Separate Bedrooms

by Anne Weale

His proposal seemed like a lifeline!Antonia's first young romance had ended tragically; her strict Spanish relatives repressed her. An empty, dreary life loomed ahead. But then Cal Bernard, a dynamic English industrialist, unexpectedly asked her to marry him. And suddenly the future was transformed into a sunny vista of endless possibilities. The only cloud on her horizon was the fact that she and Cal were not in love. Still, she thought sadly, I suppose a woman who had loved and lost can't expect to find love again...

Genres: Romance, Harlequin Presents, Harlequin

192 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1979

About the author

Jay 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".

Reviews

[Naksed · Rating 2 out of 5]

The heroine of this story is a chaste, old-fashioned, half-English, half-Spanish girl who dreams of finding her Knight in Shining Armor and becoming a wife and mother. The hero is a chauvinist and proud of it. After sowing his wild oats with slutty, English, career girls, he settles down into a marriage of convenience with the heroine because she is one of the last of a dying breed, a virginal girl who neither swears, smokes, or dresses lewdly (lol). She is pliable and docile and would be unlikely to stray unlike those English hussies from his own country. He even admits at one point how she would be the key to his social integration, the crown jewel to legitimise his rise from a poor, blue-collar background into the higher echelons of society, as she was reared very strictly to be a gracious social hostess etc. Oh, and of course there is his comment at a dinner party that women are dogs, looking for a master. LoL. Did he get that from Sean Connery’s autobiography?

The heroine enters this marriage of convenience because she wrongly believes the love of her life has died in a car wreck. (Her family lied to her because they wanted to break her up with her boyfriend, a lowly clerk). She likes the hero and wants the freedom of running her own life away from the tyrannical constraints of the overbearing matriarch of her family. So why not give it a go with this guy who will take her to England, the land of her dearly departed father?

Unfortunately, on the night of their wedding, the heroine realises she can't go through with consummation. She throws herself on the honeymoon suite bed and cries her heart out while repeating the name of her dead lover. Obviously, the hero is incensed. But he is not one to force his wife to close her eyes and think of England while he takes his own, forced pleasure. He tells her that he will give her time so that she gets over her heartbreak and comes to him willingly.

There are a lot of dinners and parties, lots of interactions with the "women's lib" crowd, lots of suspicions that the hero is continuing his flings while the heroine resists him. Sure, the hero denies that he ever cheated on his wife but he doesn't explain all those long "business" dinners and out-of-town "business" trips that he never took heroine along on. If the waiting period was meant for her to forget her former lover, and grow closer to her husband, surely he should have been spending more time with her.

The plot reaches a Gloriously Bad Climax when the hero's plane gets hijacked by terrorists mid-air, causing the heroine to have the epiphany that she is, in fact, in love with her husband. During the terrorist stand-off, she passed the time by embroidering a pillow. ROFL. The plane hijack situation gets resolved off the page. We never find out who the hijackers were, what they did to hero and rest of passengers, or how they came to be stopped. It is all explained vaguely on a news bulletin and a short, cryptic telephone call from the hero just to say he is okay and then he goes straight from the terrorist attack to his office. Then to a party. And he shuts down the heroine's inquiries by saying how sick he is of repeating himself about the events of the hijacking. After that, the whole hijacking episode is swept under the rug never to be mentioned again. It was just so hilarious the way the author used a little plane hijacking as a plot device to magically trigger the heroine's romantic feelings for her husband and then just dropped it. Because there's nothing like a little life and death situation to bring you to your senses, right?

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of vintage old school Harlequins and this book had it all. Misunderstandings, angst, jealousy and even a hijacking. Heroine loses her one true love so she decides to marry our hero since they are both sensible and they don't love each other. But slowly hero wins her love until she is shocked to discover her old love is still alive!

[Dianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Antonia’s beloved English father dies, she has no one to stand for her against her Spanish aunt, who controls their wealthy family. Antonia’s father used to take her to the family’s holiday house, but now that he’s dead the wicked aunt has decided that the place must be sold.

Rich English Cal is the buyer, and Antonia comes out of her sorrows just enough to not tell him to go to hell. Cal thinks she’s great. She’s all traditional and biddable. ‘Virgin, right?’ Cal asks, while they’re out for a walk. Antonia promptly sprains her ankle in embarrassment, and Cal must give her a piggyback ride back to the house.

There’s a proposal, which Antonia readily accepts. She’s not in love with Cal, but he seems nice and reminds her of her father. He’ll also take her away from the wicked aunt, which is a great bonus. Problem is … Antonia is in love with a dead man.

Six months ago, her attempted elopement with working class Paco ended in a car crash. Paco is dead and Antonia is heartbroken. Cal is up front about not being in love with her, and gives a weird little speech about love not being an actual thing. Antonia takes this at face value, and doesn’t feel obligated to reveal the Paco situation.

However, she’s forced into it when she can’t go through with the wedding night deflowering. She’s sexually attracted to Cal and thinks him a nice man, but she doesn’t want to sleep with him, and she tells him why. Cal, although not happy, is decent. He’ll wait until they know each other better. Over the course of the book, he’ll only make a handful of snarky comments about it.

I was prepared for a plot where Antonia wavered between rebellion and miserable surrender, and Cal controlled and punished. I was expecting a story that ended with Antonia’s surrender, and with me feeling the usual sadness and frustration and anger about HEAs that present themselves as a choice between personal freedom and true love.

That isn’t what I got. Instead, I got two characters who slowly grew on me, and a thoughtful and interesting story on gender politics.

Part way through, when I was still deciding whether to continue or not, I came into Goodreads and read I Am Gamz’s review, which has a lot of telling quotes from Cal. It’s a good review, and I don’t disagree with anything in it. In fact, I’d have read it the exact same way a few years ago, and I’m thinking that age has mellowed me a little, because I had a different take.

It’s true that Antonia restricts her own choices to marriage, but I thought she was very clear on what she wanted, and I respected her for it. She obeys Cal. But not out of fear or duty – she has placed her trust in him. She respects him, and she makes a very clear reading of his character early on, and he stays consistent with it, so I totally got why she would. She isn’t brainwashed, or in the habit of mindless obedience. And, she refuses to feel guilty about the fact that she’s married a wealthy man, one who can afford to buy her expensive clothes and a nice lifestyle. But most of all, I liked her because she had plans. They weren’t big plans, but marriage to Cal meant she had more freedom than she had with her family, and she was using that freedom to explore other interests, like learning about music, learning to cook, learning French. These seem so simple, but it was the best kind of freedom. Antonia wasn’t struggling over her identity; she was finding ways to extend herself. She completely won me over – she was thoughtful and intelligent and a very good judge of character.

Still, she wasn’t perfect. She was miserable and uncertain over her relationship with Cal, and there was also her jealousy over the woman she’d designated as Cal’s ‘real’ love.

I’d been prepared to learn to hate Cal. I thought he’d targeted Antonia because he wanted a biddable wife, and I thought this was a sign of a weak character. I thought the plot would revolve around her not meeting his expectations. I thought he was going to end up in a lot of angry scenes. I’d been particularly upset by his cold and dismissive attitude towards his sister, and her failed marriage. But there’s a danger here in assuming that, because his sister was an example of a woman who chose her career over her marriage and discovered her husband in bed with someone else, that Cal thought all career women were bad. And that by extension, the feminist movement was bad and wrong. He didn’t. He admired the OW, also a career woman, and the fact that he didn’t want to marry her wasn’t down to her job and her choices, it was her character. He introduces Antonia to two women who don’t work outside their homes, and one he clearly admires, and one he doesn’t.

And the one he admires is a thoughtful, intelligent woman who is an equal partner with her husband. It was the family that he admired that got me over the line with Cal, that made me realise he was genuine. That was the life he wanted, and the life he wanted to build with Antonia. He wanted a family, and he meant what he said when he told Antonia that he would be faithful to her. Yes, he was a chauvinist. He’s clear that he’s the dominant partner. I subscribe to the argument that forcing men into dominant roles is isolating and unhealthy, so I can’t quite rationalise this as good. And their relationship is never tested as Antonia doesn’t make decisions that challenge Cal’s dominance, so it’s difficult to confidently say this would never be a problem.

What I thought was clear, was that Antonia wasn’t a manipulator. They both come across as open and honest … or as open and honest as romance characters can be, when the main conflict is around their undeclared feelings.

There’s no forced intimacy. Cal gets angry and frustrated at Antonia’s continued rejection, but he always stays in control. He isn’t bitter. And while Antonia tortures herself by imagining that Cal has sought comfort in the arms of another woman, she doesn’t build up a wall of indifference, or cause an angry, passionate scene.

The working women in this book are unhappy, but I didn’t take this as a direct criticism on their choices. Antonia’s sister in law would have been an unhappy person if she worked or not. And in the case of the OW – her moment of unhappiness as she looks at what might have been isn’t a strong enough case to assume that she’s dissatisfied with her life. She’s a single mother, but there’s nothing to suggest that she’s not a good mother, or that she’s made a moral failing.

I can’t quite make the case that Anne Weale was writing new feminism, where women who don’t work are as recognisable as feminists as the women who do. HP is in general too conservative for me to assume that every author is trying to be subversive. I’m conscious that this book was written in 1979, and that feminism then, and over the next ten years, was characterised by the grim determination to ‘have it all.’ And it’s inescapable that Cal has a very strong view of his role and Antonia’s role in their marriage. However: this book doesn’t treat feminism as a dirty word. No one must stop being a feminist to get what they want.

I like a book that surprises me, and that unfolds characters who are admirable, and who so clearly love and respect and are right for each other. There were so many perfect little things. Cal taking Antonia to an old house connected with a book she was reading, because he’d noticed how much she was enjoying it. Antonia buying Cal a book and putting it on his bedside because she knew he wanted to read it. Cal’s thoughtfulness in employing a Spanish couple to work for them, so that Antonia would have people who spoke her language to talk to. And so much more, culminating in a sweetly satisfying declaration of love. I think I’ll have to find more Anne Weale books.

[iamGamz · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 WTF Stars
“I’ve never told you I loved you. I’m not sure I know what love is. It’s a term which is bandied about, but often it doesn’t seem to mean much.”



I am a huge fan of old Harlequins and love when I come across an old title and author that I have never read before. I was so excited when I found Separate Bedrooms. That excitement did not last.

Antonia lives in Valencia, Spain with her mother and her bully of an aunt. She fell in love with a guy her family did not approve of, Paco. There was a car accident and Paco died. Not long after she meets Cal when he made an offer on a house that belonged to her recently deceased father. She resents Cal for buying the house, but he’s kind and begins to warm toward him.

After meeting Cal a few times, he proposes marriage. Knowing that the love of her life is dead, and knowing the Cal doesn’t love her or expect love from her, she says yes, marries a stranger and moves from Spain to London. On their wedding night Antonia realizes that she cannot become intimate with Cal, her new husband, because she still has feelings for Paco. And so starts a marriage that is doomed to never be consummated.

Cal is a throwback to the dark ages. He appears to be a mysoginst and blames his sister and the fact that she wanted a career for her husband’s infidelity:

“She had a job in television which required her to work at night,’ said Cal. ‘Bill became fed up with warmed-up suppers and solitary evenings. One night she came home from work to find him entertaining an attractive French widow from one of the other apartments. Bill denied that the relationship had gone any further than a few kisses, but Laura was furious. She refused, and still does, to see that what happened was largely her own fault. If a couple have incompatible working hours, then one of them has to adapt to the other’s convenience. It needn’t always be the woman. But in this case it was logical for Laura to make the adjustment.”

And with doozies like this:

“That’s because you didn’t take a firm enough line from the outset, Ross. Women are like dogs—they need a master.” What. The . Holy. Fuck?!

And this:

“You made me want to make love to you, and when a woman excites a man’s desire for her with no intention of gratifying it, she plays a very dangerous game. Girls who do it to callow boys can find themselves being raped, and men have been known to kill women for playing that game once too often. Don’t ever play it with me, unless you are ready to take the consequences. Because the next time you press yourself against me, I shall take it you are as impatient for me as I am for you.”

Who wouldn’t want a man like Cal?! ←dripping in sarcasm

Antonia is no modern woman either. Her thoughts on marriage are almost equally antiquated:

“If I were clever enough to be a doctor or maybe an architect—something of that sort—I might want to have a career, too. But what’s wrong with being a wife? To arrange a household where people are always comfortable and well-fed; to give good parties; to dress well; to teach one’s children to be kind and mannerly—surely that’s quite an achievement?”

How these two had a hard time getting their crap together baffled me, because they are actually perfect for each other.

It’s been a long time since I read a book that was so patriarchal. The author didn’t make any apologies for the lack of modern thinking at all. She just dragged her reader back into the dark ages and locked them there for the duration of the book. This was my first Anne Weale book, and I am hesitant to read anything else that she has written. Granted, this is a book from 1979, but dammit, women had careers at that time. They were blazing trails to make paths for today’s modern women.

Did I hate the book? Surprisingly, not at all. It was well written and thoughtful. The characters were interesting and well developed. The pace was a bit slow, but that is to be expected from an older novel. What I didn’t like was the belief that married women were meant to be at home, barefoot and pregnant. I guess reading this as a 21st century woman, my experiences and perspective makes me jaded.

