Format: Interview & Q&A
Themes: Fiction, Adults, Young People, Headliner, Writing, Literary, Book Club
 
Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles - a beloved quintet of novels that follow the upper middle class Cazalet family from 1937 on the eve of the Second World War, through it until 1958 - is one of the great achievements of British fiction. Now, Louisa Young, Howard’s niece, has written The Golden Years: a new instalment that carries the beloved Cazalets into a new era.
 
In conversation with novelist Harriet Evans, Louisa will discuss the extraordinary privilege and responsibility of continuing another writer's world, how being a relative of Howard mean she is best placed to continue these characters, how she found her way into the voices readers have loved for decades, and what the Cazalets still have to tell us about families, history and the enduring human need for story.
 
Louisa Young Books: The Golden Years, Cazalet Chronicles
Louisa Young is a writer and songwriter, a former journalist, a Londoner and ‘a masterly storyteller’, according to The Washington Post. Her twelve novels include the award-winning 'My Dear I Wanted to Tell You’ trilogy, which Elizabeth Jane Howard called ‘a triumph'. She has also written memoir— You Left Early, a True Story of Love and Alcohol; cultural history— The Book of the Heart, and biography— A Great Task of Happiness; The Life of Kathleen Scott (who was Captain Scott’s widow, Louisa’s grandmother and Jane’s mother-in-law).
Louisa's work is published in 32 languages, and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
 
Harriet Evans Books: The Treasures, The Stargazers, The Garden of Lost and Found, D is for Death and Murder on the Royal Crescent.
Harriet Evans is the author of sixteen bestselling prize-winning novels, most recently The Treasures, the first in a trilogy about a family and a house. She is a former publisher and worked for both Penguin and Hodder Headline. She recently served on the Management Committee of the Society of Authors advocating for authors' rights in a time of AI. In 2024, as Harriet F Townson, she published her first crime novel D is for Death which was longlisted for the CWA Crime Novel of the Year. Murder on the Royal Crescent is out in October 2026. She lives in Bath with her family and likes jumpsuits, karaoke, and butterflies, but books most of all.