2 Book Lovers Reviews

Please feel free to comment or share.

See more of Shelley's

 Suspense/Mysteries

Having enjoyed Carola Lovering’s previous novels, I didn’t hesitate to add this one to my must-read list.

Bye, Baby ended up being a bit unexpected. It had all of the addictive writing, intriguing characters, and intense storylines that I have come to expect, but this novel was so much more than a domestic thriller, it was a novel about female friendship, how it evolves over time, and the choices that we make as women. It was a thought-provoking novel that, darn it, made me feel a lot more than I thought it would.

Billie and Cassie were friends since the seventh grade. They shared everything with one another: good times, bad times, and traumatic times. They were pretty much inseparable for most of their young lives, but as time goes by, people change, outgrow their small towns, lifestyles, and often outgrow the people that they grew up with.

In a domestic thriller, I am often not overly attached to a particular character. I am there for the ride that the story is going to take me on. With Bye, Baby, I was invested in one of the characters. I cared about her, I wanted her to be happy, and I wanted everything to work out for her. Yes, I cared. Did I think she always made the best decisions? No. Did I want to shake some sense into her and tell her not to do certain things? Of course I did. If she had listened to my good advice, it wouldn’t have been a very entertaining story, though. She had to do what she was going to do, and I was there, flipping the pages as quickly as I could to find out what the repercussions were going to be.

The story alternated between Billie and Cassie’s perspectives, both from the past and present day. I loved seeing their friendship from the very beginning and how it grew over time. They had a closeness that many best friends share, but not all friendships are able to survive the test of time. We always think that we will be best friends forever with our earliest friends, but we don’t consider how we may go in different directions with our life choices and goals.

Bye, Baby was a riveting, twisty read that swept me into the story and kept me glued to the pages. I was invested from the very beginning of Billie and Cassie’s story and couldn’t wait to find out how it would all play out.

​

*5 Stars