Twisty suspense
Connecticut author’s novel, ‘Bye, Baby,’ opens with a kidnapping
The book centers on the once unbreakable friendship between Cassie and Billie, whose adult lives couldn’t be more different. Childless Billie travels extensively but is desperate to reclaim her friendship with Cassie, who has a rich husband, infant daughter and is a lifestyle influencer. Cassie is eager to leave her past behind, including Billie.
In books, the protagonist is often well-liked but Darien author Carola Lovering wasn’t afraid to make both her main characters unlikeable in her latest novel, “Bye, Baby,” which comes out March 5.
With three novels already under her belt — one made into a hit TV series on Hulu, “Tell Me Lies,” — Lovering specializes in secrets, lies and surprises — standard plot elements for any suspense writer worth their salt. Her talent is not just in plot twists that leave readers guessing, but in crafting multilayered characters with intricate back stories that readers peel back like an onion.
“I wrote the first half of this book and was really nervous about the characters being so unlikable,” she said. She sent it to her agent, warning her that one character was really unlikable. “She read it and was like ‘I don’t know which one you’re talking about? Which one is supposed to be more likable?’”
The book centers on the once unbreakable friendship between Cassie and Billie, whose adult lives couldn’t be more different. Childless Billie travels extensively but is desperate to reclaim her friendship with Cassie, who has a rich husband, infant daughter and is a lifestyle influencer. Cassie is eager to leave her past behind, including Billie.
The novel immediately hooks readers from the first page. Billie hears a scream from Cassie an apartment floor above her upon realizing her baby is missing. The kidnapper? Billie.
The prologue was the idea that sparked the novel and was the first chapter Lovering wrote.
“It came to me very fully formed and I just wrote it. It’s pretty straightforward but was really the catalyst for the rest of the story,” she said. “I had wanted to write a book that centers on a complicated female friendship for a while. That scene where it’s Billie overhearing Cassie freak out about her missing baby and Billie looks down and Cassie’s baby is in her arms…I felt like it would be a good starting point for the novel.”
Chapters are written in alternating viewpoints, mostly in the present timeline, but flashback chapters shed insight into the characters. Lovering used a similar format in her debut, “Tell Me Lies,” but said she wrote the earlier chapters before adding present-day chapters. “With ‘Bye, Baby,’ I started out just writing it in the present, switching back-and-forth between Billie and Cassie’s POV’s,” she said. “I realized pretty early on though that something was missing.”
An avid reader, Lovering was reading “The Paper Palace” at the time and said she was taken with the author’s use of flashback scenes. “It did a really great job of having these flashback scenes of the main character’s life that were these little nuggets of flashbacks, really nostalgic and powerful,” she said.
“I felt like I needed the context of flashing back to Billie and Cassie’s origin story. It really allowed me to go deeper with the characters and was very necessary in telling the whole story…and obviously showing the trauma bond that Cassie and Billie have.”
Of the two characters, Cassie was her favorite to write, especially when she is posting on social media to her followers, she said. “Cassie was probably more fun because I got to do the whole influencer thing, which was totally fun,” she said. “Billie has such a traumatic past and goes through so much; I felt like her chapters were heavier to write.”
While noting Cassie is the more unlikeable of the pair and shallow, she said, “I do think some readers will feel for her and the situation she is in when Ella goes missing.”
Cassie’s personality plays into Lovering’s desire to craft a
book about a complicated female friendship and how friendships evolve. “I feel like a lot of us have been friends with someone like that or crossed paths with someone like that. She is sort of the person in the friendship who isn’t giving, it’s not a two-way street,” she said. “That feels relatable in a friendship when you have that friend that is just so absorbed with their own life…they are not able to really be there for you anymore.”
Lovering noted both characters are complex, but she related equally to them in how Billie was pushed out by a friend but also as a busy mom needing to set boundaries with friends.
As a mom of two children, ages 1 and 3, Lovering used to
be a night owl when writing but has adapted her writing process to this phase of her life. “I feel like my process has changed with every book, because my life has changed with every book. We are very much in the trenches with the kids. I really have to structure my writing days around when I have childcare,” she said. “That’s when I have to write, even if I don’t feel like it. If I don’t get the words in between 9 and 2, it’s not happening later. It’s harder, there’s more pressure now but I am getting used to doing it this way and I know that this won’t always be my process.”
When it comes to what makes a good story, Lovering said it comes down to voice. “I think if I read something and I am just hooked by the voice, I can’t put it down. I read mostly literary fiction, suspense and thrillers — titles that are not too far from what I’m writing because that really helps me with my own writing,” she said.
“Tell Me Lies” published in 2018, debuted on Hulu in fall 2022. A second season was ordered, but the Hollywood strikes in 2023 delayed its start. Lovering said she believes writers will soon begin writing the second season with filming likely in late 2024. “I really don’t know the exact timeline. I am really excited and grateful it’s still happening,” she said.
Lovering said her career has changed since the show premiered and made her a more confident writer. She also saw a big spike in book sales for “Tell Me Lies” afterward. “I know the show has greatly helped the book find more readers, which I am so grateful for. I feel so lucky, it’s a dream come true for an author to have that happen,” she said.
She’s a fan of the show. “I love it! The book needed to become different in order to work on screen. I really respect and admire what [showrunner] Meaghan Oppenheimer has done with it.”
“Bye, Baby” is the first of a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Press, so Lovering is already writing her next book “I can’t say too much about it, but it is definitely the darkest book I’ve ever written,” she said, noting it’s mostly about motherhood. “I generally try to write books that I think I would want to read myself. That keeps it interesting.”