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Islands of Summer
To Caroline, the prospect of six months in Bermuda, working in the beauty salon of a luxury hotel, seemed like paradise! But she had reckoned without the dampening effect of Ian Dryden, the hotel's disapproving owner. His dislike for her was obvious, and nothing she did seemed to change that. Certainly falling in love with this arrogant man had been a big mistake. He was totally unimpressed - and in love with someone else!
188 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1965
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 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 27, 2018
The heroine was so classy, positive and strong in this one. She really knocked all the arrogance off the hero's uber-Alpha personality, and he had it in spades. I loved it! Without her strong personality, he would have crushed her but as it is, he got nicely humbled, at least as far as she was concerned, without losing any of his ultra masculine appeal. He will respect and love her til the end of his days and she is a one-man woman that he is lucky to get as his life partner. All set at a luxe hotel in a magnificent Bermudan island, with lots of intrigues between all the secondary characters and lots of snorkeling and beach bonfires. And of course the most romantic declaration in a moongate where the hero's grandfather carved a poem in the stone for his grandmother. What's there not to love?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 1, 2013
Anne Weale is an author that I'm not quite sure about. While she writes in the era of the other vintage authors I love, she often delves into the sixties sub-culture with musicians and other cultural aspects that seem strange to me.
This was however a very straight forward romance with a young beauty therapist travelling to Bermuda to work in a luxury hotel, coincidentally owned by the family of the manager Ian Dryden.
Caroline manages to get on his off side almost immediately of course and follows it up by forming a friendship with the diving instructor who had a bad reputation.
I found this quite interesting in terms of the portrayed life of a working girl in London and later Bermuda. Weale often has heroine's and heroes who are keen on water sports and boating.
Overall an enjoyable read.
This was however a very straight forward romance with a young beauty therapist travelling to Bermuda to work in a luxury hotel, coincidentally owned by the family of the manager Ian Dryden.
Caroline manages to get on his off side almost immediately of course and follows it up by forming a friendship with the diving instructor who had a bad reputation.
I found this quite interesting in terms of the portrayed life of a working girl in London and later Bermuda. Weale often has heroine's and heroes who are keen on water sports and boating.
Overall an enjoyable read.
August 4, 2024
From the moment they met, Ian and Caroline were at cross-purposes. It was Ian's scowl of disapproval that spawned Caroline's instant dislike. And though she did her best to stay out of his way, it seemed that every where she turned, there he was. From the start Ian misinterpreted events that put a bad light on Caroline's character, and she was forced to prove him wrong, But all their angst couldn't stop them from falling for each other. Ms Weale's was a wonderful story teller
April 12, 2017
I like Anne Weale a lot and I'm usually very forgiving, however this was a very boring book. The Hero and heroine hardly had any interactions with each other. The heroine had more of a relationship with the diving instructor. Then in the end a very abrupt, out of the blue declaration from the H. Meh!
pback-to-read
June 1, 2021To Caroline, the prospect of six months in Bermuda, working in the beauty salon of a luxury hotel, seemed like paradise! But she had reckoned without the dampening effect of Ian Dryden, the hotel's disapproving owner. His dislike for her was obvious, and nothing she did seemed to change that. Certainly falling in love with this arrogant man had been a big mistake. He was totally unimpressed - and in love with someone else! (
March 8, 2025
To Caroline, the prospect of six months in Bermuda, working in the beauty salon of a luxury hotel, seemed like paradise! But she had reckoned without the dampening effect of Ian Dryden, the hotel's disapproving owner. His dislike for her was obvious, and nothing she did seemed to change that. Certainly falling in love with this arrogant man had been a big mistake. He was totally unimpressed - and in love with someone else!
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May 20, 2011might have 2 copies
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews