The Light Years — Elizabeth Jane Howard

The first novel of the Cazalet Chronicle, this masterpiece in the tradition of Upstairs, Downstairs takes us to the Cazalet household in 1930s England, when the coming war is only a distant cloud on the horizon. Elizabeth Howard paints an irresistible picture of the family's intimate world.

In 1937, the coming war is only a distant cloud on the horizon. As the various Cazalet households prepare for their summer pilgrimage to the family estate in Sussex, we meet bluff, hearty Edward, in love with but by no means faithful to his good wife, Villy; Hugh, wounded in the Great War, devoted to pregnant Sybil; Rupert, who worships the body if not the mind of his child-bride, Zoe; and Rachel, the spinster sister, conducting a desperate clandestine love affair under the family roof...