Classic Clayborn - deeply thematic, multi-layered masterclass in quiet power. She has written a gigantic, soft male main character that will ruin you for all time, and you will thank her for it. Required reading.

A few short years ago, Jess was forced to become the mother figure to her little sister, Tegan, after their mother set off with a notorious conman boyfriend and disappeared off the face of the Earth together. So when Jess later finds out that Tegan came into contact with a true crime podcast duo to search for their missing mother, she reluctantly joins them so as not to leave her sister alone.

This book is a solid 3.5 stars for me. I found it incredibly heartwarming. It reminds me a lot of Saving June and how most of the dynamics are shaped and compacted into a transformative roadtrip. I did, however, find that the romance moved a little too quick to my liking. The story kind of struggled to decide if it was a mystery or a romance, and it kind of threw a lot of it off pace. Adam is a dreamboat though, I must say.

Nevertheless, a satisfying read.

This book is exactly what I’ve come to expect from Kate Clayborn. So good. I expect from her a great story line with strong characters. That’s exactly what I got and so much more. This book was a love story. A love story with all different types of love. Familial love, romantic love, found family love. It was just so good.

Had I already preordered this book months ago? Yes. But I famously have zero patience especially when it comes to one of my favorite authors OF ALL TIME, so when I had the opportunity to get the ARC...reader, I had no choice. I needed it ASAP. I need Kate Clayborn books like I need AIR. It's sick but it is what it is.

Kate is incapable of writing a bad book, and I had no idea how this one would go for me given the mystery aspect. And quelle suprise - she absolutely pulls it off. I'm riveted from beginning to end for the family drama, I'm positively ACHING for the romance. What Kate does SO well, better than basically everyone, is capture the smallest little moments of falling in love -- the lilt of a voice, the pulse of a finger -- and so even though Adam and Jess are very quickly and obviously falling for each other, you are literally left aching for it given Kate's subtle, deft hand. She is basically the only author I will enjoy a male first person POV -- and my god, Adam is just so far GONE for this woman it's a treat to read. What a tender, gorgeous giant man. The prose in the first steamy scene was striking. The sister story was another delight - again, normally in a romance, I find myself less interested in the non-romance plots, but it's never the case with a KC book. She's just that good.

Highly recommend - read this, read her ENTIRE backlist my GOD, especially if you love beautiful writing, earnest characters working things out, a touch of mystery. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

ohhh this was one so intriguing from start to end. I loved this premise alot!! Intertwined with this awkward road trip to get the story of her mom who left with a con man is Jess and Adam's romance. Yes it happened within like two weeks but it was pretty believable to me.

Kate Clayborn has this lush writing style that tugs at your emotions. I really felt it for Jess, Teagan and Adam who are dealing with issues from their past. Jess & Teagan with their mom and Adam with his friend's passing etc.

I was hooked with every detail that unfolded about Lynton Baltimore and was eager to learn with each chapter exactly why did Jess' mom leave with this mind!! By the end I wasn't too pleased with their mom but that was the point i guess?

This one was an emotional roller coaster as Jess is so closed off, guarded and prickly when Salem and Adam show up at her door (with good reason) but her interacting with Adam sort of thawed her and these two swooon. Adam is this big ex football player who is drawn to Jess the moment they meet and I'm always a sap for a MMC who is just gone for the FMC. Liiike my guy did not know what to do with himself lol.

The romance was well balanced with the search for Jess' mom as they went from place to place to figure out her each move and with each new details we learned i was like well ohhhhkkkk thennnn.

I think the ending wrapped everything up beautifully and Jess' mom can kick rocks! >.>

Jess Greene has been raising her younger sister Tegan ever since the day their mom walked out ten years ago. The man she ran off with happened to be notorious con man Lynton Baltimore. Now, a popular podcast host who originally found her fame covering Baltimore’s escapades wants to bring Jess’s mother’s story to the airwaves. Tegan and a reluctant Jess join the host and her handsome producer on a cross-country quest to find out what happened to their mother and Baltimore… and Jess just might find love in the process too.

This book is absolutely lovely! Part true crime, part romance, part family dynamics, and all so poignant and emotional! The character development and their relationships are deep and nuanced. Jess’s devotion to her sister and her overprotective, cautious nature were so understandable. The relationship between Jess and Tegan is so moving as Jess learns to accept Tegan as more of an equal and to fulfill a role that is more sisterly than guardian. And oh, I loved the romance between Jess and Adam! It’s so tenderly written, and Jess is so vulnerable as her heart cracks open bit by bit to the possibility of loving Adam. Overall, a deeply character-driven story full of heart and hope.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing me an advance copy of this book.

The strained relationships in this book are so realistic, so designed from endless previous disappointments. But yet, they come to life so beautifully and fully. I loved the heir of mystery on the search for Jess and Tegan's mother, and all the characters they meet that whether large or small, made the story come full circle. The podcast element is honestly just a bonus, and the male main character may be a forever fave.

I'm starting to realize that books with podcasters may not be my thing, which is weird because I love listening to podcasts! This is definitely a "me" problem and should be considered when reading my review.

Jess Greene has spent the last decade raising her younger sister after her mother left the two of them behind when she ran off with her infamous con man boyfriend. Jess has done all she can to keep this fact hidden from the world and hopes no one will ever form the connection to her and the podcast that covered the works of said con man. When there's an unexpected knock on her door and she opens it to find the podcaster and her assistant who claim to be interested in doing another installment of their popular series she is in complete shock and their lives will never be the same. How can she continue to protect her sister from these ugly truths? I guess she has no choice but to join them during this clue driven roadtrip. It also doesn't hurt that the assistant is super good looking and there seems to be an instant connection. Can he tear her walls down that she's spent so long building?

This is an author that I wanted to give a shot after hearing such great things about her previous book, Georgie, All Along. Unfortunately, it didn't quite do it for me. The writing was good, I just think it was the story itself I struggled with. I didn't care much about the podcast and the whole instant love, but fighting it the entire time for no good reason when all you need to do is communicate a little bit thing drives me crazy. I do know that this is a popular trope for a lot of people though, so if that's your thing then give this one a try!

Pub. Date: March 26, 2024
Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books for this ARC!

Georgie, All Along was one of my favorite books last year and so I was really looking forward to this book. For some reason, I didn't love it as much as Georgie, All Along, but the writing was still phenomenal. I found the insta-love/love at first sight romance to be a bit hard to believe. Kate Clayborne infuses her writing with so much heart though, and this story is very unique (for anyone who complains that romance is too predictable!). Also, the physical descriptions of the main characters made me imagine taylor swift and travis kelce, so if you're as obsessed with them as I am, maybe check this one out!
Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC.
ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Jess and Tegan's mom disappeared from their lives (with her boyfriend Miles) 10 years ago, leaving then 21-year-old Jess to take care of 8-year-old Tegan.

The secret Jess has kept this whole time? That Miles was actually Lynton Baltimore, a professional conman and the subject of a very popular true crime podcast. Or at least, she thought it was a secret until the podcast host (Salem) and her producer (Adam) appear on her doorstep, with Tegan, thinking they are all about to embark on a road trip to find out what happened to their mom and Lynton.

As the road trip ensues, it's obvious that Adam and Jess are on their own love journey as well.

This book has two very different themes happening - grappling with family drama and falling in love - but Clayborn manages to make them work well together. The characters are well-developed and I was curious the whole time about what would happen next. Though Salem's storyline felt a bit unnecessary, it didn't detract too much from everything else.

If you like books with a mix of drama and romance, and characters that are a little broken and piecing themselves back together, this book is the one to read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 rounded up💫 the problem with this one wasn’t that it was bad - I enjoyed it while I was reading it just fine, but I never felt like I *needed* to pick it up, ya know??

✨two sisters trying to find their mother who long ago abandoned them - the highlight for me was watching their relationship evolve!!!🫶
✨dual POV + very minimal podcast scripts in between
✨insta love🫣🥴 which I don’t always hate but didn’t feel made sense here - the romance was admittedly my least favorite part
✨mental health rep!! Especially in the sports world! 👏
✨for fans of true crime podcasts, con man stories, family dynamics, and mostly clean romances!

MY HEART

Will writing a review of The Other Side of Disappearing cure my book hangover? Let's find out.

This will be a review of two halves, with non-spoilery bits at the beginning, and then a bit more in-depth discussion that people may or may not want to skip based on their tolerance for advance knowledge of a romance's themes and emotional beats.

