I’d read one of Clayborn’s books previously and found it enjoyable, so said, why not give this one a try. The blurb described a story so different to what I’m used to. And you know what, I’m glad.

It took me a little while to fall into the story, but once I did, I wanted to take my time with it. Let myself sit in it for a while and enjoy the progression of the plot. It was heartbreaking, uplifting and at times frustrating. But it was told so beautifully and I very much enjoyed it.

And can I just say, Adam and Jess are so bloody lovely to read. Their love for each other is written so purely and it never felt rushed at all. It was a joy to see them come together and know who the other person was with their flaws included.

"The Other Side of Disappearing" is a novel written by Kate Clayborn.

Compelling, intriguing and heartwarming book that kept me glued to the pages from beginning to end. The effervescent style, fast pace and short chapters absorbed me completely, pushing me to finish it in less than a day! "The Other Side of Disappearing" is a novel about complex family ties, focusing on the intense relationship between Jess and her younger half-sister, haunted by the absence of their mother, who several years earlier abruptly abandoned them to run off with a con man. The sprinkling of mystery, represented by the search for their mother and her con man boyfriend, organized by the host of a popular podcast about the con artist intrigued me a lot! Also, I really liked Jess and Adam, the two protagonists with their respective first person povs. They are two complex and troubled characters, portrayed in a fantastic way. The only element that did not convince me was the romance, a insta-love really too insta, hastily developed, without depth and with too much relevance to the rest of the plot.

All in all, it was a cute and intense read, with a heartwarming story and excellent characters, which unfortunately did not fully convince me on the romance side.

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Three and a half stars.

Ten years ago Jess' mother waltzed off with her boyfriend leaving twenty-one year old jess to look after her eight year old step-sister Tegan. It later transpired that her mother's boyfriend was a conman called Lynton Baltimore who made a habit of seducing women and taking their money. Lynton was made famous/infamous by one of the first true-crime podcasts and jess and Tegan have been flying beneath the radar ever since. To protect Tegan Jess rarely dates and has no social media presence, she can only imagine how they would be hounded by the press if anyone discovered their mother had run off with Lynton.

Now Tegan is only a few weeks away from going to college when she drops a bombshell, she has been in contact with the podcaster, Salem, and her assistant, former American football player Adam about finding her mother, based on five postcards which their mother sent Jess (which she had hidden).

Desperately wanting to avoid anything to do with finding her mother, Jess nevertheless can't allow Tegan to go off with Salem and Adam alone, who knows what they might get her to say. So the four of them reluctantly agree to go on a road trip, visiting each of the cities from which Jess' mother sent a postcard, trying to track down her and Lynton.

As soon as he sets eyes on Jess Adam is a gonner, but he has made a deal with Salem that he will help her, specifically get Jess to talk on the record, and in return she will produce a podcast very dear to his heart about the death of his best friend.

Jess has never had anyone to depend on. Her mother left her not once but twice, her father and stepmother looked after her the first time her mother took off, but they made it clear it was only while her mother was away. Similarly, when her mother left the second time, Jess' boyfriend only lasted a few weeks before bailing on her. Since then Jess has been big sister and quasi-mother to Tegan. However, Adam seems instinctively to offer Jess a shoulder to lean on almost from the very beginning.

I enjoyed this but ... OMG the angst and also I found it irritating that there was a lot of things alluded to which weren't explained (deliberately) until much later, its like tell me now or say nothing don't keep being cryptic because when the truth is revealed its been built up too much and ends up being an anti-climax. I felt like the book could have been a lot shorter, and the plot a lot tighter, without all of that.

So ... (three, two, one) I liked but I didn't love it.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

I think this is well written and people will enjoy this but for me I couldn’t get into it. Found the concept quite interesting with the true crime podcast element but the whole mystery surrounding it confused me. I also thought it was a bit insta lovey between the two main characters which didn’t make sense for me.
I do believe others will enjoy this more than I did.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the arc.

Getting into the story, I was skeptical about how the romance part of it would pan out, given the plot. Two sisters go on a roadtrip with a podcast host and a journalist, to find their mother who ran off with a con man. I didn't expect for how Adam and Jess would immediately take notice of each other, and how they would grow to have very strong feelings for each other over a short span of time.
This story is much more than a love story. There's the sister-sister dynamics that are far from the usual, with a super protective big sister who stubbornly stays contained and in control and keeps her whole focus on raising her sister. I loved how Jess and Tegan's relationship grew from their road-trip and having to face some tough reality.
Salem, the podcast host, is an important piece of the story as well. She is the driving force that buckles the tenuous atmosphere of it all.
I really enjoyed this story. I love how Kate Clayborn wrote Adam's pov, especially the first time the journalist/podcast host duo meet the sisters. It is beautifully written!

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley UK. All opinions are my own.

The Other Side of Disappearing was a book that I definitely did like, much as the review I’m about to write may at times seem to contradict that. I always know, going into Kate Clayborn’s books, that it’s going to be good, and this was! (I realise stressing this makes it sound like I’m trying to convince someone of something but truly, I liked it. If that’s all you need from this review, feel free to skip the rest.)

The issue was, I think, that I set my expectations too high. Looking at my previous ratings of Clayborn’s books (4 stars, 3 stars, 4 stars, 5 stars), it’s obvious I would enjoy it. I think the issue for me was that this one came directly after my absolute favourite (Georgie, All Along), which hit all the right notes for me. So, as much as I tried not to think like that, this one had a few points where I couldn’t help but think how it matched up to Georgie and find it a little wanting.

Let me give a brief rundown of the plot here, because now is the time to get into some specifics, beyond “well, it wasn’t Georgie”. The story follows Jess, who is the sole carer of her younger half-sister Tegan, after their mother abandoned them to shack up with a conman about 10 years previously. Jess knows all this, her sister does not. And then there’s Adam, who is working with Salem on a follow-up podcast regarding this conman (the reason Jess knows this is who her mum went off with is because of the original podcast). Tegan, behind Jess’s back, gets in contact with Adam and Salem because she thinks they might be able to find this conman (and thus her mother). Only, instead of being able to leave, with only a note to Jess to explain things (which, hello, seriously shitty move when Jess’s entire trauma is down to the fact that her mother did this to her twice and the second time never came back! A shitty move that I never felt was properly confronted, by the by), Jess happens to be home when Adam and Salem arrive. Unwilling to let Tegan (aged 18!) go off alone with two strangers (understandable), Jess comes along on this cross-country roadtrip to find her mother.

Now, the sticking point for me, which relates to how quickly the romance progressed. Perhaps this involves rose-tinted glasses on my part, but it definitely felt like Adam and Jess had a kind of insta-infatuation going on. Not insta-love, because they didn’t claim to be in love with one another until at least a reasonable point, but insta-obsession. Like how Adam, within moments of their meeting, can’t stop thinking about Jess but in a fawning “oh she’s wonderful [deep sigh]” kind of way. In a “I have to tell Salem I can’t do this podcast since I like her too much” kind of way. Dude, you met her five minutes ago! When I type this out, perhaps it does feel a bit irrational, but I don’t know how better to describe it. And it annoyed me anyhow.

So, it follows that they would get together too early for me, too, and that they did! It was somewhere in the region of 45% through the book and, as I’ve said many a time, I prefer slowburning romances where they don’t get together for at least two thirds of the book. I want the tension! I want the will-they, won’t-they! Well here they definitely will, it’s just a question of which of the myriad traumas Jess has after her mother’s abandonment will push them apart first (okay, that’s tongue-in-cheek of me. I do apologise. I did actually quite like how Clayborn set up and dealt with the inevitable third act breakup even if I am, otherwise, almost entirely opposed to such things).

See, I told you it’d sound like I didn’t like the book! To counteract that, let me close by emphasising that I did like this still. The characters were good, the writing too, and the emotions did, at points, Get To Me (as intended). And I think, if I had gone in with more reasonable expectations (i.e. remembered that my average Kate Clayborn rating outside of Georgie was 3.67 — that is, closer to 3 than 5), I would have liked it a lot more.

Seeing the relationship between the sister's develop and change as secrets are discovered, this makes it a very intriguing read.

Deeply moving and layered with a gamut of emotions and characters that were messy and real, I had to put it down a few times because there was so much to take in.

For a decade Jess has put her life on hold to raise younger half-sister Teagan after their mum abandoned them to join a con man, the subject of a popular true crime podcast. She's reluctantly compelled to accompany her sister, podcast host Salem and her intern Adam on a road trip to uncover what happened to her mum.

There were so many delightful, quiet moments where Jess and Adam just get and see each other. Jess is very insular, brittle, yet has a hard carapace. She refuses to express herself. Adam gently draws her out and gives her lots of space. While there's an instant connection when they first meet, theres is a slow-burn with lots of quiet, unnamed pining as Jess resists opening herself up. Adam, too, is also broken. The death of his best friend and teammate led him to going viral after publicly condemning hypocrites who bullied his best friend.

Kate Clayborn excels in this compelling story about a complex sister relationship, parental abandonment and somehow manages to combine a swoony slow-burn romance. There's so many adjectives to describe this book - heartfelt, poignant, absorbing. All the characters felt so real. I cannot highly recommend this book enough.

Thanks to Little, Brown Book Group UK, Piatkus and NetGalley for the ARC.

This was a very heartfelt read told from the perspectives of Jess and Adam who come into each others orbit thanks to Jess’s eighteen year old sister Tegan who is desperate to find out what happened to their mum who disappeared ten years ago leaving Jess to raise Tegan. Adam is the junior half of a podcast duo and desperate to make a success of finding Jess’s mum who has links to a conman whom his boss did a top rated podcast about ten years ago and is eager to follow up, if they can do this successfully then Adam will get the chance to make his podcast about his friends mental health problems that ultimately played a part in his death. Both Jess and Adam have a lot at stake as Jess has put her life on hold for Tegan and would do anything to protect her whereas Adam is still broken by his friends death and wants to use it to raise awareness of the issues it highlights. Both are truly fantastic characters with a lot of depth and a fantastic emotional connection that absolutely carries this story. The chemistry between the two is what makes this story although it interesting to discover what happened to her mum and also observe how the relationships of the four main characters evolves. This is a very moving and emotional read which just gets better and better as the story progresses.