Amanda [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Kay Hooper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996

Claiming to be the long-lost Amanda Daulton, a beautiful woman comes to the magnificent Southern mansion owned by Amanda's family, but her arrival ignites a deadly explosion of greed, passion, and murder. 50,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. Lit Guild & Doubleday Alt.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After racking up a total of 57 titles in paperback, Hooper (The Wizard of Seattle) makes her hardcover debut with yet another sexy, engaging-and overwrought-read. Jesse Daulton, multimillionaire patriarch of one of the South's oldest families, is dying. His fortune and fabled plantation house, Glory, will be shared by Kate, the unmarried daughter he ignores, and his two grandsons, surly Sullivan (Sully) Lattimore, who runs Glory's legendary stables, and his brother, Reece, who works quietly in the family business. But then a young woman shows up claiming to be Jesse's long-missing granddaughter, Amanda, who'd disappeared 20 years before, taken from Glory one stormy night by her desperate mother. While other would-be Amandas have stepped forward only to be discredited through the efforts of Walker McLellan, the Daultons' handsome family lawyer, Jesse is certain that this Amanda is genuine, and invites her to stay at Glory. Walker, too, comes under Amanda's spell, falling in love with her despite his conviction that she's an imposter. After Jesse changes his will to include Amanda, however, ominous accidents, one of them fatal, begin to occur. Only when Amanda finally remembers what happened the night she left Glory is a murderer exposed and her own suprising true identity revealed. Hooper isn't the smoothest of writers, but she knows how to serve up a latter-day gothic that will hold readers in its brooding grip. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate selections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Just as Anna Anderson appeared on the Russian scene claiming to be Anastasia, the lost daughter of Russia's last czar, so does the mysterious Amanda arrive at Glory, the Daulton mansion in the North Carolina mountains, asserting her relationship to the fabulously wealthy family. There are other echoes of the fact-based Anastasia story in Hooper's romance novel, for it is the grandparents who want so desperately to believe that these young women are who they claim to be despite the hostility of other family members. Amanda is a likeable heroine who holds her own with the many suspicious men and women of Glory while trying to unravel her own private mystery. This fast-paced, sexy tale is recommended for large public libraries. [Literary Guild alternate.]?Marion Hanscom, SUNY at Binghamton Lib.
-?Marion Hanscom, SUNY at Binghamton Lib.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: Wheeler Pub Inc (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568953089
• ISBN-13: 978-1568953083
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,960,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

KAY HOOPER is the award-winning author of Sleeping with Fear, Stealing Shadows, and more than ten other novels of suspense and intrigue along with dozens of other books. She lives in North Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as Good as Finding Laura., July 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Amanda (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the 2nd Kay Hopper book I read. The 1st one was Finding Laura & I loved it. I thought I was in for another great one when I bought it through Amazon. Now, after reading the book, hate to say I was disappointed.

Hooper seems to adopt a common story frame or setting in her works. Stories always happened in a big mansion with an old person in control, then walked in a beautiful woman from somewhere, and one can bet hot sex is following in the mansion's gazebo. This is all right but in Amanda, Hooper failed to win readers over to Amanda's side by convincing that Amanda was worthy, so that we could be afraid and worried for her. Her words, acts and thinking did not tell me she was the real Daulton, and not a crook though she threatened to leave Jesse when Jesse wanted to change his will in Amanda's favor. Also, the falling in love with Walker happened within a finger snap - no telling of how she began to fall for a man who had always been suspecting and questioning her and at times even hostile to her. Lastly, the explanation that Amanda gave for using someone's resume and identity to protect herself from danger was thin.

I hope Amanda was not as good as Finding Laura is because Amanda is an earlier book and Hooper is improving along. I also hope that her future books are more polished and sophisticated, and please no more gazebos.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Keeps you guessing, March 14, 2001

By 

V. Craft (GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Amanda (Mass Market Paperback)

Amanda is a wonderful story, full of colorful characters and a quick plot. "Amanda" has returned home after 20 years when she and her mother left when she was a child. She cannot prove that she is the real Amanda, and her relatives are all sceptical. Amanda doesn't really care if they believe her or not. She just wants to know why her mother took her and ran so many years ago. Amanda must deal with an unexpected romantic intrest in her family's lawyer and her old friend, Walker. As she asks questions however horrible things begin to happen. A trainer at the stable is killed, Amanda is poisoned, and her protective dogs go missing, and she can only asume they have been taken. Amanda must find out why her mother took her and ran before it's too late.

This was a very good book, that drew me in. The characters are interesting and the plot keeps you guessing. I've read it many times over the years, and if you like suspenseful romances you will too.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great romantic suspense......, February 16, 2003

By 

iheartjackbauer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Amanda (Mass Market Paperback)

I started this book with mixed feelings. The only other Kay Hooper books that I have read are her 'Evil' trilogy. I enjoyed them, but there wasn't enough romance for me, so that's what I expected with Amanda, but I still decided to try it. I was not dissapointed with this book. It had romance with just the right amount of suspense and personal conflict added in.

Amanda has returned to her childhood home after a thirty year absence. She was nine years old when her and her mother left in the cover of the night. She didn't expect a warm welcome from her 'family' and she wasn't dissapointed. She didn't think anyone would try to kill her though.

Walker is the Daulton family lawyer and he is paid to be suspicous of strangers showing up claiming to be the long lost Amanda Daulton. After all, there is a fortune at stake. He doesn't know what to make of this woman whom he is sure is an imposter. He feels desire for her, but at the same time he resents her for lying to him about who she really is and how she has spent the last twenty years.

There are other characters in this book that will hold you spellbound. Sully, Jesse, Kate, Ben, Reece, and Maggie. I've read that many people were surprised how the book ended. I didn't expect the twist it took at the end, but I believe it's fairly easy to figure out who is behind all the 'accidents' happening at Glory.

The end of this book is very satisfying and you will put it down with tears in your eyes. Don't miss it!