The Light Years

If I were sent to a desert island with one book this would be my choice -- Her Majesty Queen Camilla Charming, poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be cherished and shared * The Times * She is one of those novelists who shows, through her work, what the novel is for . . . She helps us to do the necessary thing open our eyes and our hearts -- Hilary Mantel, author of <i>Wolf Hall </i>and <i>Bring Up the Bodies </i> The Cazalets have earned an honoured place among the great saga families . . . rendered thrillingly three-dimensional by a master craftsman * Sunday Telegraph * Superb . . . hypnotic . . . very funny * Spectator * Evocative and gracefully written * Cosmopolitan * A family saga of the best kind . . . a must * Tatler * A dazzling historical reconstruction -- Penelope Fitzgerald, Booker Prize-winning author of <i>Offshore</i and <i>The Blue Flower</i> This chronicle will be read, like Trollope, as a classic about life in England in our century -- Sybille Bedford, author of <i>A Legacy</i> and <i>Jigsaw</i> Gloriously addictive . . . Family loyalty, betrayals, triumphs, tragedy, births and deaths are all blissfully here, and you become emotionally absorbed in the fate of each character * Daily Mail *

Elizabeth Jane Howard was the author of fifteen highly acclaimed novels, including the five volumes of The Cazalet Chronicles, as well as After Julius, Falling, Getting It Right, Love All, and Odd Girl Out. The Cazalet Chronicles The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change have become established as modern classics and have been adapted for a major BBC television series and for BBC Radio 4. She had one child, Nicola, and married three times lastly to fellow author Sir Kingsley Amis. In 2000 she was awarded a CBE in the Queens Birthday Honours List, and in 2002 Macmillan published her autobiography, Slipstream. She died, aged ninety, at home in Suffolk on 2 January 2014.