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A Night to Remember
An innocent proposal?
Until now, Cassia Browning had lived rather a sheltered life with her father in Spain. However, she could still recognize a dangerous man when she met one, and Simón, Marqués de Mondragón, was just that. Apart from being alarmingly attractive, he was seldom ever seen without a glamorous escort. What was more, he had a proposition for her. Cassia wasn't sure exactly what the marqués was going to propose but she had no doubt that his intentions would be strictly dishonorable.
288 pages, Hardcover Large Print
First published March 1, 1996
4 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Anne Weale
224 books49 followersJay Blakeney
aka Anne Weale, 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 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 October 24, 2007, she was working on her autobiography "88 Heroes... 1 Mr. Right".
aka Anne Weale, 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 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 October 24, 2007, she was working on her autobiography "88 Heroes... 1 Mr. Right".
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 1, 2022
A lovely romance set in Spain. Cassia Browning and Simón, Marqués de Mondragón meet at a hotel in Granada where Cassia works at the reception desk. When Simón learns Cassia will be leaving the hotel soon, he offers her a job on a project he is organizing and she accepts. Cassia and Simón were wonderful characters and I enjoyed seeing them get closer. I especially liked Jack, who was Simón’s friend who came to help out on Simón's project. I liked that Jack was sweet on Cassia, as well, causing some jealousy among the men. With descriptive settings, great characters, and an interesting storyline this made for a thoroughly enjoyable read.
February 15, 2025
Deceptively simple story that grows on you more and more with time. If you like the Cinderella trope, this is your jam.
The story begins at a chic Spanish ski hotel, where our young, innocent, English heroine is working as a receptionist when the very glamorous, attractive, Spanish Marques, with the aptly flamboyant name of Mondragon, arrives at the hotel with a bimbo on his arm. Not a promising start, right? Overnight, the hero sends the bimbo packing and tries courting the heroine but she is understandably weary and stand-offish, not wanting to be another notch on his bedpost. So he contrives to offer her a job at a philanthropic organization he has founded, which is a rehab center for juvenile delinquents. The heroine agrees and as they start working alongside each other, and get to know each other under the guise of friendship, she falls in love with him. She is still weary of him though, because their class difference is so vast and she does not know if he is also falling for her or amusing himself. Another man and woman are thrown in the mix to further the doubts and misunderstandings between our protagonists.
It turns out that reformed rakes are the best romantic heroes. After a lot of confusion, doubts, and misunderstandings, it is finally a fit of jealousy over another man who is earnestly courting the heroine that prompts our hero to get the nerve to confess his love and propose to the heroine. He had fallen in love for the first time in his life and contrived this job for the heroine as a way of getting close to her without scaring her off. His plan was to build upon a trustworthy friendship and hope her walls would come down in time, so he can start properly romancing her. He was starting to despair over ever making her fall in love with him and bitterly regretting his rakish past and bad reputation. When he saw the other man with her, he lost it but in the cutest way possible lol. The heroine compares it to an eagle swooping down on his prey but she is a very willing prey at that!
Their concluding love confession to each other was emotional, sweet, and romantic, as was their wedding night in the famed Alhambra castle. It truly is a Cinderella tale in the best way possible. Totally escapist, fantasy material but well worth it.
The story begins at a chic Spanish ski hotel, where our young, innocent, English heroine is working as a receptionist when the very glamorous, attractive, Spanish Marques, with the aptly flamboyant name of Mondragon, arrives at the hotel with a bimbo on his arm. Not a promising start, right? Overnight, the hero sends the bimbo packing and tries courting the heroine but she is understandably weary and stand-offish, not wanting to be another notch on his bedpost. So he contrives to offer her a job at a philanthropic organization he has founded, which is a rehab center for juvenile delinquents. The heroine agrees and as they start working alongside each other, and get to know each other under the guise of friendship, she falls in love with him. She is still weary of him though, because their class difference is so vast and she does not know if he is also falling for her or amusing himself. Another man and woman are thrown in the mix to further the doubts and misunderstandings between our protagonists.
It turns out that reformed rakes are the best romantic heroes. After a lot of confusion, doubts, and misunderstandings, it is finally a fit of jealousy over another man who is earnestly courting the heroine that prompts our hero to get the nerve to confess his love and propose to the heroine. He had fallen in love for the first time in his life and contrived this job for the heroine as a way of getting close to her without scaring her off. His plan was to build upon a trustworthy friendship and hope her walls would come down in time, so he can start properly romancing her. He was starting to despair over ever making her fall in love with him and bitterly regretting his rakish past and bad reputation. When he saw the other man with her, he lost it but in the cutest way possible lol. The heroine compares it to an eagle swooping down on his prey but she is a very willing prey at that!
