As featured on BBC Radio 4 Open Book

Beautifully and poignantly told, Marking Time is the second novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard''s bestselling family saga The Cazalet Chronicles, set during the onset of World War II.

''She helps us to do the necessary thing - open our eyes and our hearts'' - Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of Wolf Hall

Home Place, Sussex, 1939. As the shadows of the Second World War roll in, banishing the sun-drenched days of childish games and trips to the coast, a new generation of Cazalets takes up the family''s story.

Louise, who dreams of becoming a great actress, finds herself facing the harsh reality that her parents have their own lives with secrets, passions and yearnings. Clary, an aspiring writer, learns that her beloved father, Rupert, is now missing somewhere on the shores of France. And sensitive, imaginative Polly feels stuck, haunted by her nightmares about the war.

''Charming, poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be cherished and shared'' - The Times

Marking Time is the second volume of the extraordinary Cazalet Chronicles and a perfect addition to your collection. Marking Time is followed by Confusion, the third book in the series. Lire la suite Fermer

B>Confusion is the third novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling Cazalet Chronicles./b>London and Sussex, 1942. The privileged English family in turmoil . . . The long, dark days of struggle provide the poignant background to the third book of the Cazalet Chronicles. As the war enters its fourth year, chaos has become a way of life. Both in the still peaceful Sussex countryside, and in air-raid-threatened London, the divided Cazalets begin to find the battle for survival echoing the confusion in their own lives.Read the next books in the series, Casting Off and All Change, or start from the beginning with The Light Years and Marking Time.

b>With an introduction by Hilary Mantel./b>b>Originally published in 1956, The Long View is Elizabeth Jane Howard's uncannily authentic portrait of one marriage and one woman. Observant and heartbreaking, written with exhilarating wit, it is a gut-wrenching account of the birth and death of a relationship - as extraordinary as it is timeless./b>br>b>/b>br>One of his secret pleasures was the loading of social dice against himself. He did not seem for one moment to consider the efforts made by kind or sensitive people to even things up: or if such notions ever occurred to him, he would have observed them with detached amusement, and reloaded more dice. In 1950s London, Antonia Fleming faces the prospect of a life lived alone. Her children are now adults; her husband Conrad, a domineering and emotionally complex man, is a stranger. As Antonia looks towards her future, the novel steadily moves backwards in time, tracing Antonia's relationship with Conrad to its beginning in the 1920s, through years of mistake and motherhood, dreams and war. Lire la suite Fermer

B>Casting Off is the fourth novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling Cazalet Chronicles./b>The aftermath of war, and the slow dawning of a new era of freedom and opportunity, shape the destinies of the Cazalets in the fourth volume of this magnificent family saga. Polly, Clary and Louise, now grown up, are ready to discover the truth about the adult world. While Rupert, Hugh and Edward must make the choices that will decide their own - and the family's - future. For the Cazalets, and all those close to them, one end is another beginning . . .Read the next book in the series, All Change, or start from the beginning with The Light Years, Marking Time and Confusion.

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Open Book

Set in the height of the Second World War, The Cazalet Chronicles continues with the third in the series, Confusion, where chaos has become a way of life for the Cazalet family.

''She helps us to do the necessary thing - open our eyes and our hearts'' - Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of Wolf Hall

It''s 1942 and the dark days of war seem never-ending. Scattered across the still-peaceful Sussex countryside and air-raid-threatened London, the divided Cazalets begin to find the battle for survival echoing the confusion in their own lives.

Headstrong, independent Louise surprises the whole family when she abandons her dreams of being an actress and instead makes a society marriage. Polly, now living in London with Clary, is struggling to come to terms with the death of her mother and manage her grieving father. Meanwhile, Clary is painfully aware that what she lacks in beauty she makes up for in intelligence, and is the only member of the family who believes that her father might not be dead . . .

''[N]o detail is too small to be included, so charged with significance is the material envelope of that lost world'' - Tessa Hadley, bestselling author of After the Funeral

Confusion is the heartbreaking and heartwarming third instalment of Elizabeth Jane Howard''s bestselling series. It is followed by the fourth book, Casting Off. Lire la suite Fermer

From the bestselling author of The Cazalet Chronicles, The Sea Change is a witty yet heart-rending story of a marriage in crisis.Emmanuel is a famous playwright. Lillian is his sickly and embittered wife. They have never fully buried the memory of their dead daughter, Sarah. Rich but discontented, they flit from capital to capital in the company of their hero-worshipping young manager.Then Alberta, straight from an English vicarage and the pages of Jane Austen, is appointed as Emmanuel's secretary. This prim and utterly delightful figure helps the family in ways they didn't know they needed. One by one the leopards change their spots . . .

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Open Book

As the old world begins to fade from view and a new dawn emerges, All Change marks the fifth and final volume in Elizabeth Jane Howard''s bestselling Cazalet Chronicles.

''She helps us to do the necessary thing - open our eyes and our hearts'' - Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of Wolf Hall

It is the 1950s and as the Duchy, the Cazalets'' beloved matriarch, dies, she takes with her the last remnants of a disappearing world - houses with servants, classes and tradition - in which the Cazalets have thrived.

Louise, now divorced, becomes entangled in a painful affair, while Polly and Clary must balance marriage and motherhood with their own ideas and ambitions. Hugh and Edward, now in their sixties, feel ill-equipped for this changing world, while Villy, long abandoned by her husband, must at last learn to live independently. But it is Rachel, who has always lived for others, who will face her greatest challenges yet. And nothing will ever be the same again.

''Like Ferrante, Howard''s fictional sphere is domestic and yet reveals deeper truths about human nature'' - Elizabeth Day, bestselling author of Magpie

All Change is the heartbreaking and heartwarming final instalment of Elizabeth Jane Howard''s bestselling series. Lire la suite Fermer

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Open Book

The Second World War has finally ended and so begins a new era of freedom and opportunity for the Cazalet family in Casting Off, the fourth novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard''s magnificent Cazalet Chronicles.

''She helps us to do the necessary thing - open our eyes and our hearts'' - Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of Wolf Hall

The Cazalet cousins are now in their twenties, trying to piece together their lives in the aftermath of the Second World War. Louise is faced with her father''s new mistress and her mother''s grief at his betrayal, while suffering a loveless marriage of her own. Clary is struggling to understand why her beloved father chose to stay in France long after it was safe to return to Britain, and both she and Polly are madly in love with much older men.

As Polly, Clary and Louise face the truth about the adult world, their fathers - Rupert, Hugh and Edward - must make choices that will decide their own, and the family''s, future.

''Howard . . . writes about pain, loss and longing superbly well'' - Monica Ali, bestselling author of Love Marriage

Casting Off is the heartbreaking and heartwarming fourth instalment of Elizabeth Jane Howard''s bestselling series. It is followed by All Change, the fifth and final book in the series. Lire la suite Fermer

B>The Light Years is the first novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling Cazalet Chronicles./b>Home Place, Sussex, 1937. The English family at home . . . For two unforgettable summers they gathered together, safe from the advancing storm clouds of the Second World War. In the heart of the Sussex countryside these were still sunlit days of childish games, lavish family meals and picnics on the beach. Three generations of the Cazalet family. Their relatives, their children and their servants - and the fascinating triangle of their affairs . . .Read the next books in the series, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change.

From the bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles comes Elizabeth Jane Howard''s Love All.

The late 1960s. For Persephone Plover, the daughter of distant and neglectful parents, the innocent, isolated days of childhood are long past. Now she must deal with the emotions of an adult world . . .

Meanwhile in Melton, in the West Country, Jack Curtis - a self-made millionaire - has employed Persephone''s aunt, a garden designer in her sixties, to deal with the terraces and glasshouses of the once beautiful local manor house he has acquired at vast expense. He also has plans to start an arts festival, as a means to avoid the loneliness of the recently divorced.

Also in Melton are the Musgrove siblings, Thomas and Mary, whose parents originally owned and lived in Melton House. They are still trying to cope with emotional consequences of the tragic death of Thomas''s wife, Celia . . . as is Francis, Celia''s brother, who has come to live with them and thereby, perhaps, to find his way through life. Lire la suite Fermer

From the lauded, bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles, in Odd Girl Out, Elizabeth Jane Howard reveals with devastating accuracy a marriage put in a most destructive situation.

Anna and Edmund Cornhill have a happy marriage and a lovely home. They are content, complete, absorbed in their private idyll.

Arabella, who comes to stay one lazy summer, is rich, rootless and amoral - and, as they find out, beautiful and loving.

With her elegant prose the author traces the web of love and desire that entangles these three; but it is Arabella who finally loses out.

From the bestselling author of the Cazalet Chronicles comes Elizabeth Jane Howard's Falling.Harry Kent is a sensitive man in late middle age, a reader and a thinker, without means perhaps but not without charm.Daisy has recovered from her unhappy past by learning to be self-sufficient, and viewing trust as a weakness. But there is still a part of her that yearns to be cared for once more.It is this part that Henry sees, and with dedicated and calculated patience he works at her defences. So despite all attempts to resist his attentions, Daisy finds herself falling under Henry's spell . . .

From the lauded, bestselling author of The Cazalet Chronicles, After Julius is Elizabeth Jane Howard''s funny yet touching story of a family brought together yet falling apart.

''A novel that commands both respect and applause'' - Sunday Times It is twenty years since Julius died, but his last heroic action still affects the lives of the people he left behind.

Emma, his youngest daughter, twenty-seven years old and afraid of men. Cressida, her sister, a war widow, blindly searching for love in her affairs with married men. Esme, Julius''s widow, still attractive at fifty-eight, but aimlessly lost in the routine of her perfect home. Felix, Esme''s old lover, who left her when Julius died and who is still plagued by guilt for his action. And then there is Dan - an outsider.

Throughout a disastrous - and revelatory - weekend in Sussex, the influence of the dead Julius slowly emerges . . .

''Her talent seemed so effervescent, so unstoppable, that there was no predicting where it might take her'' - Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall Lire la suite Fermer

Acclaimed author Elizabeth Jane Howard said she would certainly have been a gardener had she not become a writer first. In Green Shades: An Anthology of Plants, Gardens and Gardeners , first published in 1991, she brings together a diverse and fascinating selection of gardening writing that spans the centuries, the seasons and the species. Part of the Macmillan Collector''s Library; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics with ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. The content is eclectic and wide-ranging, practical as well as lyrical - she pays homage to the great English landscape artists of the eighteenth century and to the great women gardeners such as Vita Sackville-West. There''s advice from Pliny on how walnuts can be used to dye hair and Joseph Addison encourages blackbirds to gorge on his cherry trees. Linking the numerous extracts is Elizabeth Jane Howard''s perceptive and highly personal commentary, which skilfully leads the reader from one subject to the next.
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