carola lovering – Pleasant Nights

Title: Bye, Baby

Author: Carola Lovering

Genre: thriller

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book

I HATED the characters in this book. The story is about two childhood friends, Billie and Cassie, and how their lives diverged. I guess I was supposed to be sympathetic to Billie because she’s not evil, but her neediness and desperation were so off-putting. And Cassie is an influencer, and I hated her from page one.

Billie is desperate for most of the book to get Cassie’s attention, but Cassie has a new friend group who understands her lifestyle, motherhood, her newfound fame, and her husband’s financial situation. Billie grew up with Cassie, and even though Cassie has always been a gold digger, she loved her anyway.

I did finish the book because I wanted to know what happened, but I can’t recommend this one to anyone. Both characters were so wretched that I don’t want to subject others to them.

Too Good to Be True

Title: Too Good to Be True

Author: Carola Lovering

Genre: psychological thriller

This book was offered as a Book of the Month offer, and although I selected another book, this one sounded good, so I looked for it at my library. Holy. Smokes. This book is one of the best I’ve read this year. I absolutely loved it. It’s definitely crazy, but in such a fun way. It took turns I wasn’t expecting.

From Goodreads: 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.

Nuts. This book is nuts. But in the best way possible. I actually shouted “HOLY CRAP” a couple of times when certain plot points were revealed. The story is expertly crafted and the characters jumped right off the page. Whether they were good people or not, they were definitely dynamic. I couldn’t put this book down. I’ve only read a handful of truly great thrillers this year (out of the dozens I’ve read), but I’m happy to say this one will be high on my recommendations.