Anne Weale
Personal Information
Description
Jay Blakeney was born on 20 June 1929. Her great-grandfather was a well-known writer on moral theology, so perhaps she inherited her writing gene from him. She was "talking stories" to herself long before she could read. When she was still at school, she sold her first short stories to a woman's magazine and she feels she was destined to write. Decided to became a writer, she started writing for newspapers and magazines. At 21, Jay was a newspaper reporter with a career plan, but the man she was wildly in love with announced that he was off to the other side of the world. He thought they should either marry or say goodbye. She always believed that true love could last a lifetime, and she felt that wonderful men were much harder to find than good jobs, so she put her career on hold. What a wise decision it was! She felt that new young women seem less inclined to risk everything for love than her generation. Together they traveled the world. If she hadn't spent part of her bridal year living on the edge of a jungle in Malaysia, she might never have become a romance writer. That isolated house, and the perils of the state of emergency that existed in the country at that time, gave her a background and plot ideally suited to a genre she had never read until she came across some romances in the library of a country club they sometimes visited. She can write about love with the even stronger conviction that comes from experience. When they returned to Europe, Jay resumed her career as a journalist, writing her first romance in her spare time. She sold her first novel as Anne Weale to Mills and Boon in 1955 at the age of 24. At 30, with seven books published, she "retired" to have a baby and become a full-time writer. She raised a delightful son, David, who is as adventurous as his father. Her husband and son have even climbed in the Andes and the Himalayas, giving her lots of ideas for stories. When she retired from reporting, her fiction income -- a combination of amounts earned as a Mills & Boon author and writing for magazines such as Woman's Illustrated, which serialized the work of authors -- exceed 1,000 pounds a year. She was a founding member of the The Romantic Novelists' Association. In 2002 she published her last novel, in total, she wrote 88 novels. She also wrote under the pseudonym Andrea Blake. She loved setting her novels in exotic parts of the world, but specially in The Caribbean and in her beloved Spain. Since 1989, Jay spent most of the winter months in a very small "pueblo" in the backwoods of Spain. During years, she visited some villages, and from each she have borrowed some feature - a fountain, a street, a plaza, a picturesque old house - to create some places like Valdecarrasca, that is wholly imaginary and yet typical of the part of rural Spain she knew best. She loved walking, reading, sketching, sewing (curtains and slipcovers) and doing needlepoint, gardening, entertaining friends, visiting art galleries and museums, writing letters, surfing the Net, traveling in search of exciting locations for future books, eating delicious food and drinking good wine, cataloguing her books. She wrote a regular website review column for The Bookseller from 1998 to 2004, before starting her own blog Bookworm on the Net. At the time of her death, on 24 October 2007, she was working on her autobiography "88 Heroes... 1 Mr. Right".
Books
A night to remember
Night train
The decision was an important one. That's why Sarah left her job in England to visit her grandmother in Spain. There she could think things out - decide whether to marry her childhood sweetheart. She hadn't counted on meeting someone like the darkly handsome Carlos Hastings, and she was hypnotized by his alluring charm. It didn't seem to matter that she was an English nanny and he a man of the world. But it did complicate her decision. Should she settle for the secure life of a doctor's wife, or risk an affair with a man who would never have serious feelings about her?
The Bartered Bride
A Bride Most Dear Brokenhearted from a shattered romance, Lord Kittridge agreed to marry Cassandra Chivers for forty thousand pounds of her father's money. But he recalled having seen her exquisite face somewhere before--and he was sure Cassie had planned to ensnare him in marriage. Was his new bride a crafty schemer behind her shy demeanor? Cassie loved him from the moment their eyes met... Why was he determined to believe the worst about her? All she wanted was his happiness -- and his love -- no matter what the cost might be.
The Sun in Splendour
Ros's talents as a cook had got her several interesting jobs, but none more fascinating than the one Richard Livingstone was offering her - as cook aboard his luxury yacht sailing around the Spanish coast. It would help to solve her more personal problem, that of educating her young orphaned nephew, Christopher. But her enigmatical new employer seemed likely to post problems of a different kind. He was rich, charming and good-looking - but was it any use Ros being attracted to him? Was he any more likely to be seriously interested in her than the more lightweight but equally charming Jaime Hatfield? Shouldn't she just concentrate on her job?
Time and Chance
This book is an autobiography of Peter Townsend (1914 -1995), a British Royal Air Force fighter pilot, an Ace, WWII war hero, who later became equerry of King George VI, and was said to be the love of Princess Margaret’s life. The book provides an unique first person experience of a RAF fighter pilot, his simple but deep love for England, the innocent bravery of a young officer in defending England, as well as first hand stories and insights into the royal family, the famous love story with Princess Margaret and his subsequent exile life in France with his second wife and kids. The writing is natural, sincere and touching, ranging from sweet, funnny, and at times, heartbreaking. This is a book worth your time reading.
Seascape
Handsome is as handsome does... When Kate Poole tracked down the estranged grandson of her beloved employer, she little guessed the consequences her actions would bring. A renowned playboy, Xan Walcott was unlike any man she had ever known -- and decidedly more dangerous! He would use and abandon her without hesitation. Though necessity had forced her to work alongside Xan in Crete, Kate was hoping her own practical nature would save her from falling for Xan's legendary charm .
The Anne Weale Collection
Passage to Paxos Valissa lost herself in her work after her fiance's tragic death. When she finally allowed herself a holiday she intended to spend it quietly--and alone--on a Greek island. But fate had other things in store. A storm at sea, a broken engine on her rented calque and a handsome sailor to rescue her....Dion Stephanides made Valissa forget everything but him and their newfound love--until he proposed. How could a sensible girl marry a man with a footloose life-style and no visible source of income? Wedding of the Year "Don't encourage him," her mother told her But the advice had come too late. Savanna Bancroft was already committed to the devastating and wealthy Jago Kindersley. Seeing her face on a fashion magazine, he had followed her to the Caribbean island and determinedly wooed and won her. Savanna never had a chance. The bewitched Savanna, head over heels in love with him, had needed little persuasion. Yet, deep down, she knew that her mother's instinct was right. It was all too perfect. There just had to be a flaw somewhere!
The Man from Madrid
A Mediterranean millionaire Cally hoped for peace and quiet when she escaped to Valdecarrasca in beautiful rural Spain -- but the arrival of mysterious millionaire Nicolás Llorca changed all that! He made it clear he wanted Cally; he also let her know he wasn't looking for long-term commitment.... The smoldering good looks and charm of the man from Madrid proved hard to resist. But Cally wasn't interested in a brief affair. And, besides, Nicolás was clearly hiding a secret or two! Determined to keep her distance, Cally found her resolve was tested when Nicolás made her an offer impossible to refuse....
Summer's Awakening
Warm, passionate and desperate for love. Summer Roberts was shy and insecure, denied normal loving relationships by a lifelong battle with her weight. Like the fan-shaped lion’s paw shell, Summer’s fragile confidence could so easily be shattered. Computer tycoon James Gardiner's entry into her sheltered world was devastating in more ways than one - through his kindness and unintentional cruelty she emerged a slender, beautiful woman, sure of herself and sure of her love....
Sea-fever
Angel was grateful to him Charles Thetford had come to her rescue when Evangeline Dorset desperately needed a friend. Now, settling in to her new life in London, she was conscious of stronger feelings for him. Of course, there was no denying Charles was extremely attractive: rich, successful and a highly sought-after matrimonial prize. But Angel knew little about the way of the world. Perhaps she was confusing gratitude with love. And Charles--how did he view her? As an attractive woman--or as an irritating disruption to his ordered life.
South From Sounion
Lucia didn't like and didn't trust her sister's boyfriend Nicholas Curzon from the first moment she met him -- and it was with much misgiving that she agreed to accompany the pair of them on a holiday to Greece. But as her distrust of Nicholas increased, so, alas, did her unwilling attraction to him . .
Castle in Corsica
Polly Linsey's job had seemed most attractive at first sight: touring Europe with a rich American couple, and looking after their two children. But there were drawbacks . . . and at last they became so formidable that one day Polly found herself adrift on the French Riviera with no friends, no job and not nearly enough money to get herself home to England. That was why she made the decision that brought her to Corsica - an island of which she knew nothing except that it was the birthplace of Napoleon and reputedly full of fierce bandits - as the employee of a man about whom she knew even less. She had taken a fantastic risk in accepting the post he offered; how would it all work out?
That Man Simon
Farthing Green was a very small, very peaceful English village, and Jenny Shannon was a very nice, ordinary English girl who was only too happy to live there. Life was quiet and contented, and her only problem – if it could be called a problem – was what was going to happen about her quiet, steady friendship with James Langdon. Village gossip had them linked together, of course – but James seemed to be in no hurry to suggest marriage, and Jenny wasn’t at all sure that she would want it if he did. And so they might all have jogged along indefinitely, had the forceful Simon Gilchrist not moved into Farthing Green – right next door to Jenny, in fact – and a feud broke out between the two of them that looked like turning everybody’s life upside down!
Sullivan's Reef
For years no one had dared to set foot on Sullivan's Reef, the beautiful Caribbean island with the sinister reputation - no one, that is, except Charlotte Martin, who was fascinated by it. Then, in her search for the truth about Sullivan's Reef, she met an attractive stranger who was as mysterious - and perhaps more dangerous - than the Reef itself.
Terrace In The Sun
For all her twenty-three years Justine Field had been completely under the thumb of her elderly, domineering father with the result that she had never begun to learn to make the best of herself and was a stranger to any form of emotion. But it didn't help at all when she over-heard David Cassano pointing all this out to a friend! So why did she have to fall in love with him - a fabulously wealthy, attractive man of the world, with scores of beautiful women waiting to fall into his arms; the one man, in fact, who could never make her happy and could hurt her far more than her father had ever done?
A Spanish Honeymoon
International playboy seeks convenient wife! When Liz moves to the idyllic Spanish village of Valdecarrasca, she's stunned to find herself living next door to the infamous Cameron Fielding. Cameron has a string of glamorous female visitors, so Liz is amazed to discover he's contemplating marriage - to her! It is strictly a practical proposal - but when their honeymoon sparks into passion, it's clear that their marriage could also become permanent.