In the splendid Light Years (1990), Howard wove a rich domestic drama set in England in the late 1930s, ending in 1938 when a second world war was averted for the time being by Chamberlain's gestures toward Hitler to establish a "peace with honor." Now Howard offers a continuation of the domestic travails of the Cazalet clan, picking up the threads of the story in 1939, when the war that was so dreaded and thought avoided has finally broken out. Like the earlier volume, this tale offers luxurious detail, believable characters, and a compelling plot. The social to-and-fro of three generations of this upper-crust London family is charted in light of greater events transpiring beyond the daily events of their privileged lives. Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf, Rosamond Lehmann--these are the esteemed British writers Howard's work calls to mind; as her reputation in the U.S. begins to catch up with the extensive acclaim she already enjoys in her native Britain, librarians can expect increased demand for all her books. (Reviewed June 15, 1992)0671709097Brad Hooper

With great historical accuracy, this second installment in the Cazalet Chronicle follows The Light Years . (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

As this second volume of the ``Cazalet Chronicle'' (after The Light Years , LJ 8/1/90) opens in September 1939, the Cazalet family prepares for war. Three Cazalet cousins--Louise, Polly, and Clary--are so eager to shed the trappings of childhood that they view the war from a different perspective than their more experienced parents. Howard successfully presents these differing images in an atmosphere steeped in period detail, keeping the central focus on the young girls' frustrations and disappointments. Her saga offers an engrossing look at a unique period of history as experienced by a ``typical'' English middle-class family whose shared adventures are engaging, sometimes heroic, and always authentic. Recommended.-- Lydia Burruel Johnson, Mesa P.L., Ariz. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A perfect if inauspicious title for this second course of Howard's Cazalet Chronicles (begun with The Light Years, 1990), since this latest is all idling before something big happens--as the Cazalet writer-to-be, Clary, puts it, ``We need people to be in love with....We'll just have to wait.'' The waiting begins right after Chamberlain's ``peace with honor'' falls through and Hitler marches into Poland. At the Sussex manse of ``Brig'' Cazalet--now a blind old duffer shepherded around by his faithful spinster daughter, Rachel--the much extended Cazalet family gathers with their gas masks, not to mention orphaned babies (one of Rachel's charity), wounded soldiers, and London evacuees. The Brig's eldest son, Hugh, lamed during the Great War, stays at home to blunder along with the family timber firm and to coddle his wife, Sybil, who has incurable cancer; middle son, Edward, the womanizer, joins up, spending weekend leaves sexually abusing his beautifully budding daughter, Louise, while his wife, Villy, develops a crush on a conductor; and the last son, Rupert, goes missing in action right before his young wife, Zoe, has a baby. In addition, Howard focuses on the children of this crew, including: 17-year-old Louise, who attends acting school; Clary, Rupert's daughter by his late first wife, who nicely copes with her airheaded stepmother and fills her journal feverishly; and Polly, whose chief attribute is her goodness. By the end, Japan has drawn the US into the war; there's word of Rupert, possible romance for Clary, and as always, the Cazalets marching ever on. Comfortable, literate, but very slow lane.