Bye, Baby

I recently had dinner with my best friend from college, who I hadn’t seen in years. After our first glass of wine, we were laughing as we reminisced about sneaking out of her parents’ house to smoke cigarettes. By our second, we were in tears; her mother had recently passed away. When we finished our third, we were planning our next date. As we hugged goodbye, I inhaled her familiar spicy scent and wondered why we’d drifted apart. It seems too simple to say that I’d married and had children earlier, while she continued to date cute guys and rise through the ranks at work. And yet looking back, as with many friendships, I suppose there was jealousy and loneliness on both sides.

Enter Bye, Baby. Here Carola Lovering takes an unflinching look at the fragility and dangers of female friendships.

Billie and Cassie were once BFFs, fiercely bound by childhood secrets. However, now in their mid-30s, Cassie—a married new mother and lifestyle influencer—is eager to leave everything in her past behind, including Billie. But Billie, a single, childless travel consultant, still believes they have a special connection and will do anything to restore it.

Told in alternating perspectives, Bye, Baby travels back in time to unspool the complicated dynamics between these two women, and then forward again to explore the aftershocks of a split-second decision that threatens to destroy them both. I found it all totally riveting!

Every friendship has its shadow…

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.

Once fiercely bonded by their secrets, Cassie and Billie have drifted apart in adulthood, no longer the inseparable pair they used to be in their small Hudson Valley hometown. Cassie is married to a wealthy man, has recently become a mother, and is building a following as a lifestyle influencer. She is desperate to leave her past behind—including Billie, who is single and childless, and no longer fits into her world. But Billie knows the worst thing Cassie has ever done, and she will do whatever it takes to restore their friendship…