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.

Review:

Compelling, ominous, and addictive!

Bye, Baby is a taut, intricate tale that takes you into the life of Cassie Adler, a young mother and social media influencer who seems to have the affluent life she’s always coveted, until one day her four-month-old baby girl goes missing and she feels like the only person who can help her is her childhood best friend Billie West who for the past few years she’s deliberately snubbed and left behind.

The prose is tight and edgy. The characters are secretive, consumed, and troubled. And the plot, using a past/present, back-and-forth style, builds and unravels quickly into a twisty tale full of drama, deception, lies, jealousy, obsession, manipulation, tragedy, childhood trauma, dark secrets, and the complex relationships that can exist between friends.

Overall, Bye, Baby is an engrossing, sinister, tortuous novel by Lovering that kept me riveted from the very first page and is the perfect choice for anyone who loves a menacing, highly entertaining, tension-filled read.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

In 2013, twenty-three-year old Molly Diamond is a barista, dreaming of becoming a writer. One night at a concert in East Williamsburg, she locks eyes with the lead singer, Jake Danner, and can’t look away. Molly and Jake fall quickly and deeply in love, especially after he writes a hit song about her that puts his band on the map.

Nearly a decade later, Molly has given up writing and is living in Flynn Cove, Connecticut with her young daughter and her husband Hunter—who is decidedly not Jake Danner. Their life looks picture-perfect, but Molly is lonely; she feels out of place with the other women in their wealthy suburb, and is struggling to conceive their second child. When Sabrina, a newcomer in town, walks into the yoga studio where Molly teaches and confesses her own fertility struggles, Molly believes she’s finally found a friend.

But Sabrina has her own reasons for moving to Flynn Cove and befriending Molly. And as Sabrina’s secrets are slowly unspooled, her connection to Molly becomes clearer––as do secrets of Molly’s own, which she’s worked hard to keep buried.

Meanwhile, a new version of Jake’s hit song is on the radio, forcing Molly to confront her past and ask the ultimate questions: What happens when life turns out nothing like we thought it would, when we were young and dreaming big? Does growing up mean choosing with your head, rather than your heart? And do we ever truly get over our first love?

Review:

Brisk, sinister, and tight!

Can’t Look Away is a gripping psychological thriller that takes you on a journey into the life of the sweet, lonely Molly Hunter as she juggles living in a small community, being a caring wife and mother, ongoing struggles with infertility, memories of an all-consuming relationship that changed her life forever, and a new friend who is too good to be true.

The prose is crisp and tense. The characters are secretive, troubled, and vulnerable. And the plot using flashbacks and a back-and-forth, past/present style, intertwines and unravels quickly into a menacing tale of family, friendship, deception, lies, drama, manipulation, jealousy, secrets, revelations, tragedy, betrayal, and young love.

Overall, Can’t Look Away is another taut, tortuous, riveting tale by Lovering that highlights just how fine the line between love and obsession can truly be and reminds us that every choice, good or bad, always has a consequence.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

ONE LOVE STORY. TWO MARRIAGES. THREE VERSIONS OF THE TRUTH.

Skye Starling is overjoyed when her boyfriend, Burke Michaels, proposes after a whirlwind courtship. Though Skye seems to have the world at her fingertips―she’s smart, beautiful, and from a well-off family―she’s also battled crippling OCD ever since her mother’s death when she was eleven, and her romantic relationships have suffered as a result.

But now Burke―handsome, older, and more emotionally mature than any man she’s met before―says he wants her. Forever. Except, Burke isn’t who he claims to be. And interspersed letters to his therapist reveal the truth: he’s happily married, and using Skye for his own, deceptive ends.

In a third perspective, set thirty years earlier, a scrappy seventeen-year-old named Heather is determined to end things with Burke, a local bad boy, and make a better life for herself in New York City. But can her adolescent love stay firmly in her past―or will he find his way into her future?

On a collision course she doesn’t see coming, Skye throws herself into wedding planning, as Burke’s scheme grows ever more twisted. But of course, even the best laid plans can go astray. And just when you think you know where this story is going, you’ll discover that there’s more than one way to spin the truth.

Review:

Intricate, creepy, and twisty!

Too Good to Be True is a sinister, psychological thriller that introduces us to three main characters. Skye Starline a young woman with looks, money, and a great career but unlucky in love, until recently, due to her often debilitating OCD, Burke Michaels, a handsome, mature father of three who seems to be the perfect fiancé except for the fact he’s broke and actually already married, and Heather, a middle-aged wife with a past littered with heartbreak and loss and a compulsive desire to have all the good things in life.

The prose is taut and intense. The characters are suspicious, secretive, and vulnerable. And the plot using a mix of narration, diary entries, and flashbacks, and told from multiple POVs, intertwines and unravels effortlessly into a machiavellian tale of deception, lies, manipulation, jealousy, secrets, revelations, and mind-blowing mayhem.

Overall, Too Good to Be True is an unpredictable, tight, satisfying thrill ride by Lovering that had just the right amount of twists, turns, and surprises to keep me thoroughly engrossed from start to finish.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.