What do you think?
Rate this book
Longwarden Saga #1
Flora
Flora Weale, Anne
Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
1 person is currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Anne Weale
218 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".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 24, 2013
I have marked this review with spoilers, because it's giving away more detail than I usually care to give, but there are some actions by the hero that could be considered a deal-breaker by some readers, and it's best they be forewarned.
Flora was the result of a marriage between her English father and a Chinese wife. Orphaned at a young age, she was raised in a Catholic mission in the back-o-beyond western China. When the book begins, it is 1903 and she's seventeen, and the père is beginning to regret giving Flora such an extensive education. Marriage is unlikely, and outside of taking the veil she hasn't got many options - he can try taking her to Shanghai where her options are better - but his health is too frail. It's all too complicated to try and explain, but Flora is brutally attacked, the old père dies, and she's now under the protection of English botanist Mr. Lomax (who is really the powerful and filthy rich Earl of Carlyon). Things get a bit dicey in Shanghai, and Carlyon decides to marry Flora and bring her to England, but he neglects to mention she's going to be the wife of a peer...
Spoilers going forward. Click to read more at your own risk.
Now, how to categorize this book? There isn't enough romance to satisfy a romance reader, and as noted, some of Carlyon's actions aren't going to appeal today's PC minded readers. The historical settings are well done, but there isn't enough interaction with known historical people and/or events to tag it as historical fiction, so I'd call this a novel with a historical setting.
I did enjoy the first half of the novel, despite Carloyn's cavalier attitude towards his young wife, but after the Big Misunderstanding started, I was too annoyed to enjoy the second half as much as the first. Four stars for the first part, and two stars for the last part, rounded up to three overall.
Flora was the result of a marriage between her English father and a Chinese wife. Orphaned at a young age, she was raised in a Catholic mission in the back-o-beyond western China. When the book begins, it is 1903 and she's seventeen, and the père is beginning to regret giving Flora such an extensive education. Marriage is unlikely, and outside of taking the veil she hasn't got many options - he can try taking her to Shanghai where her options are better - but his health is too frail. It's all too complicated to try and explain, but Flora is brutally attacked, the old père dies, and she's now under the protection of English botanist Mr. Lomax (who is really the powerful and filthy rich Earl of Carlyon). Things get a bit dicey in Shanghai, and Carlyon decides to marry Flora and bring her to England, but he neglects to mention she's going to be the wife of a peer...
Spoilers going forward. Click to read more at your own risk.
Now, how to categorize this book? There isn't enough romance to satisfy a romance reader, and as noted, some of Carlyon's actions aren't going to appeal today's PC minded readers. The historical settings are well done, but there isn't enough interaction with known historical people and/or events to tag it as historical fiction, so I'd call this a novel with a historical setting.
I did enjoy the first half of the novel, despite Carloyn's cavalier attitude towards his young wife, but after the Big Misunderstanding started, I was too annoyed to enjoy the second half as much as the first. Four stars for the first part, and two stars for the last part, rounded up to three overall.
April 6, 2017
DNF, pg 120-something.
Nope. Stilted, lifeless writing style, flat characters, & uneven pacing makes for long stretches of snooze peppered with dispassionate, rushed WTFery. Eh, no thanks. Moving on to (hopefully) better things.
Nope. Stilted, lifeless writing style, flat characters, & uneven pacing makes for long stretches of snooze peppered with dispassionate, rushed WTFery. Eh, no thanks. Moving on to (hopefully) better things.
October 26, 2014
This book was ok but I still can't believe he was unfaithful at least with two different women and she didn't confront him he just got away with it without an ounce of remorse also for other readers who don't like rape this book had it in the beginning I wish I had known as I hate that in a book so was really shocked! The heroine wasn't weak and I admire her for putting up with a lot of aspects with her being half Chinese and facing discrimination because of it but seriously why did she not confront him about his infidelity when he suspected her of the same? I also didnt believe in their chemistry together they just felt dull to me but as I said not a bad book but not by far a great one either.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 26, 2010
My only qualm with this book was the ending. It was too abrupt. All was finally HEA but I wanted to see just a bit more of the HEA before putting the book down. And the epilogue made me cry and not in a good way.
January 7, 2016
Always re-reading this one since 2004. Love the friendship relationships, the fear of the unknown in others and the description of the Edwardian Era - including real people, like Lady Duff-Gordon, many famous books, the behaviour and the fashion.
April 2, 2024
Brought up by an elderly priest in a remote corner of China after the death of her parents, her future is precarious. Having an English father and Chinese mother makes her an outcast in both societies and having been given a boy’s education by the priest who delights in her intellect and the manners of a French aristocrat, from his upbringing makes her unfit for a peasant marriage. An Englishman who returns to the mission in the aftermath of a devastating attack agrees to take Flora to Shanghai . On the journey Flora falls in love but knows that Casper has no such feelings for her. From Casper’s point of view she is no empty headed debutante and will be an asset in his plant hunting travels but he has no intention of changing his rakish lifestyle and so he marries her giving her the protection of his name. When he starts to fall for her, it is then that problems arise, Flora having pulled back with her knowledge of his infidelity.
I enjoyed this Edwardian romance, Casper it is true was a man with few scruples and morals where unhappily married women were concerned, but once in love was a reformed character (so not much different to many modern Regency novels).
I enjoyed this Edwardian romance, Casper it is true was a man with few scruples and morals where unhappily married women were concerned, but once in love was a reformed character (so not much different to many modern Regency novels).
May 8, 2023
I was looking through some of the reviews and everyone said pretty much what I would have said. I didn't think there was enough history in this HR book, or enough romance, either. I never got the feeling that Caspar really loved Flora he seemed too cold to me. I don't see why she had to get raped (at least it wasn't by the H in one of those "forced seduction" scenes), an attempt that was interrupted would have sufficed. Because she was at loose ends, was biracial (half English half Chinese), had been through trauma and lost her guardian whom she loved, Caspar married Flora, but thought she wouldn't be ready to be a real wife to him, so he took his sexual needs elsewhere. Meanwhile, Flora wanted very much to be a real wife to him, so it was just sad, as well as unnecessary. Later, he acts the hypocrite by jumping to conclusions that she has a lover.
There was too little interaction, too little chemistry, and too little to make anyone believe these two were soulmates. It just didn't ring true.
I recommend you skip this one.
There was too little interaction, too little chemistry, and too little to make anyone believe these two were soulmates. It just didn't ring true.
I recommend you skip this one.
November 19, 2024
O livro me foi bem recomendado, e por mais que tenha sido bem escrito, os personagens principais não me conquistaram, principalmente o personagem masculino e seus modos chauvinistas e infiéis.
A postura dele é condizente que os homens da época em que a história se passa, mas sempre quando eu leio um romance eu quero um homem que seja a exceção e não a regra, quero me apaixonar pelo o herói junto com a heroína, e nesse romance eu me perguntei mil vezes de onde Flora tirou tanto amor por Casper, ele era tão frio e emocionalmente ausente.
O livro teve potencial até aproximadamente um terço da história, depois que eles casam a história começa a correr atrás da própria cauda e o relacionamento dos dois empaca e não saí mais do lugar. É um daqueles livros que o herói só toma tento nos 45 minutos do segundo tempo.
O epílogo de fato e bem escrito e interessante, mas não conseguiu salvar o núcleo desinteressante da história, li o livro só por teimosia e é uma pena, pois a premissa era interessante e eu queria ter gostado dele.
A postura dele é condizente que os homens da época em que a história se passa, mas sempre quando eu leio um romance eu quero um homem que seja a exceção e não a regra, quero me apaixonar pelo o herói junto com a heroína, e nesse romance eu me perguntei mil vezes de onde Flora tirou tanto amor por Casper, ele era tão frio e emocionalmente ausente.
O livro teve potencial até aproximadamente um terço da história, depois que eles casam a história começa a correr atrás da própria cauda e o relacionamento dos dois empaca e não saí mais do lugar. É um daqueles livros que o herói só toma tento nos 45 minutos do segundo tempo.
O epílogo de fato e bem escrito e interessante, mas não conseguiu salvar o núcleo desinteressante da história, li o livro só por teimosia e é uma pena, pois a premissa era interessante e eu queria ter gostado dele.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
March 19, 2020This author was new to me and the book had been on my shelf for ages. It seems to me I must have bought it in a thrift shop in the States or Canada some ten years ago (at least). I was actually very pleasantly surprised - I expected this to be terribly not PC and totally cringeworthy, but actually although yes, there are some pretty rough scenes, on the whole I was won over by the heroine who wins over everyone. In the blurb they say something about Flora being "shunned by two cultures" but I actually found there was very little of that in the story. It was a good escape in these days of encroaching coronavirus.
December 7, 2023
Faz exatamente o que se propõe: uma multidão de choques culturais num amontoado de cenas de sexo.
Divertido.
Divertido.
November 13, 2015
First , a word of appreciation for the author. Sheer patience and grit required to finish a romantic saga that spans the entire life of the female lead. Her journey through turbulent youth, coming of age, maturing and finally outliving her beloved. Very well written. Inspiring effort, well done.
As for the plot itself, it begins with a rather nasty rape and further public humiliation for the girl. Leaves a very bitter taste for a long time, but as you read along, her new life experiences dim the past and make it somewhat irrelevant. So just like Flora, I too found the initial distress fading with time.
And I loved Flora for one thing. She never bore the stigma of rape on her psyche. She learned to treat it like an accident, something that she had no control over. She dint pity herself or shrink into a shell. I really admired this aspect of her character. Letting go.
Of course when there is a charming hero urging you along, taking you on a roller coaster of adventures, it becomes rather easier. And yes, the hero is indeed a charmer, albeit a slightly unfaithful one at the start. But I don't blame him for his initial escapades. He married Flora when she was 17, too young for sex. I guess I am making excuses for him. But once he began seeing her as a woman, he dint look any further beyond her.
She is an orphaned 17 year old half breed, and a rape victim on top of all this. And he is a charming British aristocrat with a palace and a title ! It is a fairy tale in some ways. But the feeling we get at the end is Flora richly deserved his love !
And Casper, the hero becomes a truly endearing character towards the end of the book. I found him most charming when he turned 70 !! I loved the epilogue , felt like a lovely dessert served after a spicy meal.
Good warm feeling as you finish the book. I loved it. The middle portions of the book and a rather boring misunderstanding in the middle are the only reasons why I withheld a 5 star rating.
As for the plot itself, it begins with a rather nasty rape and further public humiliation for the girl. Leaves a very bitter taste for a long time, but as you read along, her new life experiences dim the past and make it somewhat irrelevant. So just like Flora, I too found the initial distress fading with time.
And I loved Flora for one thing. She never bore the stigma of rape on her psyche. She learned to treat it like an accident, something that she had no control over. She dint pity herself or shrink into a shell. I really admired this aspect of her character. Letting go.
Of course when there is a charming hero urging you along, taking you on a roller coaster of adventures, it becomes rather easier. And yes, the hero is indeed a charmer, albeit a slightly unfaithful one at the start. But I don't blame him for his initial escapades. He married Flora when she was 17, too young for sex. I guess I am making excuses for him. But once he began seeing her as a woman, he dint look any further beyond her.
She is an orphaned 17 year old half breed, and a rape victim on top of all this. And he is a charming British aristocrat with a palace and a title ! It is a fairy tale in some ways. But the feeling we get at the end is Flora richly deserved his love !
And Casper, the hero becomes a truly endearing character towards the end of the book. I found him most charming when he turned 70 !! I loved the epilogue , felt like a lovely dessert served after a spicy meal.
Good warm feeling as you finish the book. I loved it. The middle portions of the book and a rather boring misunderstanding in the middle are the only reasons why I withheld a 5 star rating.
May 20, 2015
de enige reden dat ik dit boek las, was omdat het toevallig het enige boek was dat op mn werk te vinden was, en ik verveelde me écht.
het is al geen hoogstaand verhaal, maar m'n mond viel gewoon open toen ik erachter kwam dat de clue van het verhaal was dat de vrouw terugging naar de man die haar net daarvoor heeft geprobeerd te verkrachten, enkel omdat hij zei dat hij het deed uit jaloezie (als in: hij ging vreemd bij het leven, begon daarom ook de vrouw te verdenken van overspel en deed toen maar een poging tot verkrachting, want welja...)
uhmmm.....serieus, WTF??!!!! NEE!
het is al geen hoogstaand verhaal, maar m'n mond viel gewoon open toen ik erachter kwam dat de clue van het verhaal was dat de vrouw terugging naar de man die haar net daarvoor heeft geprobeerd te verkrachten, enkel omdat hij zei dat hij het deed uit jaloezie (als in: hij ging vreemd bij het leven, begon daarom ook de vrouw te verdenken van overspel en deed toen maar een poging tot verkrachting, want welja...)
uhmmm.....serieus, WTF??!!!! NEE!
February 7, 2014
Finally. It's done!
it reminds me of an Arabic novel "anta le" (you're mine) maybe not in the content but much in the way thing are handled. Too long and kinda boring in the middle.
I liked the adventurous beginning till they reached London & the different aspects of cultures but didn't find the rest of it breath taking or anything but not bad.
it reminds me of an Arabic novel "anta le" (you're mine) maybe not in the content but much in the way thing are handled. Too long and kinda boring in the middle.
I liked the adventurous beginning till they reached London & the different aspects of cultures but didn't find the rest of it breath taking or anything but not bad.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews