Caxley Chronicles Books in Order

The Caxley Chronicles step away from the immediate post‑war present of Fairacre and Thrush Green to follow two intertwined families through the first half of the twentieth century. Set in the small market town of Caxley, a few miles from Fairacre, they show the wider world edging into village lives.

In The Market Square we meet Septimus Howard, a baker, and Bender North, an ironmonger, whose shops face one another across Caxley’s central square. Beginning around the time of Edward VII’s coronation, the novel tracks their businesses, marriages and children through years of prosperity, misunderstanding and reconciliation. The First World War brings grief and permanent change, but the friendships and routines of the town endure.

The Howards of Caxley picks up the story with the next generation, particularly Edward Howard, grandson of both men. As he grows up, trains as a pilot and faces the approach of another war, Caxley itself also has to adjust, coping with air raids, shortages and the slow erosion of old certainties. The books are interested less in grand strategy than in how ordinary shopkeepers, clergy and housewives experience history.

Compared with the Fairacre and Thrush Green novels, the Caxley books feel more overtly historical and slightly more serious in tone, but they share the same interest in work, family loyalty and the small pleasures that make communities resilient. Readers familiar with the other series will recognise Caxley as the town where many villagers go to shop or attend market day, and will enjoy seeing its streets and businesses at an earlier stage of their life.

Taken together, the two novels form a compact family saga that can be read on its own or as a rich backdrop to the village books. They show how the friendships, rivalries and habits that appear so settled in Fairacre and Thrush Green were shaped by decades of hard work, loss and quiet perseverance.