All in all, Separate Bedrooms is an interesting read and if you can get past the blatant male-dominated mindset, you may just like it. However I still say, Read at Your Own Risk!

[seton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I probably would have liked it better if I was still twelve. Very dated category romance. It might have been dated even back in 1979 when it came out.

Heroine = hysterical virgin with zero career ambitions
Hero = smug chauvenist(sic) pig

[Iris]

Cover artist Dick Marvin. At first glance less distinctive than others of his but there are lots of lovely details here: the way the striping on her sweater fades to echo the architectural details of the building, the double decker bus! It looks to be standard brushwork and gouache perhaps?

[RomLibrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

His proposal seemed like a lifeline!

Antonia's first young romance had ended tragically; her strict Spanish relatives repressed her. An empty, dreary life loomed ahead.

But then Cal Bernard, a dynamic English industrialist, unexpectedly asked her to marry him. And suddenly the future was transformed into a sunny vista of endless possibilities.

The only cloud on her horizon was the fact that she and Cal were not in love. Still, she thought sadly, I suppose a woman who had loved and lost can't expect to find love again...

[ANGELIA · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first, I wasn't sure I would like this. The h was so melancholy over the "dead" OM, and saying his name on her wedding night to the H was just a tad tacky! And the H seemed to be giving a psychology/morality lecture like a rather boring professor. But I'm glad I stuck with it, because while it had flaws (like too much culinary detail and room descriptions, and a big secret taking too long to be revealed), it avoided a lot of the tropes in older books, like the H forcing himself on the h, the h screaming "I HATE you" every five minutes, and over-the-top misunderstandings. And the OW wasn't a manipulative, troublemaking bitch with designs on the H. And while I like well written love scenes, this book's lack of them didn't take away from the story. You don't need orgasm details to write a good book.

Sometimes introspective books can get on my nerves, but this time it fit the story, because the h came to understand the difference between what she thought she had felt for the OM and what she did feel for the H. While I didn't like the conspiracy against her (and it was wrong for her mother to be a part of it) and maybe it should have been discovered sooner and been more a part of the story, it helped clarify her feelings and make her realize how everything had worked for the best.

That whole hijacking incident was a surprise and I'm glad it wasn't overdone or overdramatic.

A good story!

[Deane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was an okay story...Antonia had an English father but had never been to England; her mother was Spanish but her mother was never able to offset the aunt who ruled the household and kept Antonia under her rules.

When Cal met her, he asked her to marry him and they moved to England but it was amazing how little she seemed to know about England or anything else.

Because neither Cal or Antonia were not in love, Antonia wouldn't sleep with him so they had separate bedrooms which didn't please Cal. So for several months, they slept apart until Antonia realized she did love him as he did her.

So a happy ending.

[Live2Read · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn’t buy that he was in love or smitten with her. He talked too much of not knowing what is love and only marrying to marry, and was fine marrying her because she was pure and not a loose one, lmao. Not very romantic after hearing that for a while. I don’t find him attractive and she was too lifeless and flat. I didn’t feel her past tragic love story. She’s a strange one. They are a weird, boring duo. No chemistry or tension.

[More Books Than Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the old HPs, especially ones that don't try to shove sex on every page. This was pretty good although the male character was flat and lifeless. Some reviewers seem to have problems with a lady who doesn't hanker after a career and prefers to make a home for her family but I think it's great. If that's what someone wants more power to them.

[Tricia Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

H is a grade A chauvinist who loves the idea of a woman more than the reality but an ok read.

[Amara · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was so funny. But for odd reasons, like:

1. The heroine is soooo disturbed that the cheesecake she was served was from "GASP!" Marks & Spencer. How dare they not make it from scratch! It was a "a cheat and an extravagance"!

2. She says she'll take her morning coffee AFTER she brushes her teeth. That's weird as fuck. Who drinks their morning coffee AFTER they brush? I have my morning coffee(s) THEN brush. Surely this is the standard, right? I mean, unless you're leaving the house in a hurry, but a lounging at home day??

[PAINTED BOX]

His proposal seemed like a lifeline!

Antonia's first young romance had ended tragically; her strict Spanish relatives repressed her. An empty, dreary life loomed ahead.

But then Cal Bernard, a dynamic English industrialist, unexpectedly asked her to marry him. And suddenly the future was transformed into a sunny vista of endless possibilities.

The only cloud on her horizon was the fact that she and Cal were not in love. Still, she thought sadly, I suppose a woman who had loved and lost can't expect to find love again...