Forever Amber (The Mermaid Collection)

Rediscover the brilliance of Forever Amber in the Mermaid Collection - classic books by popular pioneering female authors republished to delight new generations of readers. A BANNED BOOK to read and reread, Forever Amber is an unforgettable romance, a timeless masterpiece and a runaway bestseller in its day. --------- ‘Forever Amber is not only brilliant – once you start, I defy you to stop reading – but incredibly modern' India Knight With a foreword by India Knight --------- ‘If you had better sense you’d have learned by now that nothing thrives so well as wickedness.’ 1644, and Amber St Clare’s birth is her noble-born mother’s death. Raised in the countryside, in ignorance of her true origins, sixteen-year-old Amber’s beauty nevertheless attracts the eye of soldier Lord Bruce Carlton on his way to London to celebrate Charles II reclaiming his throne. Amber naively convinces his Lordship to take her with him, where she discovers a beguiling but terrifying world: of highwaymen and whores, courtiers and conmen. After many adventures, she is left abandoned, pregnant and penniless. But Amber is not defeated. Embarking on an extraordinary social odyssey, Amber survives multiple marriages and births, the Plague and the Great Fire, steadily rising from the gutter to the very top of London society – via the King’s bed – in the years of the Restoration – all the while plotting and pining for the one man she cannot have. In a world that holds women firmly in their place, Amber scandalizes all by obeying no one’s rules but her own . . . ---------- Praise for Kathleen Winsor: 'The length of the book, the flash and roar and colour and excitement and general naughtiness, spring from the author’s passionate fascination. Quite simply, it entertains you in the most preposterous, flamboyant way' Atlantic 'Packed with melodramatic action, rich with historical background' New York Times