Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor

This is my read for the April TBR challenge, which for this month was to read a book that has been in your TBR pile for longer than 6 months.

Title: Forever Amber

Author: Kathleen Winsor

Year published: Originally published in 1945

Why did you get this book? I have been meaning to read this for a couple of years and then it was chosen for this month's book of the month in one of my groups.

Do you like the cover? The cover that I have been able to show here is infinitely better than the cover of the version I have that was published in 1983. My cover features a man and a busty woman in a very low cut dress walking together up a hill that overlooks London.

Did you enjoy the book? Yes.

Was the author new to you and would you read something by this author again? The author is new to me, but I probably won't be reading anything else by her. Whilst Miss Winsor did have other books published, Forever Amber was the only one that was actually anywhere near successful (a kind of one hit wonder so to speak), which is kind of strange given that this book was banned in some US states not too long after it was published because it was too sexy. You would have thought that that kind of notoriety would have made it easy for follow up sales, but apparently not.

Are you keeping it or passing it on? Keeper! There were lots of details in this book, and I'm sure a reread would bring some more of those to the forefront.

Anything else? At 850+ pages this is a doorstopper of a book, but it is a relatively easy read. It is chocked full of historical details, including gruelling details of the Plague that hit London in 1665, and the subsequent Great Fire that destroyed parts of the city the following year. We follow a young woman, Amber St Clare through a 10 year period of her life, from when she is a 16 year old village girl who meets and becomes besotted with a Lord Bruce Carlton and runs away to London with him, through a period in Newgate debtor's prison, to her rise as an actress, courtesan and finally mistress to King Charles II, notorious womaniser. We see Amber at her best, at her most manipulative and most cunning as she tries to work her way up from the bottom of the social ladder to the very top. Yet through numerous relationships, marriages, and affairs, Amber still loves Bruce Carlton as she can love no other.

A bawdy romp through Restoration England and well worth a read

Rating: 4/5


Other Blogger's Thoughts:


A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore