

This was an interesting read and I enjoyed the narration a whole lot. The ending surprised me and I really enjoyed the twists.

Whew! What a ride that was!

The book opens with Cassie screaming for her missing baby — and Billie in the apartment below having just taken the child.

Bye, Baby was a suspenseful, fast-paced look at toxic friendship, motherhood, being child-free by choice, privilege, social media and trauma.

It was addictive and once I started I had to finish! Did I like Cassie? Absolutely not. But I truly felt for her in some parts of the book.

TW: sexual abuse

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Thank you netgalley for a chance to read this early for an honest review.

This book was not what I expected at all. In a good way. I thought this book would be a mystery thriller or having to find this baby. However that was really it at all so beware if that is your expectation. However, I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought. I was not the biggest fan of Tell Me Lies because I didn't like the characters. It was a DNF for me but this book sounded so intriguing so I gave it a chance.

It follows Cassie and Billie. Two girls that used to be best friends but find themselves growing apart. Cassie is married with a baby with a following on Instagram. Billie is single and childless. One night Cassie's baby goes missing and it is Billie who has taken her (not a spoiler it is in the synopsis). Through an alternating timeline we follow Cassie and Billie as their friendship grows, secrets and trauma that bond them, and how they fell apart.
This story examines friendships, trauma, and growing up and growing apart.

While I disliked Cassie initially, I grew to understand her a little bit. I still didn't really like her by the end. She had very little character growth. I love Billie, even though she made a horrible mistake, she grew and she learned about how to make herself happy without relying on another person and how to let toxic relationships go. Billie went through so much my heart ached for her. The end was very satisfying in my opinion. I may give her other books another shot.

This book follows Cassie and Billie, who are two best friends that grew up together. Billie in particular has quite a traumatic upbringing but Cassie has been by her side through it all. They also share a dark secret, which keeps them bonded throughout their lives.

The book uses alternating timelines with chapters in both the present and the past. In the present, Cassie and Billie both live in NYC. Over the years they have grown apart, although Billie has this strong desire to still remain in Cassie’s life, although it appears that Cassie may have outgrown her, as she lives a very fabulous life, now married to a very wealthy man, has just had a baby, and works as a social media influencer. This book had me anxiously flipping pages to get to the end! I had to find out what happened. I really enjoyed the story and I felt like it was fast paced and keep me very interested. However, I really hated a lot of the decisions that Cassie and Billie made, and that made them both unlikable to me. I also felt extremely uncomfortable with the child sexual abuse that was portrayed in this book. Definitely check trigger warnings for this one.

Bye, Baby by Carolina Lovering was quite a ride.

Billie and Cassie have been friends for two decades and have been through everything together.

Billie had a rough home-life with way more challenges than the typical kid. Cassie had a very average home-life however yearned for way more, despising her very mediocre life.

Cassie attends Harvard (of course) while Billie attends Northeastern. Cassie goes for the white-collar, Vineyard Vines-wearing type.

When Cassie meets her wealthy, trust-fund husband, Cassie pushes away Billie in favor of other wealthy, trust-fund types.

As an instagram Influencer, Cassie has her whole world on display. Billie watches her stories closely, feeling left-out.

I found myself cheering for Billie despite her cringy choices. And, I was screaming “don’t do it” but clearly she didn’t hear me.

I found this book highly entertaining and I couldn’t stop reading. I just needed to find out what happened in the end. Nobody puts Baby in the corner!

Great book! Highly recommend.

⭐️⭐️🌟🌟1/2 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advance readers copy of Bye, Baby in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is a very hard book to review and also my first book I read from this author. It is about two friend from junior high school, Billie and Cassie. The book is told by two POV’s Billie and Cassie. It really is a toxic relationship that they have and also seeped with trauma. They remain great friends till Cassie meets a very wealthy man, Grant and more or less moves past her closeness to Billie and on to her very wealthy friends Billie is crushed when Cassie doesn’t make Billie her made of honor. I read another review in which she felt a therapist should have been in the story. It was well written, very sad at times but there is a resolution to their story. I received this book from net galley and the publisher for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book and definitely recommend this book for readers that like this type of book, delving into friendships between two girls and the toxic environment.

I really enjoyed Bye Baby and I can’t wait to see how this book resonates with thriller lovers!

The friendship dynamic between Cassie and Billie was a ride! The deep seated issues were sprinkled throughout the book, which kept my attention. I thought the notion that people change and chapters close was so relatable.

The mixed POV and timeline was so well done! It was the perfect blend of storytelling and honestly, I could keep all details straight.

The plot of this book is really wild - I absolutely had to know what happened. Why did Billie have Cassie’s baby? Why did Cassie cry out for Billie? We have the whole book to find out!

Another solid Grace Atwood recommendation. Billie and Cassie have been best friends since middle school. They’ve been there for each other through major trauma in high school and stay close through college and early adulthood. But once Cassie marries Grant and has a baby, she starts to phase Billie out of her life.

The book opens with Cassie screaming for her missing baby — and Billie in the apartment below having just taken the child.

Bye, Baby was a suspenseful, fast-paced look at toxic friendship, motherhood, being child-free by choice, privilege, social media and trauma. I couldn’t put it down.

TW: Abuse

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

This book was a total page-turner for me that I couldn't put down (too many late nights trying to squeeze in one more chapter!). Billie and Cassie are childhood best friends, raised in a middle class neighborhood, having experienced some shared events in their youth which bonded them deeply and that they intend to keep secret forever. Cassie has always had aspirations to break into the echelon of the very wealthy and leave her past behind, and her marriage to Grant Adler and birth of their daughter Ella solidifies her place within the NYC elite. All this comes at a cost to her relationship with Billie -- Cassie tries to put her past, including friends and memories, behind her, moving on with her wealthy young mom friends in the city -- and Billie is trying to hold onto her best friend at all costs.

The book starts with the moment Billie finds Cassie's young child in her arms -- a kidnapping gone wrong? Intentional or not? The book then flashes back in time to the moments before this event, and then moves past the event as both Cassie and Billie's stories are told in alternating chapters.

Beyond the main plot points and the "kidnapping," I thought the story of two friends who have grown up, grown apart, but are trying (to different degrees) to be in each other's lives was really interesting. This happens to so many people and was very relatable. What happens when someone who was so important to you moves on with new friends -- do you try to hang onto that relationship at all costs? What happens when one person values that relationship so much more than the other? The dynamic between the two friends has happened to so many of us. Fortunately for most that friendship dissolution doesn't come with as much drama as it does for Cassie and Billie!

All this to say, highly recommend if you want a page-turning, suspenseful read where you see both sides of the story but are waiting to see how each side will react to each other and the events at hand.

I absolutely devoured this book. I am a huge fan of domestic thrillers/toxic female friendships and Carola Lovering tackles that genre so well!! Her female main characters are so richly examined and full of flaws that you just can’t look away (which is coincidentally one of her other books titles, also amazing)! Carola has become an auto buy author for me.

Bye, Baby is a gripping novel of suspense that delves into the intricate dynamics of a female friendship. This compelling story unravels the complexities of a bond forged by childhood secrets, revealing a relationship that is both life-affirming and toxic. From the moment I started reading, I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from its pages.

This was a great read! I really enjoyed the story and the plot. It kept me engaged and excited to see what was going to happen next. A solid 4 star read!

Even though this is a thriller on the surface, I think it's actually a psychological story about female friendships at its heart. It's about what happens when we're on the outside. What we're capable of when we're pushed and excluded. It's about female friendships and how amazing and how toxic and how complicated they can be. It's about what happens when we do things we never thought we were capable of.

The characters here are not likable. You're not rooting for either of them. And yet they both endure things no human should have to go through. And they are both deeply messed up. It messes with your head quite a bit as you read this story. It's like an accident you can't look away from.

with gratitude to netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

Carola Lovering is a master of psychological suspense novels. Staying out of the thriller genre, Lovering's newest Bye, Baby offers a look at a strained friendship and what lengths Billie and Cassie will go to try to keep their friendship intact but also forget the past. It's best to not too much going into this novel, but just know that it will suck you in and keep you turning the pages. Lovering is so good at exploring the complicated world of friendships and how they evolve over time. I absolutely loved this one!

SO FREAKING GOOD. Did I hate both FMC's? Yup. Did I read this book in one sitting because I couldn't control myself? Yup. I highly recommend this is you can digest a book filled with unlikable characters who do sh**** things. This was thrilling and so well written.