Amber was a pleasant enough historical romance with a couple of very likable lead characters. It had a Restoration setting (a nice change of pace), and some unusual and very welcome touches. But it suffered from pacing problems and an overabundance of plot. Amber started off with a bang, took a wild turn in the middle, then came back to the main story and finished in a rush.

Kendra Chase and her brothers are rolling along in a coach arguing. They want her to marry, but she doesn’t like any of the candidates they have brought forward for her hand. Suddenly they are robbed by a highwayman whom their brothers seem to know. The highwayman does not rob the Chase brothers, but does rob the lone Puritan in the coach. Kendra can’t help but notice he is handsome and charming.

After she rejects the latest candidate for her hand and has a big argument with her brothers, Kendra goes riding and is caught in a sudden downpour. She meets a handsome man, they go to a cottage for shelter where they are caught in a compromising situation by her brothers who demand a marriage. The man is Patrick Iain Caldwell, aka Trick, and before she knows it, Kendra is married to him.

Events come thick and fast. Trick is a Duke – the Duke of Amberley – who is evidently prowling the highways to finance an orphanage on his land, or so it seems. He won’t talk to Kendra about his highwayman dealings. There is a very nice touch when Trick and Kendra’s wedding night turns out to be a disaster. She is totally innocent – her mother died when she was a young girl and none of her brothers have had The Talk with her, so she suffers pain and shock and vows not to let Trick touch her ever again. But Trick is patient and kind and that leads to some very good sexual tension.

But the middle of this story sags very badly when Trick gets a note from his estranged mother in Scotland, telling him she is dying and wants a reconciliation. That leads to a long journey, lots of Big Surprises for Trick and a closeness and love developing between him and Kendra.

Then the scene shifts back to London, where Trick is still keeping secrets from Kendra, leading to misunderstandings galore until the final revelations of just what Trick is doing and a very happy ending.

Amber was as stuffed full of story as a Thanksgiving turkey. It was simply too much of a good thing. Any of the two plots – Trick’s relationship with his mother and father and the secrets of his family or his secret work as a highwayman could have been very interesting on its own. Taken together, they were just too much – way too much. Splitting the conflict between two strong plots left both diminished, which was a shame because Trick and Kendra were both likable characters, Trick perhaps a bit more so than Kendra.

I wish Lauren Royal had given her two leads the family conflict plot and left the highwayman plot for Kendra’s absent-minded scientist brother Ford. Still I did enjoy Amber enough so that I plan to read Ford’s story when it is published. I only hope the author will give him just one plot to deal with.