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Rediscover the brilliance of Forever Amber in the Mermaid Collection – classic books by popular pioneering female authors republished to delight new generations of readers. Pre-order this gorgeous edition now.

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

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‘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 . . .

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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

Publisher Review

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 * Commercial fiction at its very best . . . This big, lush. historical novel is ready for the next generation of readers . . . It's got the lot: passion, intrigue and adventure * The Bookseller * A naughty great doorstep of a book published in 1944, did for Restoration England what Gone With The Wind had done for the Old South . . . The passage of time has meant that a book considered raunchy and risque on publication is now viewed as a classic * Daily Express * The bodice-ripper of the year . . . Amber St Clare's wanton progression through the court of Charles II is both saucy and moralistic - Amber loves > the only man she cannot have. Swords at the hip, hair to the shoulders, boots to the knee, Winsor's cavaliers haven't lost their rakish appeal * Independent * Page-turning * Woman's Own * Bloody good read * New Woman * Preposterously long and sumptuously naughty . . . Miss Winsor, if she felt so inclined, could justifiably claim to be the woman who invented the modern blockbuster. How subversive and fresh it seems, even to knowing twenty-first century eyes. It is the very opposite of dusty or coy. . . Who can resist a heroine who calls her enemies 'stupid addle-pated boobies' and 'nasty old slubber-degullions'? Not me, that's for sure * Observer * No wonder the book caused trouble. Amber was a footballer's wife before anyone had television; a serial fiancee before the engagement ring was born * Sunday Tribune * I was awed by Amber's courage, daring and strength. Re-reading the novel now is no disappointment. Like all bestsellers, Forever Amber revealed its age's secret desires and myths. Amber St Clare is a heroine of enormous intelligence and resourcefulness. It may be time to recognise Forever Amber as a classic, and to appreciate Kathleen Winsor's special brand of feminine genius * Guardian *