Veena’s review of The Other Lady Vanishes by Amanda Quick
Romantic Suspense published by Berkley 08 May 18
This is a romantic suspense in Ms. Quick’s typical low-key style. Adelaide Blake has reinvented herself into a waitress at a fashionable tea shop in Burning Cove, California. Jake Pruett has his own reasons for hiding out in the little coastal town, as do the all the other fashionable rich and famous who flock to Burning Cove to mingle and be seen. The prophecy of death is chilling enough, but then events in the little town heat up and pretty soon there’s a growing body count to match.
As is in most tales from this author, nothing is quite as it appears. Adelaide, who had once been a rich and friendless young woman held in a hellhole of a mental asylum, has made a nice life for herself in Burning Cove and has friends who would miss her should she disappear. Then comes the exclusive invitation to a psychic show and a chilling prediction of murder and death from the psychic to the stars. Death definitely comes stalking that night, but it’s Madame Zolanda herself who falls victim. Is it an accident or murder?
Death also comes stalking for Adelaide, but fortunately Jake and his trusty gun are on hand to protect her. Then comes the phone call with an invitation to bring a special blend of calming tea to a very dead psychic. Again and again, death comes calling, but Jake stands in its way. Adelaide has to journey back to the asylum for the insane where it all began, before the pieces of the puzzle are clear.
Then when it seems like all is settled and Adelaide and Jake have a good future ahead of them comes the biggest curve that I definitely did not see coming. The story has a nice pace with a bunch of interesting characters who all have their own stories to tell and a few curve balls to keep the excitement alive.
Grade: B
Summary:
The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Knew Too Much sweeps readers back to 1930s California–where the most dazzling of illusions can’t hide the darkest secrets..
After escaping from a private sanitarium, Adelaide Blake arrives in Burning Cove, California, desperate to start over.
Working at an herbal tea shop puts her on the radar of those who frequent the seaside resort town: Hollywood movers and shakers always in need of hangover cures and tonics. One such customer is Jake Truett, a recently widowed businessman in town for a therapeutic rest. But unbeknownst to Adelaide, his exhaustion is just a cover.
In Burning Cove, no one is who they seem. Behind facades of glamour and power hide drug dealers, gangsters, and grifters. Into this make-believe world comes psychic to the stars Madame Zolanda. Adelaide and Jake know better than to fall for her kind of con. But when the medium becomes a victim of her own dire prediction and is killed, they’ll be drawn into a murky world of duplicity and misdirection.
Neither Adelaide or Jake can predict that in the shadowy underground they’ll find connections to the woman Adelaide used to be–and uncover the specter of a killer who’s been real all along…
No excerpt available.
