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Lost Lagoon
he was perfect, but having a permanent man in her life just didn't appeal to Alexandra
192 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1987
About the author
Anne Weale
225 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 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 22, 2018
A hot Canadian oceanographer based in Hawaii meets a cool, British interior designer in Vancouver, where they enjoy a holiday romance that culminates in a marriage proposal.
The Great Obstacle for once is not a nasty ex or a Seekret Baby or amnesia. It is simply the pressure of balancing a professional career with the full time career of being a spouse and parent and the nervous heroine, who doesn't believe in Helen Gurley Brown's (yes we are firmly in 80s time warp here) assessment that women can have it all, is weary of giving up her professional dreams despite the once in a lifetime love she feels for this great, sexy, and completely besotted hero.
Anne Weale writes a surprisingly sensitive and fair account of the heroine's dilemma. In a lot of her novels, she comes firmly on the side of being a homemaker as the be all and end all of a woman's emotional and physical fulfillment. She has lampooned the caricature of the hard-boiled career woman who is going to end up a withered old raisin dying a lonely death so many times that I was pleasantly surprised by her sympathetic portrayal of a woman who is not willing to throw away all that she has worked for so hard and which she truly enjoys for the sake of a man, even one as drop-dead gorgeous, kind, and interesting as the hero.
As a bonus we get a lot of 80s nostalgia (heroine prefers power walking because of Victoria Principal's dictum that jogging can ruin your boobies lol) and a Canadian travelogue that references not only poets, artists and the history and geography of the country but also gives a nod and wink to Holt Renfrew and Eaton's, which gave this ex-Canuck a good little chuckle.
The Great Obstacle for once is not a nasty ex or a Seekret Baby or amnesia. It is simply the pressure of balancing a professional career with the full time career of being a spouse and parent and the nervous heroine, who doesn't believe in Helen Gurley Brown's (yes we are firmly in 80s time warp here) assessment that women can have it all, is weary of giving up her professional dreams despite the once in a lifetime love she feels for this great, sexy, and completely besotted hero.
Anne Weale writes a surprisingly sensitive and fair account of the heroine's dilemma. In a lot of her novels, she comes firmly on the side of being a homemaker as the be all and end all of a woman's emotional and physical fulfillment. She has lampooned the caricature of the hard-boiled career woman who is going to end up a withered old raisin dying a lonely death so many times that I was pleasantly surprised by her sympathetic portrayal of a woman who is not willing to throw away all that she has worked for so hard and which she truly enjoys for the sake of a man, even one as drop-dead gorgeous, kind, and interesting as the hero.
As a bonus we get a lot of 80s nostalgia (heroine prefers power walking because of Victoria Principal's dictum that jogging can ruin your boobies lol) and a Canadian travelogue that references not only poets, artists and the history and geography of the country but also gives a nod and wink to Holt Renfrew and Eaton's, which gave this ex-Canuck a good little chuckle.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 21, 2014
Re The Lost Lagoon - AW is back with what I think she wanted to be a exploration of the 80's social debate of women having career's vs marriage and kids. We even get a little pop science book quote epigraph about how women's careers are affecting the negotiation of duties and compromise on career discussions when a couple discusses marriage. I am not quite sure she succeeded, but it was socially relevant for the time and made an interesting premise for HPlandia.
The h is a 27 yr old English interior designer who wants to be an international designer and is self-described as a Successful Careerist (in just that way too.) She is currently in Vancouver doing a big hotel revamp project for a very big name indeed and she is in the habit of taking a morning walk around Vancouver via Stanley Park. Where there is a little man made watering hole named Lost Lagoon after the works of Pauline Johnson who was a late 19th century writer and the daughter of a Mohawk Chief and an English immigrant. ( AW gives us the full back story on this in the book as part of the HP travelogue. )
Anyhows, the h is doing her morning walk and she likes to think about various meet a mate ads in the newspaper (no internets, so no dating site profiles, but the premise is the same only in the newspaper with a letter being sent to a po box for interested responders.) She contemplates what her own ad would say, something along the line of 'Career woman, widely traveled needs unemotional but enthusiastic lurve clubbing companion for occasional dates and mutual passion. '
The h isn't a virgin and not adverse to a love affair without marriage, in fact she had a live in relationship for two years that did not work out cause of career conflicts etc, and has been going through a dry spell since.
Then she sees a jogger going by, and judging by his fabulous backside, his ad would read' Hot man seeks occasional mistress for good times with taste and possible relationship.' Then when she sees him every day after, she reckons our mysterious jogger is so over all fabulous he wouldn't need to advertise, women would line up like lemmings to be with him. He is definitely top ranked eye candy. Eventually Mr. Fab Hiney introduces himself.
He is the son of a Quebec pianist mum and Scots heritage but Canadian businessman dad. He was born in Paris, lives in Hawaii and is a Marine Geologist. He is hanging about in Vancouver visiting his grandma. Needless to say he and the h hit it off. They start spending some time together, tho the h has reservations because she is really only in town for 6 more weeks, she is very career focused and doesn't want kids and she senses that she could totally lose her heart to the H. They finally become lovers on a wonderful weekend trip and the H proposes.
The h turns him down after a very long discussion of what a woman has to sacrifice and give up for marriage while the H doesn't have to give up anything. Things take a really negative turn when the H tells her it isn't like her career is brain surgery or anything. Plus the h decided long ago she wasn't particularly maternal.
Her parents were aesthete intellectuals and she was an only child. When they died she went to her Aunt's house, which had two parents and 8 kids in a five bedroom house and the h hated it. She had no privacy and nothing but hand me downs. The h likes space, quietude and household organization and she likes solitude but she DOESN'T like surprises or messes, all of which come with kids and her ambitions for her career would definitely suffer, cause mothers can't travel and be gone at the drop of a hat for weeks on end. Sure hubby's say they will help, but the domestic engineering is full time career and the h already has one that she likes more.
The H on the other hand, had a mum who was a concert grade pianist and put her career before everything else. His father tried to adjust to being the house hubby, but it really did not work out and he started drinking and then they divorced. He wants to marry the h and have her do little apartments in Hawaii while they wait for the patter of little feet. The H's grandma is very much on the H's side of things, she thinks only love should count and since the H is wealthy, the h should just chuck her job and start knitting baby booties. Needless to say, they can't reach a compromise and when the H starts in on how little her career matters, the h ends it.
Then the guy she is doing the hotel revamp for shows up and the h winds up going off with him to Hawaii to check out the luxury hotels and how they are decorated. The h's Hotel Man wants the h to give up her own design studio and work exclusively for him all over the world doing the interior design for his various businesses and hotels. The h isn't sure she wants to do that, she likes being her own boss, but she is missing the H horribly and since he is now back in Hawaii, she agrees to go with Hotel Man.
The next 30 pages are all about how she regrets turning down the H and now she does a complete about face on her career etc and chases the H down to catch her man. The H was convinced that Hotel Man and the h were an item, and Hotel Man does offer the h marriage cause he wants kids, but the h explains about the H as she rejects Hotel Man, and then Hotel Man goes and sets the H straight.
They reunite in a big Hawaii rosy sunset and avow mutual love with the h moving her studio to New York City and the H being a Marine Geologist at Cape Cod. We leave them happily lurvin it up and deciding the future can be discussed another day cause the tides of passion are running high for the HPlandia HEA.
This one was okay, but it was rather jarring to have the sudden 180 of the h on marriage and kids and her career. I think if AW was going for modern 80's social commentary on ladies with careers and marriage, she did not quite succeed - Daphne Clair did it better in A Ruling Passion and so does Leigh Michaels, (to a limited extent, I still don't like her much but she does good career ladies).
AW for all her muscled up love scenes and relationship moments, really is an old fashioned HP author at heart and marriage and motherhood should be all her h's needs. Still, it is a decent story and worth the read if you run into it or like AW and the H was believable in devotion as was the HEA.
The h is a 27 yr old English interior designer who wants to be an international designer and is self-described as a Successful Careerist (in just that way too.) She is currently in Vancouver doing a big hotel revamp project for a very big name indeed and she is in the habit of taking a morning walk around Vancouver via Stanley Park. Where there is a little man made watering hole named Lost Lagoon after the works of Pauline Johnson who was a late 19th century writer and the daughter of a Mohawk Chief and an English immigrant. ( AW gives us the full back story on this in the book as part of the HP travelogue. )
Anyhows, the h is doing her morning walk and she likes to think about various meet a mate ads in the newspaper (no internets, so no dating site profiles, but the premise is the same only in the newspaper with a letter being sent to a po box for interested responders.) She contemplates what her own ad would say, something along the line of 'Career woman, widely traveled needs unemotional but enthusiastic lurve clubbing companion for occasional dates and mutual passion. '
The h isn't a virgin and not adverse to a love affair without marriage, in fact she had a live in relationship for two years that did not work out cause of career conflicts etc, and has been going through a dry spell since.
Then she sees a jogger going by, and judging by his fabulous backside, his ad would read' Hot man seeks occasional mistress for good times with taste and possible relationship.' Then when she sees him every day after, she reckons our mysterious jogger is so over all fabulous he wouldn't need to advertise, women would line up like lemmings to be with him. He is definitely top ranked eye candy. Eventually Mr. Fab Hiney introduces himself.
