Emmanuel is a famous playwright. Lillian is his sickly and embittered wife. They have never fully buried the memory of their dead daughter, Sarah. Rich but discontented, they flit from capital to capital in the company of their hero-worshipping young manager; nomads on the international airlines.
Then Alberta, straight from an English vicarage and the pages of Jane Austen, is appointed as Emmanuel's secretary. This prim and utterly delightful figure works on the 'family' like milk on a disordered stomach. One by one the leopards change their spots ...
'The characterization is the triumph of this book. Miss Howard has a exquisite sense of place' Observer Elizabeth Jane Howard was the author of fourteen highly acclaimed novels. The Cazalet Chronicles - The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change - have become established as modern classics and have been adapted for a major BBC television series and most recently for BBC Radio 4. In 2002 Macmillan published Elizabeth Jane Howard's autobiography, Slipstream. In that same year she was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. From the lauded, bestselling author of The Cazalet Chronicles.
