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Casting Off

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What to expect

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. Read by Indira Varma (Game of Thrones, Luther and Oedipus at The Old Vic).

'Compelling, moving, unputdownable . . . Maybe my favourite books ever' - Marian Keyes, bestselling author of My Favourite Mistake

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.

'She helps us to do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our hearts' – Hilary Mantel, bestselling author of The Mirror and the Light

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

Critics Review

What magic transforms a book into a compelling, moving, unputdownable read? I don’t know, but whatever it is, [The Cazalet Chronicles] have it. The characters! I cared about them so much. They behave in interesting, venal, believable ways. They’re recognisably human: frustrating, flawed, lovable. Maybe my favourite books ever
Marian Keyes, bestselling author of My Favourite Mistake
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, bestselling author of the Wolf Hall trilogy
Like [Elena] Ferrante, Howard’s fictional sphere is domestic and yet reveals deeper truths about human nature
Elizabeth Day, bestselling author of Magpie
Howard is a sharp observer of human drama and psychology, and writes about pain, loss and longing superbly well
Monica Ali, bestselling author of Love Marriage
I don’t know how I’d managed to miss [The Cazalet Chronicles] until now, but they’re absolute heaven
Meg Mason, bestselling author of Sorrow and Bliss
[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
A dazzling historical reconstruction
Penelope Fitzgerald, Booker Prize-winning author of Offshore
Charming, poignant and quite irresistible . . . to be cherished and shared
The Times
The Cazalets have earned an honoured place among the great saga families . . . rendered thrillingly three-dimensional by a master craftsman
Sunday Telegraph

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