Louisa Young: The Golden Hours

Saturday 14 November, 2:30pm, St Peter’s Church, DE1 1SN

*One of The Times' 40 books not to miss this autumn*

Beloved by many readers, Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote five volumes of the iconic Cazalet Chronicles. A family saga set during the second world war, their story has been continued by her great niece, Louisa Young.

The first four novels were published from 1990 - 1995 with the final one in 2013, a year before Elizabeth died, and are still in print 13 years after her death.

It’s December 1962, and the Cazalet family are gathering to celebrate Christmas. With the family’s beloved Home Place long sold, Polly and Gerald have offered up their rambling stately pile, Fakenham Hall in Norfolk, to parents, siblings, cousins and children.

The old guard – brothers Hugh, Edward, Rupert and their sister Rachel – look on as the England they knew and understood fades from view. Cousins Polly, Louise and Clary, all now on the brink of turning forty, are struggling to balance the demands of midlife with their personal desires – however secret. And then there are the young – a new generation growing up in a society on the cusp of real change.

In this spellbinding novel set in 1962, familiar faces reappear, newcomers are introduced, and the legacy of the Cazalets carries on into the Swinging Sixties.

‘I'm overjoyed to have this . . . The Golden Hours is a wonderful read’ – Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina

‘Effortlessly authentic, pitch-perfect, funny, sexy and heart-wrenching, I can't remember the last time I lost myself so deliciously in a novel!’ - Julie Myerson, author of Something Might Happen

Photography credit: Julian Calder