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Now and Always
Freed at last from the domination of a petty, miserly stepfather, Jennifer Alvery found herself once again at the mercy of a dictator - Neal Parker, to whom her stepfather had left the controlling interest in the family business. Would she be able to assert herself more forcefully this time?
- GenresHarlequin Romance
157 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1964
13 people want to read
About the author
Andrea Blake
30 books8 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 writinggene 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 theworld. 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 havebecome 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 backgroundand 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. Shecan 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 sevenbooks 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. Herhusband and son have even climbed in the Andes and the Himalayas, giving her lots of ideas for stories. When she retired from reporting, her fictionincome -- a combination of amounts earned as a Mills & Boon author and writing for magazines such as Woman's Illustrated, which serialized the workof 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 alsowrote 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 avery small "pueblo" in the backwoods of Spain. During years, she visited some villages, and from each she have borrowed some feature - a fountain, astreet, a plaza, a picturesque old house - to create some places like Valdecarrasca, that is wholly imaginary and yet typical of the part of ruralSpain 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 theNet, 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. Atthe 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 writinggene 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 theworld. 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 havebecome 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 backgroundand 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. Shecan 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 sevenbooks 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. Herhusband and son have even climbed in the Andes and the Himalayas, giving her lots of ideas for stories. When she retired from reporting, her fictionincome -- a combination of amounts earned as a Mills & Boon author and writing for magazines such as Woman's Illustrated, which serialized the workof 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 alsowrote 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 avery small "pueblo" in the backwoods of Spain. During years, she visited some villages, and from each she have borrowed some feature - a fountain, astreet, a plaza, a picturesque old house - to create some places like Valdecarrasca, that is wholly imaginary and yet typical of the part of ruralSpain 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 theNet, 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. Atthe 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 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 16, 2018
Kinda gold digging h hooks up with domineering H and true love ensues.
Seems mummy's miserable dead husband (h's stepfather) leaves his money and company to his estranged nephew and now he is making everyone miserable.
Enter the OW who has a thing going with the H, but she isn't broodmare material. After the h quits her job due to the OW's setting her up to take the fall in the H's inherited store, the H has to rescue the h from an evil OM.
Deciding that the h will do nicely as a broodmare at the newly designed family home, the H decides to have his cake and eat it too. He will marry the h and then keep his OW on the side with no complaints for the HEA.
It was okay but she was fairly weak willed, (you could see she gets it from her mum who was the same,) and the H was the usual 60's jerk. Totally non believable HEA.
Seems mummy's miserable dead husband (h's stepfather) leaves his money and company to his estranged nephew and now he is making everyone miserable.
Enter the OW who has a thing going with the H, but she isn't broodmare material. After the h quits her job due to the OW's setting her up to take the fall in the H's inherited store, the H has to rescue the h from an evil OM.
Deciding that the h will do nicely as a broodmare at the newly designed family home, the H decides to have his cake and eat it too. He will marry the h and then keep his OW on the side with no complaints for the HEA.
It was okay but she was fairly weak willed, (you could see she gets it from her mum who was the same,) and the H was the usual 60's jerk. Totally non believable HEA.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 14, 2022
This was a swwwt novel with simple lovable characters Jennifer was a simple hardworking girl who was kept subdued by her step father and made to earn her living.Neal is a successful business man but very understanding and adjusting. They made a good pair and the story was simple .
September 2, 2016
Really annoyed that OW never gets what's coming to her. Other reviewer was correct ending was rushed.
August 6, 2024
Published in 1964, this Harlequin romance by Andrea Blake a.k.a. Anne Weale has a lot of the tropes of the era but none of the charm. The protagonists are simply too unlikable, and the romance is dismal.
The story starts out at the reading of the will of heroine's stepfather, who has left the majority of his shares in his antiquated, kind of bankrupt department store to his long estranged nephew, the hero of the piece. The hero comes in and instantly sets to work modernizing the store and rallying the troops to help build up his grandiose dream of a successful department store. And it works quite well. The hero is a seasoned businessman and he jumps into this new project with feverish intensity. In fact, he displays his passion for his work a lot more than his passion for the heroine.
The heroine and hero begin their acquaintance by butting heads, then learn to work harmoniously together, and eventually the heroine falls in love with him but is unsure of his feelings for her. At this juncture, the hero thinks it is a great idea to bring his floozie ex into town as the department store's window-display designer (lol) and even has the audacity to ask heroine and her mom to put her up at their home, where they have to wait on her hand and foot. The hero starts spending all his time with his floozie, having cozy little dinners at his home where he makes her his "special" spaghetti bolognese, letting her lounge around on his couch at all hours of night, and even letting her crash the date that the heroine had planned and looked forward to for a long time, ruining her night. That scene where the heroine is hoping the floozie will leave them alone so the hero can give her a goodnight kiss but the floozie just stands there staring at them while spinning her evening bag around was hilarious!
The hero never tells off the floozie for any of her antics. In fact, it is the heroine who gets told off by the hero for making a vital mistake at work, which was undoubtedly engineered by the floozie. The floozie never gets found out or told off for that one either! And the heroine can't stand up for herself. Between the hero's cold, aloof attitude towards the heroine, and the floozy's slimy innuendos, it is no wonder the heroine starts paying attention to the rakish OM who has been hunting her all along. This is the only thing that seems to trigger hero's jealousy and push him to confess his "love" for the heroine.
The hero and heroine eventually get their HEA in the most unromantic proposal ever when the hero asks the heroine to look over some blueprints for a house he is planning to build. He asks her if she approves and when she looks at him wonderingly, he tells her this is his marriage proposal lmao. I actually could not warm up to the dingbat heroine or to the obviously cheating hero who wanted to have his cake and eat it too. In my never to be humble opinion, he brought in his floozie mistress in town and even found her an apartment to keep her in and a good cover as the store's "window-display designer" so they have an excuse to be together, while planning to eventually marry the heroine since her mother held almost half of the other shares of the department store and the hero was a workaholic tycoon who showed himself to be quite ruthless in his pursuit of money and power. A marriage of convenience for the facade, and the side piece floozie for the fun side, was and probably will be his plan all along.
The story starts out at the reading of the will of heroine's stepfather, who has left the majority of his shares in his antiquated, kind of bankrupt department store to his long estranged nephew, the hero of the piece. The hero comes in and instantly sets to work modernizing the store and rallying the troops to help build up his grandiose dream of a successful department store. And it works quite well. The hero is a seasoned businessman and he jumps into this new project with feverish intensity. In fact, he displays his passion for his work a lot more than his passion for the heroine.
The heroine and hero begin their acquaintance by butting heads, then learn to work harmoniously together, and eventually the heroine falls in love with him but is unsure of his feelings for her. At this juncture, the hero thinks it is a great idea to bring his floozie ex into town as the department store's window-display designer (lol) and even has the audacity to ask heroine and her mom to put her up at their home, where they have to wait on her hand and foot. The hero starts spending all his time with his floozie, having cozy little dinners at his home where he makes her his "special" spaghetti bolognese, letting her lounge around on his couch at all hours of night, and even letting her crash the date that the heroine had planned and looked forward to for a long time, ruining her night. That scene where the heroine is hoping the floozie will leave them alone so the hero can give her a goodnight kiss but the floozie just stands there staring at them while spinning her evening bag around was hilarious!
The hero never tells off the floozie for any of her antics. In fact, it is the heroine who gets told off by the hero for making a vital mistake at work, which was undoubtedly engineered by the floozie. The floozie never gets found out or told off for that one either! And the heroine can't stand up for herself. Between the hero's cold, aloof attitude towards the heroine, and the floozy's slimy innuendos, it is no wonder the heroine starts paying attention to the rakish OM who has been hunting her all along. This is the only thing that seems to trigger hero's jealousy and push him to confess his "love" for the heroine.
The hero and heroine eventually get their HEA in the most unromantic proposal ever when the hero asks the heroine to look over some blueprints for a house he is planning to build. He asks her if she approves and when she looks at him wonderingly, he tells her this is his marriage proposal lmao. I actually could not warm up to the dingbat heroine or to the obviously cheating hero who wanted to have his cake and eat it too. In my never to be humble opinion, he brought in his floozie mistress in town and even found her an apartment to keep her in and a good cover as the store's "window-display designer" so they have an excuse to be together, while planning to eventually marry the heroine since her mother held almost half of the other shares of the department store and the hero was a workaholic tycoon who showed himself to be quite ruthless in his pursuit of money and power. A marriage of convenience for the facade, and the side piece floozie for the fun side, was and probably will be his plan all along.
August 17, 2012
It kept me engaged. The last chapter felt a bit rushed.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews