Louisa Young - the Golden Hours

"The Cazalets live again, summoned into being by the surest and cleverest of authors," trumpets novelist Elizabeth Buchan.Louisa Young picks up the mantle of the much- loved, five-volume Cazalet Chronicles from 'Aunt Jane'.

In 2013, Elizabeth Jane Howard waved off her cast of familiar characters at the end of a 1950s family Christmas in All Change.What a joy then to meet them all again on Christmas Eve of 1962 in Young's The Golden Hours, the first of a new Cazalet trilogy.

The family pile has changed: a crumbling stately home in Norfolk replaces the beloved Home Place in Sussex.

Gone too is the family timber firm and much of the family's wealth.

But the cast list remains, as the old guard and order give way to middle-aged children and their brood navigating the Swinging Sixties.With 12 novels already to her name, including the award-winning My Dear I Wanted to Tell You trilogy, Young captures Howard's spirit while taking the family saga on with her own pace, imaginative energy and emotional conviction.

With "so much life still to live," she says, and "important matters of unfinished business ... the story is just not over."