- Paperback
- Publisher: Chicago Review Pr (2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1556524048
- ISBN-13: 978-1556524042
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.6 x 5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
THE SMALL ROOM was warm and moist. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
THE SMALL ROOM was warm and moist. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Never again, she had promised herself a dozen times will I be such a fool.",
By
This review is from: Forever Amber (Paperback)
Amber St. Clare never felt she belonged with the poor family who raised her, and one day a troop of cavaliers ride into her village and she's swept away by Lord Bruce Carlton. Well, actually its more like the other way around - Amber won't say no and begs Bruce to take her to London and against his better judgment he agrees. Although lust for the beauteous Amber might have something to do with it. Bruce makes it perfectly clear he'll never marry her and when duty calls she's on her own and under those terms they're off to London as Charles II is crowned and his bawdy court and courtiers are in full swing. As he warned, Bruce soon has to leave and it doesn't take long for Amber to get herself swindled royally out of every farthing Bruce left her and thrown into Newgate prison for debt. Not one to be down and out for long, Amber soon hooks up with a notorious highway man and he breaks them out and the game is on......Until of course Black Jack Mallard is caught and then Amber finds herself in another pickle and she goes for the stage - but she still needs to find man to keep her in the style in which she wants to become accustomed to - and handsome Captain Rex Morgan will fit the bill as soon as she takes him away from his current mistress. Of course, once Bruce is back Amber manages to screw things up nicely and fresh out of likely prospects in London (young men with money) Amber finds herself an older wealthy one to protect her from life's little problems. But then older men don't live forever and when their family doesn't like you well then we're off on the hunt yet again.... Amber's story takes her through all walks of Restoration England, from prison to theatre to the decadent, conniving court of Charles II, from the plague (A.W.E.S.O.M.E.) to the Great Fire and from man to man and bed to bed. Amber is most definitely one of fiction's most flawed heroines and despite the many lessons life dishes out do you think she ever learns from them? Not on your life, not does she ever figure out that Bruce is never ever going to marry her - Sleep with her, yes. Don't worry though, as busy as Amber is in the bed chamber and despite the fact that when published in the 40's this was so scandalous it was banned in Boston, the sex is pretty tame and left to the reader's imagination (how refreshing). Amber is quite flawed and very unlikable most of the time but it's like watching a train wreck - you can't take your eyes away for fear of missing what's going to happen next. As for the ending? Oh yes, she most definitely gets her just desserts in the end. A grand and glorious romp through Restoration England, don't miss it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Needs a Sequel,
By
This review is from: Forever Amber (Paperback)
If ever a book was written that required a sequel, it was this one.Sixteen year old Amber St. Clare, ward of a yeoman farmer and his wife, falls instantly in love with a handsome cavalier who happened to stop by her tiny village for refreshment. Almost immediately, she surrenders her virtue to him and begs him to take her to London. "I won't ever marry you, Amber," he states and he keeps his word in spite of fathering three of her children over a ten year period. During his numerous absences, she manages to land in Newgate Prison for indebtedness, be rescued by a notorious highwayman, marry several men for their money or titles, take up a tarnished career as an actress and become one of King Charles IV's favourite mistresses. Throughout it all, she maintains her love for the devastatingly handsome, Bruce Carlton. To my mind, Lord Carlton is the real villain of the piece. His vacillating between his obsession with her beauty and his desire to marry "quality" is annoying and unfortunately the "undoing" of Amber. It is a sad commentary of what a woman alone in that period had to do to get along in the world. She may have become hardened and scheming due to her circumstances, but she more than proved her mettle during the terrible London plague. For all it was banned in Boston in the 1940s because of Amber's immoral life style, there is nothing explicit or graphic in this book. I could have liked it immensely, simply for the wonderful research the author did with regard to the 17th century Stuart Restoration period. One experiences that time and place as in no other book I have read about the era. As it is, like many other readers, I hated the ending which left me with an overriding feeling of aggravation.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
To call Forever Amber a romance novel is a slander....,
By May May (BETHESDA, MARYLAND United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Forever Amber (Paperback)
I first read the book when I was 18. Naively, I thought ALL books called "romance" would be of this quality, but of course, I was disappointed! Since then, I have read the book once during each subsequent five years of my life, most recently re-reading it at age 47. Ms. Winsor's recreation of Restoration London is accurate and her writing style much like that of Margaret Mitchell. It's an absorbing book, but not simplistic, not "light." It's an excellent introduction to the Restoration period. Forever Amber started my interest in this period of time and, many history books later, I can say that Winsor's depiction is accurate and complete. I understand Ms. Winsor filled about 40 notebooks with research notes before she wrote the book. Amber does it all! And while she's unscrupulous, she's young, and so real, I think every woman can see herself, only in part (I hope), in Amber's psychology. The most poignant part of the story, for me, was when Amber marries Lord Radclyffe and never realizes that Radclyffe was once engaged to Amber's own mother 20 years earlier, and Radclyffe never realizes that he has married the daughter of the woman of his dreams, whom he lost during the civil wars. When Amber tries on an old wedding dress, that was made for her mother and it fits her almost like it was made for her, I almost cried because she never knows. Amber also never realizes she is really of the nobility and one, just one, of the reasons Bruce Carlton doesn't marry her is because he believes Amber's parents to be farmers, when actually, they were of a higher station than Carlton himself. The irony was subtle but almost painful to me when I realized these things --(after the second reading!). I found the scene when Buckingham pays Amber 200 pound to have sex with him, and Amber is disgusted (although we never know why) to be one of the most creepily memorable "kinky sex" scenes I've ever read; much more effective than if the perversions had been spelled out. One reviewer says there was a sequel to Forever Amber. I would love to know the title! Although, I can't believe there could be a satisfactory sequel to this story. ... it's too sad to say how, just couldn't be any better. Just like when Scarlett loses Rhett. There can't be another ending, (despite "Scarlett"), but I'd love to know if Winsor had more in mind for Amber. I recommend, buy a copy of Forever Amber and enjoy! This is NOT a romance novel!
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