Born March 28th, 1948, in Borrego Springs, California, the American author Jayne Ann Castle, or otherwise known as Jayne Ann Krentz, Jayne Bentley, Jayne Castle, Amanda Glass, Stephanie James, Jayne Taylor, and her most famous pen-name, Amanda Quick, has written 30 different book series, giving her over 120 published books. Now only using three pen-names, as Jayne Ann Krentz (married name) she writes contemporary romantic-suspense, as Jayne Castle(birth name)  she writes futuristic/paranormal romantic-suspense, and as Amanda Quick she writes historical romantic-suspense.

“I am often asked why I use a variety of pen-names. the answer is that this way readers always know which of my three worlds they will be entering when they pick up one of my books.” Jayne says. Over forty million of her books have been sold and more than 50 of her books have been New York Times bestsellers. Making her one of the most successful commercial fiction writers that are still writing today.

One of her recent books The Other Lady Vanishes written under the pen-name Amanda Quick, is set in Burning Cove, California, where Adelaide Blake is trying to start over in life after escaping from a private sanitarium. She gets a job at an herbal tea shop, making tea blends for everything from anxiety to hangovers. One frequent customer, Jake Truett, sparks Adelaide’s attention. So when she was given two free tickets to see Madame Zolanda’s, a famous psychic’s show, she invited him. Even though his doctor told him to rest, he agreed to go. Although unknown to Adelaide, Jake Truett’s exhaustion is just a cover for what he is actually doing in Burning Cove.

Even though Madame Zolanda is not psychic, instead a really good actress, she still makes a prediction at the show, that could go wrong if it didn’t come true. And when it does, it left her the most surprised. The next morning, Adelaide gets a call that Madame Zolanda wants her special tea blend. So Jake and Adelaide bring her some, but when they get there, nobody is home. Trying to find someone, they walk out back, only to find Madame Zolanda’s lifeless body laying on the concrete floor.

With Madame Zolanda’s former assistant, Thelma Leggett, on the run, Jake and Adelaide take on the help of Adelaide’s friend, Raina Kirk, who runs a new private investigative business in Burning Cove. Like Adelaide, Raina has a secretive and questionable background. Coming from New York, she starts a business in Burning Cove and coincidentally makes friends with Adelaide. At first, not wanting to take the case, Raina tells Jake and Adelaide that it’s a waste of their money, but when Jake tells her the actual reason as to why he’s in Burning Cove, she takes it.

Madame Zolanda and Dr. Calvin Paxton were regulars at Paradise Club, a club known for all the rich and famous people that go there. On the night of Madame Zolanda’s death, she and Dr. Paxton were not present at the Paradise Club. Because of this, Jake has reason to believe that Dr. Paxton has something to do with Madame Zolanda’s death. Raina believes that Thelma has nothing to do with the death, and just ran with the blackmail business that Jake believes Madame Zolanda was a part of.

With Adelaide and Jake being each others alibis, rumors are spreading that they are lying about why they were with each other when they discovered Madame Zolanda the next morning after going to her show together. Because of this Adelaide was hesitant to go with Jake to the Paradise Club to find Dr. Paxton. And with nobody knowing about her past with Dr. Paxton, she was even more hesitant. But in the end, agreed to go.

Adelaide is looking for someone at the same time Conrad Massey is looking for her. Conrad Massey helped put Adelaide in the sanitarium. Got her to fall in love with him, got married, then one day Adelaide woke up in the Sanitarium. Massey, knowing she escaped, is stalking her. He knows the fake last name she has, where she lives, works, and who she’s involved with. But he can’t take her because she now is involved with people who would wonder why she disappeared and where she went. His plan is to make her fall in love with him again, then capture her again. With no word out for an escaped patient, Massey has to be careful with how he does it. It has been months since Adelaide’s escape, so it’s too late to announce a patient escaped. Then they would wonder why they didn’t say anything earlier, instead waited months. Adelaide has a suspicion Massey is after her again, but with no proof and being afraid her friends will turn against her, she doesn’t tell anyone.

When the orchestra at the Paradise Club starts playing a slow, smooth song, Jake asks Adelaide to dance. Completely destroying their cover story, she says yes. Even though they both know that the cover story is already ruined, they continue to dance, but then stopped when Vera Westlake arrived. Vera is a famous, beautiful, actress, everybody knows and adores her. As soon as she arrives, all heads turn. Dr. Paxton has always gone to the Paradise Club with Vera, sparking up rumors of an affair between the two. So knowing that if Vera was there, so was Dr. Paxton.

Plans take a turn when Dr. Paxton disappears. Adelaide, thinking she seen Massey once again, decides to tell Jake about her past. Scared someone will overhear, Adelaide tells Jake she will tell him back at her home. He agrees and follows her out to the car. As he starts driving, Adelaide realizes he is drugged by something called daydream. Which does not have a smell or taste. It causes severe hallucinations and makes you think those hallucinations are a reality. Adelaide, knowing the effects of it, takes the wheel and drives them to the beach. They get out knowing that whoever drugged Jake must be looking for him. But when no one is found, they continue driving to Adelaide’s home.

Thelma, still working in the blackmail business, has done some work with Massey. She wanted a large amount of money, while he wanted the whereabouts of Adelaide. When Thelma got home safely, she looked through the envelopes that were supposed to contain the money. Rage struck through her as she only saw one genuine bill, the rest were all scraps of newspaper. But as she slowly realized what had happened, she realized she wasn’t safe anymore in the cabin. When she got outside she realized she had also fell victim to daydream. But the killer had already shot her before she had the chance to run.

The next morning, Jake wakes up in Adelaide’s home, the effects of daydream gone. Adelaide had given him an antidote, that Massey and Gill, another doctor at the sanitarium, don’t know about. Since Adelaide’s mother and father came up with daydream, she knows the antidote and how to make it. But nobody knows there is an antidote, so she has to be careful with it.

When Jake questions the night before, she decides to tell him the truth about her, and eventually all her friends. And to her surprise, they believe her and are willing to help her solve the problem. The problem is that Massey and Gill are looking for her. But what Gill doesn’t know is that Massey already knows where she is, he just can’t get to her. Everyone wants to make sure that they never get a hold of her again. After Adelaide goes to work, she gets a call from Raina saying that she found where Thelma had been hiding. But when Jake and Adelaide get there, they discover Thelma had already been murdered. At first, they suspect suicide, but then find reasons to believe that she was murdered.

At the scene of the suspected murder, they found a telephone number, which Adelaide recognized to be Massey’s. Surprised, she decides to call it. Her idea was that if he was not home, he would be the person she seen in Burning Cove. What didn’t surprise her though, was that he did not pick up but his housekeeper did. She said that he was away on business, he had left immediately after receiving a long-distance phone call, which Jake and Adelaide believe was from Thelma, they believe she had offered some knowledge about Adelaide’s whereabouts.

They had stopped at a gas station to make the phone call. They had both gotten out of the car but left the car on. Just after Adelaide had gotten off the phone, a suspicious car pulled up and threw a stick of dynamite under the car, blowing it up. They believe that whoever was in the car, had assumed they were still in it. What made them the most suspicious about this though, is that the same car went by the station a couple of minutes before. Almost as if the car had followed them there. Since the car was left on, whoever was in the suspicious car must have thought Jake and Adelaide were still in it.

Since they no longer had a car, Jake and Adelaide hitchhiked to a motel, where they stayed the rest of the night. The next morning, they walked back to the gas station to explain to the owner what happened. And by some miracle, Jake had enough money to buy a car from someone.

After the tearoom had closed, someone came in looking for Adelaide. And even after he was asked to leave, Massey kept insisting that his wife, Adelaide, was mentally unstable and she needed to be taken back to the asylum. But when Jake showed up as well, Massey was forced to leave. He had claimed that Gill had found her and he was just sent to retrieve her. When Jake questions how Gill found her, Adelaide tells him that you can never trust anything that comes out of Massey’s mouth.

Gill and Massey meet up to discuss how Massey’s plan went. Massey explains that all he needs to do is to slip some more daydream into Adelaide’s drink to trick her again. But when Jake agrees to meet him, Massey is drugged by Gill and told to kill Jake. When Jake refused to come out of hiding, Massey starts shooting, but soon runs out of bullets as he was shooting at the demon he was hallucinating. Gill steps out of the car and shoots Massey, which leads to him falling off the cliff. Unknown to Gill, Massey survives.

When Jake gets a hold of Massey, he is brought to the police station and locked in a cell, the full effects of daydream still on him. Adelaide then gives him the antidote, which he took willingly. Gill, thinking Massey is dead, plans to go back to Rushbrook and pretend nothing happened. But Paxton informs him that Massey is still alive and where he is. After a few minutes they come up with a plan in case Massey tells the police everything. But when Gill drives away, he only gets a few blocks before the car explodes. Paxton had placed a stick of dynamite in the trunk.

After killing Ormsby, Madame Zolanda, Thelma Leggett, and Gill, Paxton is the last remaining member of the daydream drug circle. He plans to make the drug more predictable so he can basically control people. He could be the most powerful man in the world. Knowing Jake survived the first dose of daydream Paxton gave him at the Paradise Club, he plans on giving him another dose. But plans quickly change when Paxton finds Jake and Adelaide at Rushbrook collecting files from the drug circle and Adelaide’s file. Now they had proof that Massey had kidnapped her and she was used as an experiment that previously gone wrong. In the end, Jake had accidentally kills Paxton when he tried to shoot Adelaide.

After dealing with the police, the couple go to a hotel to stay for the night. Jake had sorted through all the stuff, eventually finding what he was looking for all along: his former wife’s diary. His plan was to destroy it, which was carried out as he through all the pages into the fire.

When Adelaide gets home, she starts looking through the file of patient A, who was the previous patient that Gill and Paxton had experimented on with daydream. When Adelaide realized who she was looking at in the pictures, she ran for the phone, but the line was cut. She tried running out of the cottage, but Vera was waiting for her at the door, gun in hand. Adelaide invites her in for some tea and to talk. Vera then tells her the whole story about patient A, how she was experimented on and how she faked the memory loss of it to getaway. Jake had moved in with Adelaide, as they plan to get married. When he got home, he was surprised to see Vera and Adelaide talking over some tea. Adelaide tells Jake to not worry, that Vera didn’t mean any harm to them. V then told Jake her full story and all the horrors that she had lived through at Rushbrook as patient A. When Vera leaves, Jake and Adelaide start throwing pages from the files into the fire. They both admit that they can finally feel free as they watch the papers burn, finally setting everything back to normal.

With all the mystery and suspense Amanda Quick delivers to the readers,” The Other Lady Vanishes” is easy to get lost in. Cliffhangers and questions that keep you on edge for the whole book.  Without a doubt, a must-read for my followers.