Non-spoilery version: The Other Side of Disappearing opens with Jess Greene, who has been raising her sister Tegan alone since their mother disappeared with a con man, receiving two unwanted guests on her doorstep: a podcaster who produced the wildly successful show about the man Jess's mother disappeared with, and said podcaster's assistant Adam, who is getting into journalism to tell a deeply personal and important story of his own. As Jess and Adam fall for each other, complicated questions - of journalistic ethics, of privacy, and of how much you can let other people in without losing yourself - form the external-plot scaffolding for what is still one of the deeply interior, deeply swoony, character-driven romances for which Kate Clayborn is rightly known and celebrated.

I would argue that of all of Clayborn's romances, this is the one with the most going on "outside" of the romance story: the true-crime podcasting plot, while deftly woven into the character development and around the romance, really does constitute its own journey. It could have become too much for one book, but I felt all the different elements of the story only enriched each other. In some ways, The Other Side of Disappearing felt like a mirror image of Georgie, All Along. Georgie, as a heroine, is open and "expansive," spilling all over the page with actions and emotions that propel what is otherwise a small and localized plot; Jess is quite closed down and tightly locked and, at the beginning of the book, adrift in the waters of a very large and overwhelming story that sprawls over several states and around a lot of characters. The fact that I loved both books equally, and that they both bear all the hallmarks of what makes Clayborn's writing so great, is a true tour de force. Committed fans will love this, new readers will be immediately hooked.

Perhaps slightly spoilery version:

As I said in my review of Georgie if there's one thing Kate Clayborn is going to do, it's have an overarching thematic question that gets explored from every possible angle in a way that always feels organic and not at all lecture-y. I definitely thought I had this one figured out from the title: it's all about visibility, invisibility, and the "other side" of disappearing- how people are affected by and have to deal with the absence that results from loved ones leaving. Jess and Tegan are obviously dealing with their mother's disappearance, Jess worries about her privacy disappearing due to the podcast, she's also worried about Tegan "disappearing" off to college, Adam is coping with his friend's death but also the invisibility of mental health issues among professional athletes, and so on, and so forth. And don't get me wrong, this is some FASCINATING thematic work for a book that already has a lot going on.

But what struck me by the end, is that alongside all of these, there's also a broader thematic questioning of the ways that women often get asked to, or compelled to, disappear into roles of... I want to say wife and mother, but I think a lot of this exploration is done through the character of Jess, who is technically neither. But into caregiving and romantic relationships, I suppose. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I was supposed to be invested in the side-plot with Salem and her daughter, but I actually think it all came together REALLY nicely at the end: the way Charlotte so thoroughly disappears into her romantic relationship that she becomes an awful mother, and the way Salem so very nearly disappears into motherhood - and then her job - that she becomes an absent romantic partner... these twin models both really help set up why it is hard for Jess to mother Tegan and to partner Adam without losing herself. And does some really astute social commentary on gender and caregiving expectations and the myth of "having it all" in the process.

I do think that this theme had some interesting consequences for Adam as a character, though. On the one hand, I really enjoyed seeing a "traditionally masculine" hero (he is almost aggressively coded as such - I went back and forth a lot between being bothered by the focus on Adam's GIANT SIZE DIFFERENCE with Jess, and wondering if it was a commentary on the prevalence of that dynamic in romance) who just desperately wants to do both emotional and domestic labor for the heroine:

"... I've had this thought in my head all along - how I'd be, if I got to know Jess outside of this shitty story that defined her life against her will. I'd take her out, let her talk or not talk. Plan trips that have nothing to do with family secrets. Let her sleep late. Make her pancakes, any day she wanted them, every morning an opportunity to celebrate. I'd do all the things for her I bet she's spent the last ten years doing for someone else. Laundry, meals for the whole week, the shitty, boring errands that wreck your entire Saturday. I could be that."


I think it's rare, in mf romance, for a hero to so clearly realize that he can fulfill needs that are not just sexual and emotional, but also logistical, and that the presence of those needs is, for many couples, down to a deeply gendered hierarchy of household logistics.

But at the same time, I think by design, the need for Adam to not be the kind of man Jess is going to "disappear" into means that he's a little more of a supporting character in the romance. He is there for Jess, both in the sense that he's "there for her" emotionally and, metatextually, he seems to exist for her to go on the journey she needs to as a character. This isn't a complaint - not at all - but more of an observation about why he maybe landed a little differently than the other Clayborn Heroines (TM), who have felt a bit more memorable to me?

Anyway, I think ultimately the fact that I was perhaps more moved by Jess and Tegan's final emotional heart-to-heart than I was by Jess and Adam's - but also the fact that I didn't mind that disparity at all - is the best testament to how this book is doing something a bit different than the rest of Kate Clayborn's backlist, but something absolutely deeply moving and fully worth reading.

Disclosure: I received an ARC from the author, with whom I am friendly online

Compulsively readable! This is a fun mystery and a fun romance, with lots of wonderful characters and a great core mystery. Kate Clayborn could have a future writing con-men--both of the interactions with cons in the book were electric, edge of your seat writing. They love story evolves in a way that feels, depite the dramatic and unlikely setting, as real as you could get in this heightened situation. The backstory to Adam is a little hokey, but Jess is a character that jumps off the page and into your heart. And the yearning--no one writes contemporary yearning like Kate Clayborn.

I'm not sure what to think of this one. I liked it, but not as much as Georgie All Along. Totally different stories. Jess and Adam meet when the podcast Adam is working on involves Jess's disappearing mother. Jess has been raising her younger sister since Jess was 21 and Teegan 8. The roadtrip that they all go on to find their mother is an awakening for Jess and for Adam. I will say this is one that I did not read the ending before I was finished with the book. I wanted the surprise of will they find their mother or not.

I am usually a fan of this author, but this book dragged soooo much. I just didn’t enjoy the storyline. I look forward to reading more from her, as this is the first I haven’t enjoyed.

4.25⭐!! My only drawback was that I did feel a little too split between the true crime of it all, the romance, the sister relationship, and then how the podcast ended up wrapping. I enjoyed every minute of it though and over all it had sweet messages of love conquering all- and the importance of that love being healthy. Loved the undertones of mental health and the growth the characters all showed!

"I'm glad we can all disappear together, for a little while, into the pages of the books we love." (author's note)

Kate Clayborn is quickly becoming one of my favorite contemporary romance authors. Her characters are genuine, relatable, and full of depth - everything you could want in a romance novel. I just adored, The Other Side of Disappearing, Clayborn's follow-up to 2023's George, All Along. I am dying to talk to someone about this book - I can't wait until it hits shelves later this month!

The Other Side of Disappearing felt like a new subgenre - a combination of romance and mystery - that I was initially unsure about. Two sisters go on a true crime podcast road trip in search of their estranged mother and possibly the serial con artist who she fled with 10 years ago. I'm not really into true crime podcasts, so the first few chapters of the book didn't really grab my interest and the content felt much heavier than her previous book. But once they hit the road, the story took off for me and I instantly fell for the chemistry between the four characters - Jess and her sister Tegan, and Adam and his true crime podcast partner, Salem. The romance between Jess and Adam was so sweet and left me wanting more!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book. I hope everyone takes a chance on it this spring - it's worth it!

I keep seeing reviews describing Kate Clayborn's writing as "tender" and I can't agree with that enough. It's so easy to tell how much she cares about her characters, and the romances she writes are so lovely.

This story itself was incredibly fascinating - almost to a fault. I adored the romance between Jess and Adam, but the rest of the plot was almost TOO interested that I found myself more engrossed in that aspect. But overall, I just really enjoyed all of this. It was such a wild idea that ended up serving as a really perfect way to understand the characters. There were some aspects that I wanted different pacing on (like taking time on reveals that I just wanted to know about or rushing through other aspects that I wanted more time with), but nothing too egregious.

Very excited for this to come out and get a hard copy! Thank you, Kensington and Netgalley for the e-ARC!

I was really excited to read this book, as I had heard great things. I am not a true crime person, but I love podcasts in general, as well as a mystery, a road trip, and a romance. so I was looking forward to this book.

Unfortunately, it was only "ok" to me. I did like it, but I didn't love it the way I thought I would. I just could not stay engaged to the story, it dragged too much for me, and felt quite predictable.

I do see where others would really like it, but it was a pass for me personally.

I absolutely adore Kate Clayborn and will likely read anything she writes, but this book was so wonderful. This is a story of love, hope, and trust. It's a story about loving others without losing yourself. This book has mystery, romance, growing up, forgiveness, and hope. The character development is especially good for multiple characters and blended in so well with the story. This book explores the question what would you do for love? For money? How far would you go to make sure you don't make the same mistakes your parents made? It's slow building but also page turning. It incorporates podcasts, which seem to be showing up a lot in books right now, but it isn't overdone here, which is nice. Great book!