Their concluding love confession to each other was emotional, sweet, and romantic, as was their wedding night in the famed Alhambra castle. It truly is a Cinderella tale in the best way possible. Totally escapist, fantasy material but well worth it.
August 1, 2020
.
This one starts off pretty slowly but in a comfortable kind of way that I still enjoyed.
It would have been a complacent 3 stars except that the ending was so sweetly romantic.
Cassia is alone in the world since her father's death a year or two ago. Working in a high end hotel, she meets all kinds of wealthy people but none of them ever interested her as much as the Marquis, Simon. He comes to ski with a snobby beautiful woman on his arm. But the woman ends up flinging an ashtray at him and going home early.
The Marquis ends up offering Cassia an opportunity just as she is coming to a crossroads in life.
There is another man, Jack who enters the story and for a while it felt like a bit of a love triangle.
Don't worry, it isn't really.
Cassia is rather naive as her father sheltered her a lot. She's never dated and even though she is quite cool and has a lot of strength of character, she is unsure how to act around Simon.
Simon is obviously jealous but is unwilling to spell out his interest.
At first I thought they were rather ill suited to each other, but as time goes on, I could feel their connection and how they complemented each other.
Just as you are wondering if they will ever say something pertinent to each other, it all comes to a wonderfully romantic ending.
It was obvious that the author had spent some times in Spain and added a lot of little details about customs and language and terrain, that added a lot to the story without bogging it down.
Safety is fine.
This one starts off pretty slowly but in a comfortable kind of way that I still enjoyed.
It would have been a complacent 3 stars except that the ending was so sweetly romantic.
Cassia is alone in the world since her father's death a year or two ago. Working in a high end hotel, she meets all kinds of wealthy people but none of them ever interested her as much as the Marquis, Simon. He comes to ski with a snobby beautiful woman on his arm. But the woman ends up flinging an ashtray at him and going home early.
The Marquis ends up offering Cassia an opportunity just as she is coming to a crossroads in life.
There is another man, Jack who enters the story and for a while it felt like a bit of a love triangle.
Don't worry, it isn't really.
Cassia is rather naive as her father sheltered her a lot. She's never dated and even though she is quite cool and has a lot of strength of character, she is unsure how to act around Simon.
Simon is obviously jealous but is unwilling to spell out his interest.
At first I thought they were rather ill suited to each other, but as time goes on, I could feel their connection and how they complemented each other.
Just as you are wondering if they will ever say something pertinent to each other, it all comes to a wonderfully romantic ending.
It was obvious that the author had spent some times in Spain and added a lot of little details about customs and language and terrain, that added a lot to the story without bogging it down.
Safety is fine.
May 26, 2022
An innocent proposal?
Until now, Cassia Browning had lived rather a sheltered life with her father in Spain. However, she could still recognize a dangerous man when she met one, and Simón, Marqués de Mondragón, was just that. Apart from being alarmingly attractive, he was seldom ever seen without a glamorous escort. What was more, Simón had a proposition for her. Cassia wasn't sure exactly what the marqués was going to propose—but she had no doubt that his intentions would be strictly dishonorable….
Until now, Cassia Browning had lived rather a sheltered life with her father in Spain. However, she could still recognize a dangerous man when she met one, and Simón, Marqués de Mondragón, was just that. Apart from being alarmingly attractive, he was seldom ever seen without a glamorous escort. What was more, Simón had a proposition for her. Cassia wasn't sure exactly what the marqués was going to propose—but she had no doubt that his intentions would be strictly dishonorable….
December 10, 2018
Nice; great historical background
Nice read in the gentle style. Not much suspense or conflict. Likeable characters. Always liked this author. Nice secondary characters also.
Nice read in the gentle style. Not much suspense or conflict. Likeable characters. Always liked this author. Nice secondary characters also.
October 24, 2021
Pleasant read with lovely romance but not much conflict and the would-be other man was a decent guy who was left high and dry
December 5, 2023
Em português, a tradução para Proposta Inocente é uma boa descrição desse romance água-com-açúcar.
Não tem nada de memorável, mas pode ajudar a passar a tarde.
Não tem nada de memorável, mas pode ajudar a passar a tarde.
December 30, 2023
Disappointing!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews