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When a car accident followed soon after an unhappy and embittering love affair, fashion model Francesca Cornel felt thoroughly dispirited, and wanted only to get away from everything. The remotest place she could think of was Andorra, that charming, little-known miniature republic nestling in the heart of the Pyrenees, so she set off for a quiet holiday to recuperate and try to sort out her problems. And up to a point she succeeded. She soon began to feel better, made some charming friends, and was offered an interesting and worthwhile job. But if she accepted, and stayed on in Andorra, could she adjust herself to the complete change from the gay life she had known? And, in view of her decision to avoid romance for a while, was it the wisest thing for Francesca to remain in the orbit of the attractive Nicolas de Vega?
- GenresHarlequin Romance
188 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1964
14 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 11, 2017
(Pathetic heroine + asshat hero) x (horrible future in-laws + no comeuppance for slimy OW) = Reading experience - any scrap of enjoyment + (eye roll x 1000)
October 16, 2013
This was a pretty entertaining story until the very end. I just sat there frustrated while a rather kind hearted and likable heroine gets trampled on by the hero, his sister and his grandmother. Of course, our heroine just accepts it in stride and forgives them all.
Personally if it were me, I couldn't shake the dust off fast enough from their bigoted, narrow minded, hurtful ways. But somehow in HP land, forgiving is synonymous with stupidity and this book was no exception.
There were also some loose ends with the grandmother that the author conveniently forgot to shore up for me. (I so hate when that happens)
This could have been a four or five star read, but the ending just killed it.
Personally if it were me, I couldn't shake the dust off fast enough from their bigoted, narrow minded, hurtful ways. But somehow in HP land, forgiving is synonymous with stupidity and this book was no exception.
There were also some loose ends with the grandmother that the author conveniently forgot to shore up for me. (I so hate when that happens)
This could have been a four or five star read, but the ending just killed it.
February 11, 2017
The hero is described as tall with shoulders like a boxer and powerful pectoral muscles straining at his shirt. "His formidable shoulders tapered down to a 30" waist and narrow hips". LOL all I could picture in my mind was Gru from Despicable Me.
January 8, 2022
Because of a challenge, I was looking for a book set in Andorra, I had my doubts when I saw the law rating number. However, I didn't think it was that bad. Sure, it's not a masterpiece and dated, but it gave a few amusing hours. Nice description of Andorra, it's been a few years since I spent a few days there and it brought back nice memories.
August 11, 2024
It was not a bad book. Showed me how you could be pretty kind. The story telling could have been better though
pback-to-read
August 23, 2022When a car accident followed soon after an unhappy and embittering love affair, fashion model Francesca Cornel felt thoroughly dispirited, and wanted only to get away from everything. The remotest place she could think of was Andorra, that charming, little-known miniature republic nestling in the heart of the Pyrenees, so she set off for a quiet holiday to recuperate and try to sort out her problems. And up to a point she succeeded. She soon began to feel better, made some charming friends, and was offered an interesting and worthwhile job. But if she accepted, and stayed on in Andorra, could she adjust herself to the complete change from the gay life she had known? And, in view of her decision to avoid romance for a while, was it the wisest thing for Francesca to remain in the orbit of the attractive Nicolas de Vega?
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews