Happy Release Day!
Congratulations Carola
on the release today of
Bye, Baby!
Bye, Baby by Carola Lovering
Mystery Thriller, 344 pages
Published March 5, 2024 by St. Martin's Press
A missing baby. A fraught friendship. A secret that can never be told.
On a brisk fall night in a New York apartment, 35-year-old Billie West hears terrified screams. It's her lifelong best friend Cassie Barnwell, one floor above, and she's just realized her infant daughter has gone missing. Billie is shaken as she looks down into her own arms to see the baby, remembering—with a jolt of fear—that she is responsible for the kidnapping that has instantly shattered Cassie’s world.
So begins the story of Billie and Cassie's friendship--both in recent weeks, and since they met twenty-three years ago, in their small Hudson Valley hometown the summer before seventh grade. Once fiercely bonded by their secrets, including a traumatic, unspeakable incident in high school, Cassie and Billie have drifted apart in adulthood, no longer the inseparable pair they used to be. Cassie is married to a wealthy man, has recently become a mother, and is building a following as a fashion and lifestyle influencer. She is desperate to leave her past behind--including Billie, who is single and childless, and no longer fits into her world. Hurt and rejected by Cassie’s new priorities, Billie will do anything to restore their friendship, even as she hides the truth about what really happened the night the baby was taken.
Told in alternating perspectives in Lovering’s signature suspenseful style, Bye Baby confronts the myriad ways friendships change and evolve over time, the lingering echoes of childhood trauma, and the impact of women’s choices on their lifelong relationships.
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)
First lines—"The baby stops fussing, settling into my arms like a sleepy puppy. The soft weight of her."
This book made me feel so many emotions. I loved the friendship that Billie and Cassie had when they were young, with each of them having each other's backs as they went through tough things. And then the adult versions of themselves, not so much. I got so frustrated with both of them, sabotaging their deep friendship. How could they do that to each other?
I won't go any further into the story because I don't want to give anything away but..... seriously? I had to keep going to see what was going to happen next. And I'm glad I did, but oh what a ride to get there.
Like other books of Ms. Lovering's that I have read, this one had me on the edge of me seat, feeling it all, and racing to the end. Bye, Baby is an exciting and riveting thriller that I highly recommend.
I received a copy of Bye, Baby from the publisher via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.
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About the author
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Carola Lovering is the author of Tell Me Lies, Too Good to Be True, Can’t Look Away, and the forthcoming Bye, Baby. She is a graduate of Colorado College, and her work has appeared in Vogue, The Cut, Marie Claire, W Magazine, National Geographic, and Yoga Journal, among other publications. Her novel, Tell Me Lies, has been adapted into a television series for Hulu.
She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two young children.
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