Rating: 
Summary: Amber got a raw deal
Review: I loved this book and savored it for weeks. Although Amber was at times ruthless, she was a good mother and a loyal lover to Bruce. She nursed Bruce through the plague and put up with
his social consciousness. The ending is bad, it just ends. We are hoping through all 900+ pages that her true birth roots and place in society will be revealed and that Bruce will now consider her good enough to have as a wife, but this is never tied up. I cheered for Amber and found myself saddened by her again missing the one thing she wanted all her life, Bruce to marry her. The history is wonderful as are the descriptions of daily life. I would recommend this but beware of the sad ending.
Rating: 
Summary: Madonna-like pop tramp of the 17th century
Review: A compelling "battle of the sexes" with an eternal theme -- man's inhumanity to woman. And, in this case, the woman is clever enough to survive despite it all. In Forever Amber the protagonist Amber attempts to win the love of Bruce in their off-again, on-again romance. Actually the romance is one-sided -- with Amber doing all the loving. Bruce disdains her, uses her sexually, and easily abandons her. After Bruce seduces the young country girl, he takes her to London. He then goes to North America on business. He leaves her enough cash to survive for a while, but she promptly is tricked out of her money. She encounters the pitfalls of trying to make a living in a "man's world" which views unmarried women as prey and limits married women to being babymakers, servants or housefraus.
Amber figures out the rules of "manworld" (that is,sex and power) and uses them to her own advantage (like Madonna). She keeps marketing her body to an ever-higher social caste of wealthy bidders until she attracts the highest bidder of all -- the King of England. (For Madonna, it was Hollywood and Rock Tours.)
Amber does not recognize the value of her own independence. As soon as she attains it, she throws it away by re-harnessing herself to her "dream" of being owned by Bruce. Amber loses her bid for eternal romance with Bruce at every turn. (Like Madonna and Sean Penn.) But, in the end, she hasn't learned a thing and is planning yet another attempt to snag him. (Unlike Madonna?)
Winsor's way of intertwining Amber's sexual adventures with historical events like King Charles' return to the English throne, the rush for wealth in the New World, the Great Fire, the plague, etc, raises this novel above the mere sexual athletics described by lesser boudoir novelists. The cinematographic quality of Winsor's writing makes envisioning each scene easy. She creates unforgettably slimy characters, like the nurse Amber hires during the Bubonic Plague.
Winsor's superb wordsmithing and storytelling in Forever Amber has always puzzled me, since Winsor's other books are extremely poorly written and dull. I always wondered whether the person who "edited" Forever Amber may have been the "real" author. How else to explain the utter mediocrity of her other books?
Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT
Review: I LOVE historical novels, esp. ones that involve Kings and Queens! I can totally see how this novel compares to Gone with the Wind - Amber is another Scarlett, Corinna a Melanie (sort of), Bruce an Ashley, and perhaps Almsbury ended up as a Rhett (?). Although Amber does make several bad choices and uses everyone around her as a way to get what she wants, she still loved all her children and decided, finally, to go back to the country where she truly belonged. I did not much care about Charles and his family - I just wanted to hear about Amber! But, the book was awesome, and although it took me awhile to read, I could hardly ever put it down and got caught up in everything Amber did. LOVED IT!
Rating: 
Summary: So conflicted
Review: First off, this isn't a bad book. It's well written and although the characters themselves leave much to be desired, the book can make you think a lot. To make sure I appropriately complain, this book made me so depressed. I'll try not to spoil anything, but the main characters in this novel make you want to give each of them a good [...] kicking. The male focal point is indifferent, abusive, and negligent, while the dear girl is flighty, needy, clingy, and naive, content to spiral into complete self destruction and ruin anything that might be good in her life for the sake of a recurring figure from her past. You spend so much time wanting to see the two for their inner beauty, but you can't help but really hate them and the situations they end up in. However, I think this book is a great representation of relationships where a person is happy to allow themselves to become a pawn and used for what they can offer at a single point in time. If you can stand to read a few hundred pages of frustration to see an author perfectly realize the not so pleasant nature of some human beings, then this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Historical Epic!
Review: I read this book this last summer while on a very long tour of the US SW. It took me about one and a half weeks to read, and I was involved in every page of it!! I loved how Amber stood out of her time period, and yet belonged enough to be historically believable. Plus, in my opinion, women who aren't the most admirable of people make the best heroines. The other characters also were vital ingredients to the story, as each one came and went as people tend to in life. And yet the reader understands the importance and influence of the individuals. The backdrop of the book was also very historically accurate, and it was engrossing to learn the details of politicals, philosphy, and medicine at the time. Dialogue is usually what determines how much I like a book, and the scenes were so real in this book that one can perfectly see them. The only possible downfall to this book is its striking resemblance in many ways to Gone with the Wind. It seems like the author loved many of Mitchell's ideas, and possibly used these subconciously in her own novel. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who loves good literature and historical romance.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Book Ever - I'm So Glad That It's Back In Print!
Review: I first read Forever Amber as a teenager, and I loved Amber's fiesty nature from the start! Sure, she hardens over the course of time and trouble - but since she always gets her way in the end, I can't but imagine that she got Bruce in the end, too. Amber is a terrific character, but what really makes the book is the historical backdrop in which Windsor has immersed her. I once read that she spent ten years researching the novel - believe me, it shows! Every corner of Restoration London is explored - after reading this book a few times, you will feel like you have lived there. If you love English history with a little spiciness thrown in, you must read Forever Amber!
Rating:
Summary: The adventure of a lifetime
Review: This book really is like a British Restoration-era GWTW, minus the racism. This is what a historical romance really should be--a love story told in the genre of historical fiction, not just a romance novel where a setting in the past serves as little more than a costume drama. I have an old hardcover copy from 1945 (in surprisingly great condition!), with the text on two columns on each page, running only 652 pages as opposed to the 976 pages boasted by the current paperback issue. Like Scarlett in GWTW, Amber is also a feisty woman ahead of her time, not caring whom she may hurt, use, exploit, or cuckold on her way up to the top or in pursuit of the man she loves best above all. I really understand why the name Amber became so popular after this novel came out--sure, like Scarlett, she's not the type of woman you'd want your daughter to emulate in terms of their morals, but I think it's her determination to get what she wants and how she continually rises above and triumphs over things that would have totally destroyed many another person that made so many women name their daughters after her. And unlike Scarlett, Amber loves sex, and goes through a lot more lovers, marries four times (and probably would have married five times had it not been for what happened with the handsome and caring Captain Rex Morgan), and has three abortions in between having her first and second child. What woman in the 1660s, indeed even today, would have been able to rise as far as Amber does, from an illegitimate orphaned child, to an unwed mother herself, in and out of debtors' prison, a life of crime, living with unsavoury elements, a career in the theatre at a time when female actors were considered very disreputable and low-class, two horrible husbands (Samuel Dangerfield, her second husband, and Baron Gerald Stanhope, the fourth, were the nicest of her four husbands), the Plague of 1665, the Great Fire of London of 1666, the Dutch invasion, a meddling jade of a mother-in-law (by her final marriage), to becoming a Lady of the Bedchamber and King Charles II's top mistress, displacing Barbara Villiers Palmer, by being meek, passive, and submissive? If Amber were a doormat and typical woman of her day and age, she would have stayed in Marygreen and never had the half of the adventures and experiences she had.
I was surprised the book didn't live up to its reputation as being shocking, sexy, and scandalous. How far we've come from 1944, when a book with sex scenes which are only hinted at and a woman who sleeps around and behaves in the manner Amber does is now considered tame and doesn't even raise an eyebrow. This is no longer the type of book you'd hide under the mattress or punish a teenage daughter for reading. The only thing I didn't like was how it ended almost in media res; also like GWTW, it was begging for a sequel, though given the mixed reviews the so-called sequel to GWTW has gotten, maybe it's a good thing that there was no sequel to 'Forever Amber,' with Amber in America trying to win Bruce once and for all. How can you compare a sequel, by the original author or by someone else, to the brilliance of the epic story that came before? Most fans probably have a picture in their head of what happened after the final page ended, so why ruin it with something that may not go along with our fantasies?
Rating:
Summary: Don't Read This Book If You Like Fairytales and Fluff!!
Review: I read all the customer reviews on "Forever Amber" and was amazed at many of the readers' reactions regarding this novel. Many were disappointed with the "unsatisfying ending" and wishing that K. Winsor had written a sequel, i.e. "Amber in America". I read this book about 35 years ago and never forgot the mental banquet I feasted on while immersed in its historical pages and life of Amber. Kathleen Winsor was smart as a fox NOT TO WRITE A SEQUEL to "Forever Amber". We would all have loved (I think) to see Amber fair better, especially in matters of her heart (where Bruce Carlton was so hopelessly "enshrined"). Remember, readers, this is fiction. Winsor draws us in, effortlessly, honing our own hunger for "everything in its right place", and "all lived happily ever after". Amber's determination to win Bruce's heart for all time, and all the bitter disappointments that unrequited love brings to her is what makes ourselves, as we read, unable to put this book down. If you haven't read this book, do so. You have no idea of what you are missing!
Rating:
Summary: A romance saved by great historical detail
Review: Forever Amber covers 10 years in the life of Amber St. Clare in Restoration England beginning in 1660 when she was 16 and ran away from the farm to go to London. The monarchy had just been restored and the Royalists were returning to England. Bruce Carlton is a returning lord whose family had lost everything during the Cromwell period. He is on his way to London when he stops in Amber's village for the night. For Amber, it is love at first sight and she begs him to take her with him. However, to Bruce, Amber is "a woman any man would like to have for a mistress, but not for a wife." She is beautiful, desirable, and sensual. Yet she is also vain, unscrupulous, wanton, and ambitious. Sleeping her way to fame and fortune, Amber is not a likable heroine. As a character, her devotion to Bruce is her saving grace. Yet she is a woman who loves too much an unattainable man. So even her undying love doesn't redeem her. What finally makes this novel work is the history. Kathleen Winsor does an excellent job of portraying the turbulence of Restoration England. She superbly portrays the intrigues of King Charles II and his court, the upheaval of British life caused by reformation and restoration, and London consumed first by plague and then by the Great Fire. The prior Puritanical period was swept aside by a royal court of relaxed sexual morals into which Amber fit particularly well. Forever Amber, while banned in Boston when it was published in the 1940s for its portrayal of the loose morals of the court, actually contains no no descriptions of sexual intimacy. Dozens of times the author makes it clear that something happened without ever describing it. Depending on the reader this can be a strength or a weakness of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Letter to Janice B. Bolton NJ
Review: This book is so moving that my emotions are rattled to a point that I must find closure. Unfortunately, the ending is so dissatisfying that I have set about investigating any insight anybody can offer to the characters and what became of all of them. If Janice B Bolton from Toms River, New Jersey ever reads this, I am absolutely fascinated by your letter from Kathleen Winsor. I understand not wanting to spoil the plot for anybody else however; I hope that someday we might talk about `Forever Amber' and the characters Amber St. Clair & Bruce Carlton in detail. I have read this book twice now having originally being handed down from my mother. I have never read a book so wonderfully depicted nor ever been so affected by characters like Amber and Bruce. It is one of those stories I will never forget (and continue to seek finality). If you have any insight please do not hesitate to contact me. I would love to discuss this book.
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