Amanda in LA

In Mexico City, Jose Manuel Rodriguez is ready to leave Mexico City for Los Angeles on a cultural exchange program. He pats his breast pocket where his airline tickets rest securely. Seat 14A...suddenly, he feels a sharp pain in his back. His lifeless body is thrown in a creek bed with no identification.

The man seated in 14A is met in LA and whisked to the eagerly awaiting Methodist Church family. They are unaware of his real identity.

In Los Angeles, Amanda Wright is a beautiful twenty-five-year-old single woman whose parents were recently killed in an airplane crash. She has arrived from Nebraska to relocate with her sixty-five-year-old maternal grandmother, Daisy Downing.

In the process of healing their grief and starting a musical career for Amanda, our two heroines concentrate their time in two places: the Methodist church and Nicky's Place--a high-end bar.

Nicky has listened to Amanda's tape, and her lovely voice convinces him to build a small showplace for her. She will sing there in the evenings and work part-time in the church which her grandmother attends.

In getting ready for Amanda's opening, Daisy and Amanda meet Loretta--a specialist in sound equipment. She takes them to the Signal Inn--a bar where she has just installed a top-of-the-line sound system. Loretta introduces them to Rod, the pianist, and he agrees to help Amanda get started at Nicky's Place.

While at the church, she realizes it is not the haven she thought it would be as it offers up disturbing, even spooky, experiences. Whereas the bar, which she thought might be stressful, becomes a friendly home for her talent.

Amanda, in her loneliness after her parents' deaths, wrote a song which she sings in three different places: the church, Rod's workplace (the Signal Inn), and at her opening at Nicky's Place. It reflects the theme of the book: being able to reach out to others for what you need, knowing your happiness is not dependent on just one or two people who love you. Love is all around you.