He is the son of a Quebec pianist mum and Scots heritage but Canadian businessman dad. He was born in Paris, lives in Hawaii and is a Marine Geologist. He is hanging about in Vancouver visiting his grandma. Needless to say he and the h hit it off. They start spending some time together, tho the h has reservations because she is really only in town for 6 more weeks, she is very career focused and doesn't want kids and she senses that she could totally lose her heart to the H. They finally become lovers on a wonderful weekend trip and the H proposes.
The h turns him down after a very long discussion of what a woman has to sacrifice and give up for marriage while the H doesn't have to give up anything. Things take a really negative turn when the H tells her it isn't like her career is brain surgery or anything. Plus the h decided long ago she wasn't particularly maternal.
Her parents were aesthete intellectuals and she was an only child. When they died she went to her Aunt's house, which had two parents and 8 kids in a five bedroom house and the h hated it. She had no privacy and nothing but hand me downs. The h likes space, quietude and household organization and she likes solitude but she DOESN'T like surprises or messes, all of which come with kids and her ambitions for her career would definitely suffer, cause mothers can't travel and be gone at the drop of a hat for weeks on end. Sure hubby's say they will help, but the domestic engineering is full time career and the h already has one that she likes more.
The H on the other hand, had a mum who was a concert grade pianist and put her career before everything else. His father tried to adjust to being the house hubby, but it really did not work out and he started drinking and then they divorced. He wants to marry the h and have her do little apartments in Hawaii while they wait for the patter of little feet. The H's grandma is very much on the H's side of things, she thinks only love should count and since the H is wealthy, the h should just chuck her job and start knitting baby booties. Needless to say, they can't reach a compromise and when the H starts in on how little her career matters, the h ends it.
Then the guy she is doing the hotel revamp for shows up and the h winds up going off with him to Hawaii to check out the luxury hotels and how they are decorated. The h's Hotel Man wants the h to give up her own design studio and work exclusively for him all over the world doing the interior design for his various businesses and hotels. The h isn't sure she wants to do that, she likes being her own boss, but she is missing the H horribly and since he is now back in Hawaii, she agrees to go with Hotel Man.
The next 30 pages are all about how she regrets turning down the H and now she does a complete about face on her career etc and chases the H down to catch her man. The H was convinced that Hotel Man and the h were an item, and Hotel Man does offer the h marriage cause he wants kids, but the h explains about the H as she rejects Hotel Man, and then Hotel Man goes and sets the H straight.
They reunite in a big Hawaii rosy sunset and avow mutual love with the h moving her studio to New York City and the H being a Marine Geologist at Cape Cod. We leave them happily lurvin it up and deciding the future can be discussed another day cause the tides of passion are running high for the HPlandia HEA.
This one was okay, but it was rather jarring to have the sudden 180 of the h on marriage and kids and her career. I think if AW was going for modern 80's social commentary on ladies with careers and marriage, she did not quite succeed - Daphne Clair did it better in A Ruling Passion and so does Leigh Michaels, (to a limited extent, I still don't like her much but she does good career ladies).
AW for all her muscled up love scenes and relationship moments, really is an old fashioned HP author at heart and marriage and motherhood should be all her h's needs. Still, it is a decent story and worth the read if you run into it or like AW and the H was believable in devotion as was the HEA.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 18, 2019
A real world conflict between the leads - their divergent careers don't allow them to build a common life. A rare premise for a romantic story. Sensible, yes. But not sufficiently angsty if you are looking for the turbulent, passionate kind.
He is an ocean researcher based in some remote island. She is a thoroughbred city girl with a thriving interior decoration business. They hit it off right away. Hero is quite quick to propose. But the girl hesitates.
Finally they come to compromise. He takes up teaching at an oceanographic institute and she moves there with him. Fair enough.
Rather modern in the approach to enjoying sex without considering marriage as an ultimate legitimizer !!
Modern stuff from an old timer author. 3 stars.
He is an ocean researcher based in some remote island. She is a thoroughbred city girl with a thriving interior decoration business. They hit it off right away. Hero is quite quick to propose. But the girl hesitates.
Finally they come to compromise. He takes up teaching at an oceanographic institute and she moves there with him. Fair enough.
Rather modern in the approach to enjoying sex without considering marriage as an ultimate legitimizer !!
Modern stuff from an old timer author. 3 stars.
doubtful-because-not-v
June 1, 2021Alexandra had fought hard to make her way in her chosen career of interior design. She certainly didn't intend to let love infludence the lifestyle which she had carefully mapped out. Until, on a working assignment in Vancouver, she met Laurier Tate. A passing attraction, or her one real chance of happiness? Alex thought she kew the answer. But was it the right one for her?
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews