Anne Weale's picture
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Anne Weale


(Jay Blakeney)
UK flag (1929 - 2007)

aka Andrea Blake

Jay Blakeney was born on Juny 20, 1929. Her great-grandfather was a well-known writer on moral theology, so perhaps she inherited her writinggene 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 theworld. 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 havebecome 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 backgroundand 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. Shecan 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 sevenbooks 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. Herhusband and son have even climbed in the Andes and the Himalayas, giving her lots of ideas for stories. When she retired from reporting, her fictionincome -- a combination of amounts earned as a Mills & Boon author and writing for magazines such as Woman's Illustrated, which serialized the workof 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 alsowrote 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 avery small "pueblo" in the backwoods of Spain. During years, she visited some villages, and from each she have borrowed some feature - a fountain, astreet, a plaza, a picturesque old house - to create some places like Valdecarrasca, that is wholly imaginary and yet typical of the part of ruralSpain 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 theNet, 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. Atthe time of her death, on October 24, 2007, she was working on her autobiography "88 Heroes... 1 Mr. Right".
 

Genres: Romance
 
Series
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Longwarden Saga
   1. Flora (1983)
   2. All My Worldly Goods (1987)
   3. Time and Chance (1989)
     aka The Fountain of Delight
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Novels
   Winter is Past (1955)
   The Lonely Shore (1956)
   The House of Seven Fountains (1957)
   Never to Love (1958)
   Sweet to Remember (1958)
   Castle in Corsica (1959)
   Hope for Tomorrow (1959)
   A Call for Nurse Templar (1960)
     aka Nurse Templar
   September in Paris (1961) (as by Andrea Blake)
   Until We Met (1961)
   The Doctor's Daughters (1962)
   The House on Flamingo Cay (1962)
   Whisper of Doubt (1962) (as by Andrea Blake)
   If This is Love (1963)
   The Silver Dolphin (1963)
   All I Ask (1964)
   Islands of Summer (1964)
   Now and Always (1964) (as by Andrea Blake)
   Three Weeks in Eden (1964)
     aka Doctor in Malaya
   Christina Comes To Town (1965)
     aka Girl About Town
   The Feast of Sara (1965)
   The Night of the Hurricane (1965) (as by Andrea Blake)
   Terrace in the Sun (1966)
   The Sea Waif (1967)
   The Man in Command (1968)
   South from Sounion (1968)
   Sullivan's Reef (1970)
   Summer Lightning (1971)
     aka That Man Simon
   A Treasure for Life (1972)
   The Fields of Heaven (1973)
   Lord of the Sierras (1974)
   Sun in Splendour (1975)
   Bid Time Return (1977)
   Now or Never (1978)
   The River Room (1978)
   Stowaway (1979)
   Separate Bedrooms (1979)
   The Girl from the Sea (1979)
   The First Officer (1980)
   A Touch of the Devil (1980)
   The Last Night at Paradise (1980)
   Bed of Roses (1981)
   Rain of Diamonds (1981)
   Blue Days at Sea (1981)
   Passage to Paxos (1981)
   Antigua Kiss (1982)
   Wedding of the Year (1982)
   All That Heaven Allows (1983)
   Yesterday's Island (1983)
   Ecstasy (1983)
   Summer's Awakening (1984)
   Frangipani (1985)
   Night Train (1987)
   Neptune's Daughter (1987)
   Lost Lagoon (1987)
   Catalan Christmas (1988)
   Do You Remember Babylon? (1989)
   Sea Fever (1990)
   Pink Champagne (1991)
   The Singing Tree (1992)
   Footprints in the Sand (1992)
   The Faberge Cat (1993)
   Turkish Delights (1993)
   Seascape (1995)
   Never Go Back (1995)
   A Night to Remember (1996)
   Sophie's Secret (1996)
   A Marriage Has Been Arranged (1997)
   The Youngest Sister (1997)
   The Impatient Virgin (1998)
   The Bartered Bride (1998)
   Sleepless Nights (1999)
   Desert Honeymoon (1999)
   Worthy of Marriage (2000)
   Sea Change (2002)
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Series contributed to
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