Bonnie Kellogg
I'd Rather Be Writing

New York City, Summer, 1977

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The mood is grim. New York City is still recovering from the fiscal crisis of years past. Strife between NYPD and African Americans has reached a new low. And a city-wide blackout causes chaos in the streets. Worse, a serial killer dubbed Son of Sam is on a murderous spree, terrorizing the citizens. Doom and gloom settle over the city.

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In Midtown is a popular nightclub called Studio 54, where a group of misfits drown out the noise and forget their troubles through disco and drugs.

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On his first visit to the club, Pete meets a mysterious flower child called Angel Valentine. Their chemistry is immediate. Angel is unlike anyone Pete has ever met. Amid the hedonistic drug and sex era, the two are infatuated with one another and spend the summer in a perpetual state of dreamy consciousness instead of reality.

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By fall, Pete wants off the merry-go-round and to rejoin real life. And Angel’s recent pregnancy is the perfect catalyst. Pete is prepared to settle down and raise the child they call Sky, while Angel wavers between her freedom and the commitment to motherhood.

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Pete gives Angel an ultimatum: commit or stay away. The back and forth confuses their daughter.

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Her decision to leave does not surprise Pete. What shocks him—what he can't wrap his head around—is why she returns a few months later to steal his daughter.

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When their four-year-old goes missing, everyone suspects Angel. But finding her is another story; Angel Valentine does not exist.