Best Selling Books by Kathleen Winsor

The adventures of Amber St. Clare, the willful and beautiful illegitimate daughter of noble parents who was raised on a farm by people she knew as her aunt and uncle.

"There's the nostalgia of an adult remembering childhood, with the intensity of its agonies. its emotions, its enchantment, its gradual awareness, in this new book by the author of Forever Amber. The span of a year spent on Laurel Avenue, on the edge of a Western town, gives Cassie Spangler, who leaves age 12 behind her, regretfully, a full measure of life. She and her small brother, Don, make their places with the gang quickly; Cassie and her pals are still experiencing the imaginary thrills of what they think being grown up will be, and sex is for them chance words overheard, an embarrassment over their parents' affectionate interchanges, indignation when a young married couple quarrel openly, fleeting curiosity over what happened when two teen agers went too far and the girl's family moved away, excitement when the sailor boy came home and claimed his girl, only to find she'd not stayed in the house alone in his absence, anger when death took a young mother-and her husband found another wife too soon. Cassie learns too something of what responsibility means- and faces another move, chin up. Almost a keyhole segment of America."--Kirkus

"This isn't even good trash -- but the subway circuit will eat it up, and oh and ah over the inevitable resemblances ("purely coincidental") to the author and the success story that she lived. But what a cheap and tawdry tale it is, with all the in-and-out-of -bed aspects that distinguished Forever Amber, but with a modern setting, so that it seems less forgivable than when cloaked with distance and shrouded in costume decoration. In this case the "costume decoration" consists of the mink and ermine trappings of sudden wealth, the New York apartment done to the decorator's most extravagant dream, and the men....She slays them with her beauty, does our heroine, who has written an historical first novel that rolls up a cool million or so. Written while she trails her husband during his navy training. Once it was finished, she had to get her emotional jags elsewhere than in her imagination, she filled the empty hours of his war years with men, and more men, -- a flier, a foreign correspondent, a misunderstood husband, all the stock characters, including her husband's closest friends. When at the end, the still adoring husband is given a medical discharge, he finds the pace of her success story too rich for his self esteem, and walks out on her. But as the story ends, she is on her way to meet another potential victim.... And another novel is in the making. And she's proved her own theory, -- "You can make a lot of money selling the public Love. Very little retail, but plenty wholesale". What she may not realize is that the author also proves something else her heroine says, "It's just as difficult to get a bad idea as a good one." Difficult, perhaps, but it seems she has done it again. Amber Forever!"--Kirkus

Explores the kinds of love that three women, driven by desire, find with the men of their choice. Winsor exposes the innermost secrets, dreams, torments, and raptures of women in love.

Møt en uforglemmelig eventyrerske! Forlatt, pengelens og gravid blir Amber St. Claire tvunget til å kjempe for overlevelse. Å være enslig kvinne i 1660-tallets London er ikke lett, men Amber gir seg ikke. Hun beseirer vanskeligheter og elendighet og skaper seg et liv i Englands mest skandaløse tidsepoke. Men hun kan ikke glemme ham som stjal hjertet hennes – mannen hun aldri kan få. Bli med inn i Restaurasjonen i England! Møt hoffknekter, røvere, gatejenter og skuespillere. Ta del i dramatikken som rådet da pesten herjet og London nesten ble utslettet av en mektig ildebrann – fra fattigfolks dypeste nød til overklassens prakt og luksus og det overdådige livet ved hoffet. Kong Charles IIs dekadente London har sjelden vært bedre skildret. Alltid Amber skapte skandale i utgivelsesåret 1944. Boken solgte i 100 000 eksemplarer første uken, og 14 amerikanske delstater forbød den. Siden da er det solgt over tre millioner eksemplarer. Nå sjarmerer Amber St. Claire nye generasjoner av lesere! Kathleen Winsor (1919–2003) lagde seg tidlig en liste over hva hun ville oppnå her i livet. Ett av punktene var å skrive en bestselgende bok, og med Alltid Amber lyktes hun til overmål med det. Ifølge henne selv ble interessen for 1600-tallets England vekket da hun hjalp ektemannen med en universitetsavhandling da begge studerte ved Berkeley-universitetet i California i USA. Mannen, som var fotballstjerne, var kanskje ikke så interessert i europeisk historie, men Kathleen Winsor ble derimot helt fengslet og fortsatte å lese om perioden. Hele 356 fagbøker skal hun ha pløyd gjennom før hun begynte å skrive Alltid Amber. Boken tok henne fem år å skrive. Den er svært historisk korrekt, og tross mange forsøk var det ingen historikere som klarte å finne faktafeil. Man måtte dermed nøye seg med å fordømme boken på moralsk grunnlag. Kathleen Winsor forsvarte seg med at tiden hun beskrev, var preget av overdådig livsførsel, og at hun bare hadde skrevet to skikkelige sexscener, som begge ble strøket av redaktøren. Kathleen Winsor levde et liv i rampelyset takket være denne bestselgeren. Hun giftet seg fire ganger og skrev en rekke bøker – men ingen av dem like suksessfulle som Alltid Amber.

La fièvre de l'or ! En paillettes ou en grains, le précieux métal excite les passions et sa seule vocation éveille des rêves insensés. Partir dans le Montana à la conquête de territoires vierges, Matt Devlin et son frère Pete n'ont qu'un but : prospecter ! Prospérer ! Mais de l'Ouest, ils ne voient d'abord que le soleil brûlant et les convois de chariots. Le labeur et les risques ! La violence aussi. L'âpreté du gain qui pousse les hommes à se battre. Pourquoi faut-il qu'en prime, desperados de l'amour, ils se déchirent pour la pulpeuse Jenny?... A l'Est, l'aventurier est un intrigant. Un monde se construit, souvent sordide sous des dehors fastueux. Et si les femmes ne participent pas aux affaires, elles en sont souvent le principal ressort. Avec l'argent spéculé en bourse, Joshua Ching édifie son empire. Secrets et chantages servent sa politique...

Abandoned pregnant and penniless on the teeming streets of London, 16-year-old Amber St. Clare manages, by using her wits, beauty, and courage, to climb to the highest position a woman could achieve in Restoration England--that of favorite mistress of the Merry Monarch, Charles II. From whores and highwaymen to courtiers and noblemen, from events such as the Great Plague and the Fire of London to the intimate passions of ordinary--and extraordinary--men and women, Amber experiences it all. But throughout her trials and escapades, she remains, in her heart, true to the one man she really loves, the one man she can never have. Frequently compared to Gone with the Wind, Forever Amber is the other great historical romance, outselling every other American novel of the 1940s--despite being banned in Boston for its sheer sexiness. A book to read and reread, this edition brings back to print an unforgettable romance and a timeless masterpiece.