This story takes place in the beautiful wilderness of Idaho. As a lover of nature, I enjoyed the sceneries the author so beautifully captured in this book. 🌿

Emlyn is a guide and when her ex-boyfriend contacts her about the disappearance of their mutual friend, Emlyn doesn’t hesitate. With her skills, she knows they have a better chance of finding Janessa.

The two timelines intertwine nicely. The past takes us back to the time when Emlyn became friends with Janessa. Everything is fine between them until Emlyn meets Tyler, Janessa's childhood friend.

The writing was beautiful. The set up was spectacular. 🌿 But, I just wish I was more engaged in the story. I was waiting for more suspense and thrilling moments in this book. The ending was what I was hoping for. This book will be loved by many readers this season. ( )

A captivating mystery thriller.

Emlyn has come a long way since Tyler ruined her life and she lost her best friend, Janessa, over him. Now she works as a wilderness guide living alone in a trailer in Idaho backcountry. She's cautiously made some friends, including a Forest Service ranger named Varden. Slowly she is trying to come to terms with her situation and to find some peace, but all of that is shattered when Tyler contacts her because Janessa has gone missing. Janessa was documenting her van life on social media with her boyfriend, Bush, and suddenly went silent. Against her better judgement, Emlyn allows herself to be drawn back into Tyler and joins him in his desperate search for their friend.

This was beautifully written and the narrative shifts back and forth in time as we learn Emlyn's history with Tyler and Janessa. The descriptions and details of the vast wilderness that Emlyn inhabits creates an atmosphere and setting that matches Emlyn's inner turmoil. Some twists and turns provide the suspense, and nothing is quite as it seems. Emlyn struggles with her self-perception and experiences some true growth as she faces the truth. I could relate to Emlyn as a main character and the story was very poignant and realistic.

I listened to the audiobook while following along with the e-book ARC (both provided by the publishers) and enjoyed the narrator though there was not much differentiation in her tone and pitch for the various male and female characters.

Definitely this would make a good choice for a book club to discuss the whole nature of finding yourself, starting over, and getting beyond your past. ( )

In her afterword, Kimi Cunningham Grant says that her title for this book, before the marketing folks replaced it, was 'Wilderness'. Having read the book, 'Wilderness' sounds like a perfect fit as hysical and emotional/spiritual wildernesses provide the landscape for the book. I still have no idea what 'The Nature Of Disappearing' means. It sounds like something generated in a blue sky session tasked with coming up with a title that sounds intellectual in an unthreatening way while hinting at danger and mystery.

The physical wilderness is almost a character in its own right. It's described in a way that made me want to put my boots on and head for the forest while also reminding me of how indifferent that landscape is to me and my needs and how easily I could come to harm.

Emlyn, the main character, is comfortable moving through the Idaho wilderness. She's a fishing guide and a competent tracker who knows how to survive alone in the wild. When we first meet her, she still trying to navigate her way out of an emotional/spiritual wilderness that she has inhabited since having a near-death experience after being betrayed by a friend. Although Emlyn can confidently read sign well enough to track people through the forest, she no longer trusts her ability to read the people around her well enough to trust them. Her life has been fractured, leaving her adrift, uncertain and anxious.

What I admired most about this book was that Kimi Cunningham Grant managed to create a physical journey fraught with danger, laced with mystery and culminating in life-threatening violence that also pushes Emlyn to find the clarity, courage and will to bring herself out of the physical and emotional wilderness and reclaim her life. The journey was immersive and tense but also found room for reflection that gave the events meaning beyond simple survival.

The story is told as a present-day narrative, enhanced with scenes from Emlyn's past. I liked that the start of the book didn't rush to action. It built a context by mapping personal histories and seeding a sort of retrospective foreboding regarding a yet-to-be-specified-in-detail life-changing incident in which Emiyn was betrayed. The narrative keeps approaching it sideways as if peeking at it through its fingers. The aim here isn't to tantalise the reader by withholding key information as a traditional thriller might but rather to reflect how we actually deal with painful things that we know and want to forget.

The first half of the book spends a lot of time getting to know the cautious, withdrawn, emotionally fragile person that Emlyn is now and is learning who she was five plus years earlier at college when she formed a close friendship with her charismatic friend, Janessa and fell in love with Tyler, the man who she'd expected to spend her life with but who we know betrayed her. I found myself deeply engaged with Emlyn both before and after the big betrayal. I liked her honesty. I loved that she wasn't perfect and was aware of her own faults. That she didn't always know why she did things when she was doing them, She would do harmful things that she knew she would probably regret but in the moment of doing them she wanted to cause harm or at least wanted it enough not to stop herself. It felt true. It also made me want to go: "No, no, no! Don't say that."

By the second half of the book, the dual timelines (Now and 5 Years Ago) started to amplify each other, building tension and increasing the sense of imminent disaster. I found Emlyn's rising anxiety hard to distance myself from or dismiss. Her fragility and her uncertainty and her history of being broken made being close to her unsettling.

The most unsettling thing was her awareness of her own uncertainty. It wasn't indecision. She understood that deciding wouldn't be enough. Metaphorically, she was walking a cliff path in fog, knowing that it's the step after the next one that's uncertain and may perhaps be fatal.

The only thing that Emlyn is certain of is that if Janessa, from whom she has become estranged, is missing in the wilderness, then she will go and find her, even if it means travelling with Tyler the man who derailed her life five years earlier.

The complex and conflicting relationships with Janessa and Tyler strengthened the narrative. The mystery around why and how Janessa went missing was a good one. The denouement was violent, credible, unexpected and satisfying.

If you're looking for a book with a wilderness setting, a mystery to solve, a dramatic finale and which manages to get you thinking about trust and hope and how we see ourselves and each other, then 'The Nature Of Disappearing' is the one you want. ( )

THE NATURE OF DISAPPEARING centers around Emlyn who is a fishing and hunting guide in Idaho. Before that she was the child of a depressed mother and a father who disappeared from her life. And she was a poor college student who kept to herself for fear of being a person easy to leave behind.

She met Janessa as a college freshman when Janessa saved her from some overaggressive college boys at a local diner. The two become inseparable with Janessa as the charismatic leader and Emlyn the quiet follower. Emlyn is mostly content to let Janessa make her decisions for her.

At least she is until she meets Tyler, Janessa's childhood friend. Emlyn and Tyler become a couple but Tyler's addiction to drugs leads to their breakup which comes to a head when he leaves her for dead in the wilderness.

Rescued by a forest ranger and cared for by an older woman, Emlyn decides to leave her past behind and build a new life. She's doing well until a couple of years later when Tyler comes to find her because Janessa, who has become a social media darling, is missing in the wilderness.

Together the two of them head into the wilderness to try to find Janessa. Along the way, Emlyn learns things Tyler doesn't want her to know about himself. And she learns that she is much stronger and competent than she has ever thought she was.

There is a mystery here with moments of danger, but for me this was mostly Emlyn's story showing her growth and the changes she has gone through. Fans of thrillers will be engaged and so will fans of people exploring their lives. ( )

This book flew by! I'm always drawn to Nature Fiction and love when an author can include it as beautifully as Grant did here. Makes me want to pack up the car and take off into the wild.

Her characters were beautifully crafted as well. Emlyn, the narrator, is in her mid-20's and gone through a lot in her life giving her good reason to be distant with very few closely cultivated friends. Emlyn's parents, best friend, and first love all let her down in some of the harshest ways. But deep down inside she is still looking for that love and acceptance: though she doesn't believe she's worthy of it.

This starts out as two stories that alternate back and forth seamlessly. One beginning in Emlyn's childhood and brings us to where she is today. The other, I initially thought was going to be a story based on the Gabby Petito's disappearance and murder, but it takes a sharp turn when Emlyn goes out in search of her missing estranged best friend. Lot of action and suspense, but a lot of heartache and hope too.

Many thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ( )