The Gilded Lily by Deborah Swift

As readers we first met Ella Appleby in the pages of The Lady's Slipper. In that story Ella was portrayed as a somewhat conniving young lady who would let nothing and no-one step in the way of what she wants. And what Ella wants more than anything is to be a fine lady, sleeping in expensive linen, dressed in gorgeous clothes.

Initially, Ella is convinced that the best way to achieve that goal is to become mistress to Thomas Ibbetson, but that plan goes awry when Thomas falls seriously ill and dies. Ella knows that she has to leave the small village that she has always lived in and quickly but she can't possibly leave her sister, Sadie, behind. The two girls take everything of value in the house and flee to the relative anonymity of London but the dead man's twin brother is hot on their trail and it isn't long before there are wanted posters scattered throughout London.

When they get to London the two girls quickly find work in a perruquier (which is our obscure word of the week at work thanks to reading it in this book), also known as a wig maker. Sadie fits into the group of girls, being quiet, patient and talented with her hands when it comes to needlework. Ella is not such a good fit. She tends to be a bit mouthy, too impatient to perform the precise work required to make a good quality wig for the gentry and too desperate to get out to be something better.

After a couple of close brushes with their pursuers, Ella's luck changes when she literally catches the eye of Jay Whitgift, man about town. After failing at her task to make him a wig that fits, Jay offers Ella a chance at the kind of life she always wanted. She is to become the face of The Gilded Lily, a female alternative to the coffee houses that the men of Restoration flock to. Her job will be to convince the quality ladies of the ton to purchase creams and potions to enhance their beauty. Before long, The Gilded Lily is the place to be seen and Ella is the talk of the town.

What Ella doesn't initially know is that the Lily is a front for a much more lucrative, and dangerous, business. Jay's father was originally a pawnshop owner and he has trained his son with the intention that he will take over the thriving business. Whilst that business is now technically illegal, the demand for such services is high. Where Mr Whitgift senior is honest to a fault, Jay is, well, Jay is not. For just like Ella, Jay wants something more from life, and he is prepared to do anything to get it. He is a magpie, collecting all manner of expensive trinkets from the people he does business with usually acquiring them through backhanded means. As Ella gets more involved with Jay's world, she sets her sights high, but this world is not only one of glamour, it is also dangerous, especially for two young girls. This is even more true given that they are wanted by the law and that there are several parties who are trying to track them down, all vying for the generous reward that will be paid on their capture.

The biggest issue for the two girls is that Sadie has a port-wine birthmark on one side of her face which makes her pretty much instantly recognisable and so Ella decides that she must remain hidden at all costs, especially seeing as Sadie refuses to wear the paint that Ella brings home from The Gilded Lily. As a modern reader, it is a bit sickening to know what the effect of using such lead based cosmetics would have had, but at the time it was the height of fashion to use such cosmetics, and Ella wants nothing more than to be fashionable.

Fortunately Sadie has been able to make several friends who are concerned enough about her for if she had to rely only on the increasingly selfish Ella she would have been left to languish in a lonely room without enough food and heating in one of the coldest winter's in history. The author uses the Thames river freezing over to great effect during the novel, particularly in setting at least some of the action during the frost fares that took place.

Where the author excels is in making the reader care for the two girls. I was drawn, as I suspect the reader is meant to be, to the fate of the unfortunate Sadie who has escaped from one hell-hole to what turns out to be anything but a better life. It is difficult to say that I liked Ella, but she was certainly an engaging character to read about, especially as the plot speeds up towards the resolution.

As I got closer to the end of the book, I did find myself thinking that there were 50 pages left and I still had no idea how the author was going to get the two girls safely to the end. I am not entirely convinced about the method of that resolution, but I am not sure where else the story could have gone.

It should be noted that The Gilded Lily picks up towards the end of the story that is told in The Lady's Slipper (Deborah Swift's debut novel). It is being marketed as a companion novel. Whilst the novel does standalone fairly well, it is undoubtedly enhanced by knowing exactly what it is that the two girls are running from, and why, as well as some of the implications of their actions.

I have enjoyed both books over the last couple of days. I do think that you can see a degree of confidence that the author has gained in her writing from one book to the next. Once again, it was a pleasure to read a book that concentrated more on the life away from the court of Charles II, although there were a couple of mentions of high ranking members of society in the pages, although not in the most flattering ways.

I thoroughly enjoyed this tale that explored the darker side of Restoration London. I am really looking forward to seeing whose story Deborah Swift tells next.

Rating 4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher and Historical Ficton Virtual Book Tours for sending me a copy of this book to review.

This book was read as part of the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Winter 1661

In her short life, Sadie Appleby has never left rural Westmorland. But one night she is rudely awoken by her older and bolder sister, Ella. She has robbed her recently deceased employer and is on the run. Together the girls flee their hoe and head for London, hoping to lose themselves in the teeming city. But the dead man's relatives are in pursuit, and soon a game of cat and mouse ensues amongst the freezing warren that is London in winter.

Ella is soon seduced by the glitter and glamour of city life and sets her sights on the flamboyant man-about-town, Jay Whitgift. But nothing in the capital is what it seems, least of all Jay Whitgift. Soon a rift has formed between Ella and Sadie and the stisters are threatened by a menace mroe sinister than even the law.

Set in brilliantly realized Restoration London, The Gilded Lily is a novel about beauty and desire, about the stories we tell ourselves, and about how sisterhood can be both a burden and a saving grace.

The Lady's Slipper by Deborah Swift

There's nothing like an aversion to reading connected books out of order and an impending blog tour date for the second book to get you reading a book that you have had sitting on your shelf for a couple of years! Sometimes that may be a bit detrimental if you have the pressure of getting something read, and you aren't really enjoying the book, but in this case, I was pretty happy to get lost in this unusual book from Deborah Swift.

There are several reasons why this book is unusual. The first is the setting in Restoration England. This is one of the few books I can remember reading that is set in that time frame where the antics of King Charles II and his Merry old court are not front and centre in the narrative. Instead we have a young woman with an affinity for plants, a Quaker and small town prejudices and intrigues - the first two of which are quite different as well.

The story opens with Alice Ibbetson creeping out of her home in her silk slippers, past the sleeping form of her husband, and into the fields belonging to her neighbour Richard Wheeler. This is no secret assignation, but rather Alice has a single minded purpose to her night time wanderings. Recently, the extremely rare Lady Slipper Orchid has been found flowering in the field and she is determined to steal the flower to try and breed it, and also to paint it. Alice finds solace in her garden and in the act of painting flowers and plants - something she is very talented at. This solace is something that Alice is desperately in need of as she is in mourning following the death of her younger sister whilst she was in Alice's care as a result of the early demise of both of their parents.

When Richard Wheeler finds that the rare bloom has been stolen, he does have a fair idea of where the blame lies, but it isn't gentlemanly to outright accuse a lady of lying when Alice denies it. He is, however, determined to find the culprit and bring them to justice. Richard was a gentleman of some means and influence before he sold everything and became a Quaker in direct reaction to the things that he saw, and did, during the Civil War.

Ladyslipper image from Wikipedia

Another party who is interested in the flower is Sir Geoffrey Fisk who is Alice's patron and the local gentry. He is also sworn enemy to Richard Wheeler, despite his new found Quaker faith and the fact that they used to be friends as children. Sir Geoffrey covets the orchid because he believes that it has medicinal properties that can help with the painful skin condition that has plagued him from childhood.

The final key players in the plot are Ella Appleby, somewhat slatternly maid to Alice, a young girl who has ambitions for a life of luxury, no matter who gets in her way, or what the consequences of her actions are and Margaret Poulter, local wise woman.

When Alice steals the flower, there is no way known that she could have predicted the impact that decision has on her life. She is bought into the centre of a web of deceit that culminates in murder, and leads to her own life being ruined but also preserved and blossoming into a very different life than she expected.

There were lots of things to enjoy about this book. The author was adept in showing how the old divisions in society between those who fought on the Parliamentarian side and those who fought on the Royalists side still impacted on everyday life in the years immediately after Charles II returned to the throne. The details about the flower were interesting, especially when you consider how the author was inspired to write the novel after coming across one of the orchids while on a walk near her home.

Really though, the most interesting aspect of the book for me related to the Quaker aspects including why a man like Richard Wheeler would choose such a path, the persecution that people who chose that faith experienced, the incarcerations, and yet their faith stayed strong. The author chose to base many aspects of the story on the real central hub of Quaker England and it is fascinating stuff.

If there were any criticisms, it really would be on the development of the relationship between Richard and Alice which took an unexpected turn later in the book, and that some of the 'bad' characters were a bit two dimensional, especially Ella. I am, however, not sure that I have not been a bit influenced by the fact that I jumped straight from this book into Swift's next book, which features both Ella and her younger sister Sadie.

Overall this was a really good debut. Having now read her follow up book, Deborah Swift is an author that I will be looking out for in future!

Rating 4/5

I read this book for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

1660. King Charles II has returned from exile, but memories of the English Civil War still rankle. There are old scores to settle, and religious differences threaten to overturn a fragile peace.

When Alice Ibbetson discovers a rare orchid, the Lady’s Slipper, growing in a wood belonging to Richard Wheeler, she is captivated by its beauty— though Wheeler, a Quaker, is determined to keep the flower where God intended it to grow. Knowing that the orchid is the last of its kind, she steals the flower, little dreaming that her seemingly simple act will set off a chain of events that will lead to murder and exile, and change her life forever…

Weekend Cooking: Supersizers Go Restoration

This week I thought that I would share a TV show that I find very interesting and amusing to watch! It's not a food show with recipes, but rather one that concentrates on a particular era from history and looks at the kind of food that they would have eaten on a daily basis and the effect that diet would have had on the body. They have doctors who look at their health before they do spend a week eating as they would have done in the era and then take a look at the impact that had on their bodies.

Supersizers Go is hosted by Giles Coren,a journalist and restaurant critic (and as he says in the intro unashamed glutton), and Sue Perkins who is a broadcaster and comedian. They take on the guise of a couple of the chosen time and look at not only the food but also the kinds of activities that the men and women of the time would have participated in.

There are a number of different eras that they visit including Wartime Britain, the Seventies, Victorian era, Elizabeth era and Regency Britain, all of which can be found on Youtube. There was a second series called Supersizers Eat where they also visited the court of Marie Antoinette and Ancient Rome as well as several other times.

This week, I thought I would share the Supersizer's Go episode that concentrates on one of my favourite periods in history to read about - The Restoration when Charles II returned to the throne during the 1660s. Having watched this episode though, I think I am pretty glad that I am eating in this time. To be fair though, if someone was to look back through my diet for the last few weeks they would possibly be just as mortified as I am looking at this Restorations diet.

The show goes for about an hour, but is broken up on Youtube into approximately 10 minute grabs.

Some of the things I found amusing or very interesting include:

• Breakfast consisters of a barrel of oysters, bread and cream, ale.
• 'Always with the sword'
• The pastry for the pies was made on one day a week. The pastry was made two inches thick and cooked but it was never eaten. Instead the filling was cooked inside the pastry crust and that had the effect of preserving the filling for up to a week.
• At one stage, Sue talks about being half drunk from 9am in the morning because they started drinking ale early each morning but there was no water or anything.
• Sue's mobile corn (as in hard skin on the feet corn) preparation! Ugh!
• The latest crazes were for using the difficult new eating implement, the fork, and for ice cream and pineapple.
• Sue's embroidery! lol

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.  

Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier

Lady Dona St Columb is somewhat notorious in London, which is not a bad achievement considering that she was part of the court of Charles II where there were plenty of notorious people, both men and women! She is known for accompanying her husband, Harry, and his friends to card games and bawdy houses. After one particularly ribald prank where she dressed as a boy and scaring the living daylights out of an elderly society matron, Dona realises that this life is empty and that she wants... more.
She leaves her husband and his friends and the court of Charles II, takes the kids and heads to the family's country estate - Navron House in Cornwall. Once she arrives she is a little surprised to find that there is only one servant in the house, William, and even more strange, there is a jar of tobacco and a book of poetry in her room. Dona was looking forward to some peace and quiet, but it isn't long before the true adventure finds her, in the form of a ship full of pirates led by the handsome and charismatic Jean Aubrey.

The local landowners are determined that they are going to catch the marauding French pirates who are stealing their goods and allegedly bothering their women folk but, so far, have been far to clever to be caught in their traps. Dona finds herself caught up in both sides with her husband and his friends working to catch him and Dona compromised by her growing relationship with Jean, but this might just work to his benefit.

Du Maurier is such a clever author. I had no doubt that Dona was shallow and unlikable as we first met her, in the same way that her husband was quite spineless and his friend Rockingham was much cleverer and quite sly and determined to capture Dona for himself. By the time we get to the end of the book, Dona is still impetuous and adventurous but this reader was also sure that she was a better person.

When I mentioned that I was reading this book on Goodreads, someone commented that this is one of Du Maurier's most romantic novels, and at its heart, Frenchman's Creek is a romantic book without necessarily meeting all the structural requirements of a romance. It is also quite bawdy in parts, something that quite surprised me. After reading a few nudge, nudge, wink, wink sections of narrative I realised that it wasn't just the way I was reading the book but that those nuances were deliberately placed.

For me, the strongest aspects of the book were the action sequences. There were beautiful passages of description and reflection, but it was when the pirates were in action and Dona caught up in danger and intrigue that my heart was racing and the pages kept on turning. Towards the end of the book the pacing was a little up and down, but it certainly kept my attention right to the very end!

One of the things that I found interesting was that the opening chapter was told from a modern perspective as someone takes the opportunity to take a picnic in the ruins of Navron House. With the use of modern narrative to introduce a story such a common motif in current historical fiction, it was interesting to note that it was being used by authors like Daphne du Maurier (and presumably others as well) were using it so long ago as well.

I have owned this book for many years but had never read it before. It's been a couple of years since I read my last Daphne du Maurier book, but I am determined to read more from her now!

Rating 4.5/5

Lady Dona St Columb is beautiful, headstrong - and bored. Desperate to escape the pomp and ritual of the Restoration Court, she escapes to the hidden creeks and secret woods of the family estate at Navron, in Cornwall. Though renowned for her passionate engagement with life, privately she years for freedom, integrity and love - whatever the cost.

The peace Lady Dona craves, however, eludes her from the moment she stumbles across the mooring place of a white-sailed ship that plunders the Cornish coast. And as she becomes embroiled in a plot to steal another ship from under the nose of the English authorities, she realises that her heart is under siege from the French philosopher-pirate Jean Aubrey....

I read this book for the Daphne du Maurier Season that is currently running over at Historical Tapestry. Head over for guest posts, reviews, giveaways and more!

If I was at Hampton Court Palace today....

If I was lucky enough to be in London today, or indeed anytime between now and the end of September, I would be sure to head to Hampton Court Palace to visit the temporary exhibition, The Wild, The Beautiful and the Damned. The exhibition features the portraits of many of the famous people who lived and played in the court of King Charles II including his numerous mistresses.

I have mentioned before how much I have enjoyed books set during the Restoration period  and to see all those portraits and learn more about the people and the time would be fascinating.

Alas, a trip to London is not about to happen, so instead, I have to make do with this introductory video.

If I was lucky enough to be there during the time when the Palace is holding one of the live Tudor cookery events, I would be hard pressed to pass by without stopping by for a look!

 

I would be sure to spend some time admiring Henry VIII's astronomical clock too:

 

Hmmm. Maybe I better set aside two days to spend at Hampton Court Palace.

Weekend Cooking: The Empress of Ice Cream by Anthony Capella

FRANCE 1670. Carlo Demirco's mastery of the extraordinary new art of creating ice creams has brought him wealth, women, and a position at the court of Louis XIV.

Then Carlo is sent to London, along with Louise de Keroualle, an impoverished lady-in-waiting. The most powerful ministers of two countries have decided that Louise is to be Charles II's new mistress, and will stop at nothing to make sure she submits.

But Carlo too is fascinated by the enigmatic Frenchwoman.With the king's every pleasure the subject of plots and betrayals, and Carlo's only weapons his exquisite ice creams, soon he must decide ...Where do his loyalties lie?

If you were to ask me who my favourite English king to read about is, I would probably choose Henry II, but not far behind you would find Charles II, and yet on the surface of things there is not that much to admire. He was a king who lived for pleasure, had multiple mistresses and numerous illegitimate children, but after the years of austerity that was enforced during the years of the Commonwealth, his court must have been something to behold.I guess though, when it comes down to it, I have been charmed by the way I have read Charles II through the fiction I have read over the years. (I have previously posted about this fascination here)

The title and cover of this book alone would have caught my attention, but to read further in the blurb and find out that it is set in the Restoration court of Charles II made it a must read for me! Stir ice cream into the mix and it is even better!

The events that are portrayed in the book come to us from two different perspectives. The first is of a young man who we meet in Italy where he is the young apprentice of an ice maker. He is being taught the art of the ice by his owner - the four flavours, the skills, the tips to creating the perfect textures for ices, cordials, for ice carving and more. But Carlo has lofty ambitions. He wants to do more than just stick to the rules that he is being taught. He wants to experiment with new flavours, new techniques, and most of all, he wants to be his own man, to call no man master.

Offered a chance to escape from his life in Italy, Carlo finds himself in the court of Louis XIV, and it is there that he meets Louise de Keroualle, a lady in waiting to Minette, the sister of Charles II, and sister in law to Louis XIV. Carlo is very quickly besotted, but Louise is out of his reach. She may be impoverished but she is the daughter of one of the most noble families of Brittany, and whilst Carlo has made his own way to Court, he is still of ignoble birth.

It is Louise who provides the other perspective in the narrative. Following the death of Minette, Louise is sent to the court of Charles II. It seems everyone but here is aware of what her objective is to be - to become mistress to Charles II and to influence his decisions and policy to the advantage of her native France. Carlo is also sent to France as part of the 'gift' from Louis with a brief to create an ice the likes of which has never before been seen or tasted in England.

One of the hallmarks of the decadence of the Court is that there was a total fascination with all things French - fashion, art, food... ices. Carlo spends all his time trying to create the dessert that we now know as ice cream, using some of the most famous intellectuals of the time to help develop the methodology. Far from being an accessible treat as it is for us today, the desserts created by Carlo were only for the rich and powerful, and sometimes they were created for the king alone.

Many of the desserts that are described in the book sound incredible - for example, at one of the feasts Carlo creates a pineapple ice that not only is made from the then exotic and difficult to obtain fruit, but is also carved to look exactly like a pineapple - although in the quest for more and more unique tastes and combinations there were also some that were not quite so enticing to my more modern palate!

Providing contrast to the glittering courts, we also get introduced to Hannah and Elias who live in the same establishment as Carlo. These are the working class, the people who suffer under the heavy burden of poverty and who see the merriment of the court and find it hard to believe that there can be such wastage, particularly as the king and parliament are increasingly at odds about issues like funding the wars against the Dutch. Stir in anti-French sentiments and anti Catholic sentiments that were rife at the time and they provide a necessary contrast to the constant over the top details of life at Court.

When you read an Anthony Capella book it becomes obvious pretty quickly that this is an author who loves food, and I would go so far as to say that if you want descriptions of sensory experiences - be they taste, sight or the other senses - then Capella should be a go to author. This is particularly true of The Wedding Officer and the Food of Love with their focus on Italian food, and of this book. It is only when the narrative moves away from the focus on the sensuous that it loses its way. Unlike some of the other portrayals I have seen of the relationship between Louise and Charles this one is definitely more clinical, colder and more  about business, and this is also a bit of a difference between this book and others by this author that do tend to have romantic themes.

That is not to say that there is no mention of love - for all that this isn't completely a romantic story, there is lots of discussion of love and sex:

I have heard love compared with a fire. But that is all wrong. If you touch a flame you draw back. The pain is quick and sudden and then it is gone.

Love is like ice. It creeps up on your, entering your body by stealth, crumbling your defences, finding the innermost recesses of your flesh. It is not like heat or pain or burning so much as an inner numbness, as if your heart itself were hardening, turning you to stone. Love grips you, squeezing you with a force that can crack rocks or split the hulls of boats. Love can life paving slabs, crumble marble, wither foliage from trees.

If you are at all interested, then Capella has shared some recipes of some of his favourite ice creams which prompts me to ask...


What are your favourite ice cream flavours?

I find it difficult to to go past Boysenberry. I first tasted this flavour when I went to Christchurch in New Zealand many years ago, and will always therefore associate it with New Zealand, but I am grateful that the flavour is also accessible here!

 Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

The Puritan Bride by Anne O'Brien

A woman of unexpected passion

England 1663: The sexual games at the Restoration Court of King Charles have turned Marcus, Viscount Marlbrooke, into a cynic. While he doesn't believe that love lies within matrimony, he does need to secure his claim to Winteringham Priory.

Marriage to the spirited Puritan Katherine Harley is the key and, given his unexpected response to her, perhaps their marriage needn't be as bleak as he fears. Because, beneath her solemn exterior, he senses a bride of surprising passion.

When I realised that this book was set during the reign of Charles II (the Restoration) I was quite pleased. After all it was an unusual time setting. On reading the book, that was not the only element. There was also, witchcraft, ghosts, echoes of the wars of the mid 1600s, family betrayals, a duel just as the highlights!.

The hero, Marcus, Viscount Marlbrooke is anxious to marry Katherine Harley to secure his ownership of Winteringham Priory. Originally the priory was the home of the Harleys, until they fought on the wrong side of the the Civil War and had their land taken off of them. The land was given to Marcus' family, and due to his friendship with Charles II he has been allowed to keep it when Charles is instated to the thrown. The only thing left to do is to get permanent ownership transferred to him, and the only thing that can stop that is if the true heir to Winteringham Priory makes a claim. Given that the will of Katherine's father, advising who the true heir is, has never been found, and is rumoured to have been hidden within the Priory itself, the race is on between several possible heirs to find the will and to state their claim.

To complicate matters, Katherine believes herself to be in love with her cousin Richard, and yet she is basically given no option by her uncle but to marry Marcus when he offers for her. She is fleeing to her strange aunt's home to try and get some answers when she has an accident and as a result has amnesia. Marcus is the one who finds her, and not recognising her as his fiancee, takes her into his home, christens her Viola, and she gets to know both Marcus, his mother and her grumpy maid, becoming an integral part of the family. Once her true identity is revealed then things become a little more complicated.

The fact that Kate is a Puritan really forms no real part of the plot, other than to explain why she was overwhelmed by the glamour of the Restoration court when they visited London. Of course, the fact that she was a Puritan was one of the things that she could not remember when suffering from amnesia! The occasional question about is it wrong to be enjoying this or to feel pleasure is about the strength of the puritan part.

The fact that the heroine had two names during the novel became quite annoying after a while. When she had amnesia, they decided to call Katherine Viola. Once she knew who she was again then they would sometimes still call her Viola and sometimes Kate. The other thing that I actually didn't like was when Marcus called her little one....it's one endearment that I find really difficult to deal with between two adults. Yes, she was supposed to be extremely petite and he well built, but please don't call her little one. Totally squicky!

Other than that, I did like Marcus. He had a fairly strong sense of honour. I did feel as though maybe he fell too hard, too quickly for Viola, but I guess he's not the only romance hero ever to have been guilty of that! There was one moment between Marcus and Katherine/Viola where I wondered how far the author was going to take things but that possible confrontation was stepped back from before it went too far.

In the end I would classify this as an okay read. It didn't help that the book was overlong, and there were probably too many plot lines that the author was trying to resolve quite quickly at the end, adding unnecessary drama in my opinion.

This was actually the other book that was in the Quills book along with The Reputable Rake by Dianne Gaston.

Rating 3/5

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


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