The Other Lady Vanishes by Amanda Quick – a Review

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Description:
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…

Review:

The Other Lady Vanishes by Amanda Quick is the 2^nd book in her Burning Cove series.  This story takes place during the 1930’s in the small town of Burning Cove, California.  Some of the characters we met in the first book have secondary roles, as we return to Burning Cove.

We meet Adelaide Blake, our heroine, from the start where she is in the process of trying to escape from an insane asylum.  Adelaide knows she must run for her life, and someone is trying to kill her.  Adelaide was locked up by her “husband” and the evil people in charge at the asylum, who were doing experiments with her and others using a hallucinating drug.   Months later, Adelaide (now Brockton) is working as a waitress in a tea room in Burning Cove, where she help creates various types of herbal tea that has become popular, since it helps people with health issues, hangovers, tonics, etc.  Burning Cove has many well known visitors, who spend time in the seaside coast, and the tea room has become a place to meet famous people. 

Jake Truett, our hero, finds himself visiting the tea room, and becoming attracted to Adelaide.  Jake keeps to himself, but he knows some of the people we met in the first book, but Jake also has ulterior motive, trying to follow someone he suspects of stealing something from someone close to him. 

Madame Zoolander is a former actress who is now a famous physic, and she also visits the tea room for one of Adelaide’s famous brews.  When Adelaide is invited to Madame’s show, she ends up taking Jake with her; during the show Madame makes a bold prediction that will come true the following morning.

What follows is an exciting story that never lets up, with Jake and Adelaide in the middle of all the action.  When a number of deaths happen, the danger and risks escalate, as they will begin to discover that much of this will coincide with her false imprisonment at the asylum.  This intriguing story is filled with blackmail, drugs, quack doctors, & physics, not to mention the ‘husband’ whom Adelaide never married (he wanted her inheritance), who was determined to find her and bring her back to the asylum.  Almost at every turn, Jake and Adelaide found themselves in grave danger by those trying to kill them. I will not give spoilers, as so many things happen along the way, that saying anything more would ruin the book for you.

I loved Adelaide and Jake together, as they were a sweet couple, and they blended so well together.  The slow built romance was so well done by Quick, not taking anything away from the tense exciting storyline.  I really enjoyed seeing many of those we met in the first book, such as Luther, Raina, Irene & Oliver.

The Other Lady Vanishes was a wonderful intense suspenseful story, filled with secrets, betrayals, pulse pounding action, and a sweet romance. Amanda Quick once again gives us a complex mystery that had a bit of everything and the fun of being in the glamorous world of 1930’s.  I suggest you read the first book to enjoy the setting of this series, but The Other Vanishes reads very well as a standalone.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher