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Now or Never
Annabel Broderick lost her place in the affluent world when her father died. She learned he'd been an unscrupulous scoundrel.
Rejecting the advice of her worldly friend, Suzette, to use her beauty and contact the millionaire tycoon, Nicolas Casimir, Annabel was horrified when Suzette wrote on her behalf.
Now, confronting the great man himself, Annabel wondered if he were teasing, or serious. But she thought it best to answer firmly, "No, never. I don't mean to offend you, but I know I could never resort to that kind of a relationship!"
Rejecting the advice of her worldly friend, Suzette, to use her beauty and contact the millionaire tycoon, Nicolas Casimir, Annabel was horrified when Suzette wrote on her behalf.
Now, confronting the great man himself, Annabel wondered if he were teasing, or serious. But she thought it best to answer firmly, "No, never. I don't mean to offend you, but I know I could never resort to that kind of a relationship!"
192 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1978
2 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Anne Weale
227 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
June 20, 2024
This is the story of a jaded tycoon who meets a virginal, poor, little waif on an island in the West Indies. At first, he mistakenly believes she is just another little gold digger on the make who will amuse him for a short period of time. When he gets to know her better though, he realizes that he can’t take advantage of this earnest young woman who has fallen on bad times. So instead, he takes her to his mentor, a Contessa, who takes the little bird under her own, more seasoned, wings.
The magical setting and all the fashion and art porn were dazzling, like the Fortuny dress worn by the heroine, or the beautiful, antique rugs collected by the hero. I enjoyed AW’s meticulous world-building, especially the character of the octogenarian Contessa, whose memoirs surely would have been enthralling to read if she was a real-life person and not a romantic fictional character dreamed up by the author.
The hero is the "reformed rake" who waited two celibate years for the heroine to be sure of her feelings for him. She used the two year separation between her and the hero to mature and stand on her own two feet.
Nice story overall :)
The magical setting and all the fashion and art porn were dazzling, like the Fortuny dress worn by the heroine, or the beautiful, antique rugs collected by the hero. I enjoyed AW’s meticulous world-building, especially the character of the octogenarian Contessa, whose memoirs surely would have been enthralling to read if she was a real-life person and not a romantic fictional character dreamed up by the author.
The hero is the "reformed rake" who waited two celibate years for the heroine to be sure of her feelings for him. She used the two year separation between her and the hero to mature and stand on her own two feet.
Nice story overall :)
May 29, 2020
Annabel Broderick lost her place in the affluent world when her father died. She learned he'd been an unscrupulous scoundrel.
Rejecting the advice of her worldly friend, Suzette, to use her beauty and contact the millionaire tycoon, Nicolas Casimir, Annabel was horrified when Suzette wrote on her behalf.
Now, confronting the great man himself, Annabel wondered if he were teasing, or serious. But she thought it best to answer firmly, "No, never. I don't mean to offend you, but I know I could never resort to that kind of a relationship!"
Rejecting the advice of her worldly friend, Suzette, to use her beauty and contact the millionaire tycoon, Nicolas Casimir, Annabel was horrified when Suzette wrote on her behalf.
Now, confronting the great man himself, Annabel wondered if he were teasing, or serious. But she thought it best to answer firmly, "No, never. I don't mean to offend you, but I know I could never resort to that kind of a relationship!"
January 11, 2016
Her father in a con-man in the West Indies. Annabel comes to live with him after a well bred , rather sheltered life in Britain. Daddy dies leaving the young girl to fend for herself. Of course there is a good samaritan 'friend' of her father who lives with her. And the friend has some seriously questionable morals.
But thanks to the mischief making of that friend, Annabel gets to make a new life under the wings of a octogenarian lady with hoards of money looking for a muse and a biographer, for time pass basically. Only in M&B we see otherwise-good-for-nothing girls get such lovely jobs where they just have to wear pretty dresses and laze around in mansions.
But where is the hero in all this you may ask. He is the one who gets Annabel introduced to the old lady. Why, because he takes one look at her and realizes she is too unworldly and innocent to survive in the big bad world.
Our hero Nicholas is technically a millionaire womanizer, so that's your standard fare M&B hero for you. But he comes across as sweet, somewhat vulnerable and totally human guy in the story. And he makes an excellent declaration of love in the end. I always had a thing for reformed rakes. So I liked Nicholas.
Our sweet lassie is really endearing, she is charmed by the hero but is too virginal in mindset to do something about it. Finally when she does, the gallant hero packs her off keeping her own welfare in mind. Of course he goes looking for her later. But only after she gets to live her life outside his cocoon for a while so that she can be sure of her feelings for him.
Good story , I have read better ones from Anne Weale. But nevertheless, I liked this one too.
But thanks to the mischief making of that friend, Annabel gets to make a new life under the wings of a octogenarian lady with hoards of money looking for a muse and a biographer, for time pass basically. Only in M&B we see otherwise-good-for-nothing girls get such lovely jobs where they just have to wear pretty dresses and laze around in mansions.
But where is the hero in all this you may ask. He is the one who gets Annabel introduced to the old lady. Why, because he takes one look at her and realizes she is too unworldly and innocent to survive in the big bad world.
Our hero Nicholas is technically a millionaire womanizer, so that's your standard fare M&B hero for you. But he comes across as sweet, somewhat vulnerable and totally human guy in the story. And he makes an excellent declaration of love in the end. I always had a thing for reformed rakes. So I liked Nicholas.
Our sweet lassie is really endearing, she is charmed by the hero but is too virginal in mindset to do something about it. Finally when she does, the gallant hero packs her off keeping her own welfare in mind. Of course he goes looking for her later. But only after she gets to live her life outside his cocoon for a while so that she can be sure of her feelings for him.
Good story , I have read better ones from Anne Weale. But nevertheless, I liked this one too.
June 8, 2024
A tedious, interminable read featuring a bland simpleton for a heroine and a dull blank rock of a hero. The entire plot can be summed up thusly: girl meets aloof millionaire, she then goes to work for his granny, he makes a few passes at her, she leaves, he finds her 2 years later and they marry.
This scanty plot is padded out with pages upon pages of clothing descriptions, her seeing other men, her hanging about with the granny... basically the heroine spending months and months nowhere near the hero. They barely spend any time together.
It's just boring. So fucking boring. As I was reading this I was so bored I ended up putting on youtube videos of some dude hiking in Wales because I needed something in the background to keep me sane.
This scanty plot is padded out with pages upon pages of clothing descriptions, her seeing other men, her hanging about with the granny... basically the heroine spending months and months nowhere near the hero. They barely spend any time together.
It's just boring. So fucking boring. As I was reading this I was so bored I ended up putting on youtube videos of some dude hiking in Wales because I needed something in the background to keep me sane.
October 4, 2025
This is the one where heroine finds a job helping an old lady with her memoirs and dressing up in her old clothes every night. The descriptions of the fashion from the 1930's -50's are fascinating.
The romance is the hero, a cynical self-made man, falling for the much younger heroine. She is down on her luck and vulnerable after her father dies and is encouraged to prostitute herself out to a rich man by her father's girlfriend. Hero instead takes her under his wing and denies himself until she is self-sufficient, living in London and dating.
So a bit of a saga for a Harlequin romance.
The romance is the hero, a cynical self-made man, falling for the much younger heroine. She is down on her luck and vulnerable after her father dies and is encouraged to prostitute herself out to a rich man by her father's girlfriend. Hero instead takes her under his wing and denies himself until she is self-sufficient, living in London and dating.
So a bit of a saga for a Harlequin romance.
August 31, 2022
Anne Weale is hit or miss for me. This story appeals for the H who somewhat unwillingly reforms and the unworldly h who makes a life for herself with help of good friends.
February 11, 2011
2.5 out of 5 stars.
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January 23, 2018AHORA Y SIEMPRE (Spanish Version)
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews