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Original poster

If I loved the Cazalet Chronicles...

31 replies

MrsGru · 28/07/2018 21:04

What could I read next? I'm on the fourth book, have the fifth ready and waiting and I'm already feeling bereft at the thought of finishing them all... I'm going on holiday soon and want to have some books loaded onto my kindle to look forward to. I have become completely immersed and obsessed with the Cazalets and their lives - if you also loved these books what else would you recommend?

OP posts:
toomuchlikehardwork · 28/07/2018 21:08

Not read these yet but you might like the Spoils of Time trilogy by Penny Vincenzi or The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffrey Archer - both are some of the best books I've ever read.

MimsyBorogroves · 28/07/2018 21:23

Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher?

DancelikeEmmaGoldman · 29/07/2018 10:41

I meant to add also RF Delderfield's series which starts with A Horseman Riding By. I remember enjoying their gentle, rural settings.

DancelikeEmmaGoldman · 29/07/2018 10:45

Gremlin's ate my post, which I thought I'd published.

Sara Donati's series set in colonial America.

Also an older series, the Jalna books (The Whiteoak Chronicles), by Canadian writer Mazo de la Roche. It's been a long time since I read one, but she was a very popular author in the 30s and 40s.

applecatchers36 · 29/07/2018 10:51

The chamomile lawn by Mary Wesley

Bin85 · 29/07/2018 14:34

The Forsyte Saga

TwitterQueen1 · 29/07/2018 14:41

I second RF Delderfield. Absolutely loved those two books. I've been reading something more up-to-date, Lucinda Riley's Seven Sisters series, 4 books so far - 3 more to come! Both my DD and I have thoroughly enjoyed them.

concretesieve · 29/07/2018 14:44

Childhood memoirs rather than fic, but from a similar background - Emma Smith's The Great Western Beach and Dirk Bogarde's Great Meadow.

annandale · 29/07/2018 14:48

Maybe the Balkan trilogy by Olivia manning? There's also the Levant trilogy by her but I haven't read that.

I'm actually having a go at The remembrance of things past by Proust and I think as a male novelist he's almost up to Howard standards Wink

Stillnotready · 29/07/2018 14:54

Please just don’t read the final one in the saga, it is really disappointing and sadly I think just written for the money. The characters act completely out of character and the background richness and truth is missing.

Stillnotready · 29/07/2018 14:58

I’ve just read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. whilst not as long as the Cazalets, rewarding in it’s own way, set around a family in Korea and Japan, from around 1900s to late 80s. Fascinating tale about a culture and history of which I knew nothing.

annandale · 29/07/2018 15:04

Oh still not ready I'm glad to find someone else who's read Pachinko, I really enjoyed it.

ScrubTheDecks · 29/07/2018 15:11

Oh, yes, the Camomile Lawn and subsequent books.

Atonement

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson

ScrubTheDecks · 29/07/2018 15:11

Brideshead Revisitef

Stillnotready · 29/07/2018 15:14

A friend picked it as our book club choice last month, and I’m so glad she did because I’d never have read it otherwise. I really loved the sisters in law, and their relationship with each other. Women showing their strength when United and the power of love and friendship.

Stillnotready · 29/07/2018 15:14

That was for @annandale

DoraChance · 29/07/2018 15:21

Anything by Dorothy Whipple.

Original poster
MrsGru · 29/07/2018 20:24

Thank you for all these ideas!
I did wonder if the final Cazalet book might be a bit different as it was written so much later... Perhaps I will take a break after book 4 and try some thing different first....
I have read Coming Home a while ago and really liked that.
I will look up the Camomile Lawn and some of the other ideas from here - thanks!

OP posts:
Stillnotready · 29/07/2018 21:25

You may want to read her biography instead, the one by Artemis Cooper called Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence

kikashi · 30/07/2018 11:17

The Susan Howatch family sagas like Penmarric, Cashelmara, The Wheel of Fortune and the Rich are Different. Good thumper reads and based loosely on historical royal dynasties like the Plantagenets.

PintOfMineralWater · 30/07/2018 11:23

Placemarking to check out some of these.

Agree about the fifth book, there was just no heart in it. And some clanging errors, including a reference to one of the women who had lost a child - only it wasn’t her!

Troubleandstrifebagforlife · 31/07/2018 19:32

Anything by Julian fellowes all his books are wonderful.
Also my last duchess can’t remember the author but they are the same kind of genre

babybythesea · 01/08/2018 07:38

I am also reading The Cazalets. She's written other books which I got as a set from the book people a while back.
I love Kate Morton. Not a series but good chunky reads.

MikeUniformMike · 04/08/2018 19:15

I loved the Cazalet Chronicles and glad that she managed to publish the closing one.
I haven't read other books by EJH as i'm scared I might not love them like i did the Cazalets.
The Forsyte Saga would be my recommendation.
Quite different but a chronicle is the Patrick Melrose book set.
I stumbled across this by accident - the library reserved the second one of the set for me in a misunderstanding and I didn't 'get' it and gave up, but started the first one then read the others.

EmilyAlice · 04/08/2018 19:19

Mike EJH's Something in Disguise is a wonderful book. It was also a brilliant TV series many years ago.