Can't Look Away Review

Author: Carola Lovering

Publisher: St. Martins Press

Release Date: June 14, 2022

Purchase: Amazon

Special thanks to the publisher for an arc.

From the author of Tell Me Lies and Too Good to Be True comes Carola Lovering's Can't Look Away, a sexy suspense novel about the kind of addictive, obsessive love that keeps you coming back––no matter how hard you try to look away.

Review:

Molly met Jake Danner when he was a rising rock star. Playing a gig in a local bar, Jake and Molly locked eyes and it was love at first sight, but as Molly soon learned life with a rock star isn’t as exciting as it appears. Eventually, Molly moved on to rock solid, down to earth Hunter.  Now, several years later, Molly, Hunter, and their little girl are living in a quiet, exclusive community where Molly doesn't exactly feel comfortable.  She doesn't "fit" with the other women and harbors feelings of being an outsider.  However, that changes when Sabrina moves into the neighborhood and joins one of Molly's yoga classes.  Soon, they're best friends but who is Sabrina? What does Molly really know about her?  What's she really after?

Can't Look Away is a domestic dramatization more than a thriller.  The story is told through three points of view - three people who all come across as almost stalkers or just plain crazy in my opinion.  Molly gets caught up in reliving her fantasy fling with the rock star.  Sabrina most definitely is working her own agenda and as she does, so goes the plot.  Unfolding through past/present timelines, characters get caught up in past dreams now lost, choices and consequences.  The story is very much like a soap opera in many ways - one long dramatization of the interactions of these characters lives.  They're forced to take a long look at their lives both way back then and now, and some don't like what they see.  Readers are privy to everything from the get-go so no big mystery to figure out.  Just sit back, maybe grab some popcorn and a drink and watch the show unfold.  This one is for fans who are looking for entertainment with a side of crazy.

Synopsis:

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?