In 1943 the British governmnent's Ministry of Information issued a booklet called How to Keep Well in Wartime. It provided advice on such things as diet and good sleep, keeping active and hygenic, and, of course, keeping  well. Jody Cooksley has given one of her two main characters, Jim, responsibility for writing this publication and her other main character, a 1990s young woman, Emily, the responsibility of finding out who Jim is after an accident that results in a coma.

The juxtaposition of the two narratives, which reach back as far as World War One and as far forward as 1994, gives How to Keep Well in Wartime a timely tension, and the little clues that link the stories made me feel like a delighted amateur detective as I noticed them and connected the stories. The novel centres on a tin of photographs and memorabilia that Emily finds in Jim's house - after he's taken to hospital - which provides the illustration on the cover of the book and which was inspired by the author's husband's Great Uncle Jim's tin - a tin that has remained a real-life family mystery; a tin whose mysteries Cooksley reveals in the course of her novel. Here's an extract from the beginning of Emily's story:

The tin is filled with photographs and papers; orders of service from weddings and funerals; ... several news clippings ... a set of medals ... . But mostly the tin is filled wth photographs. ... The same faces appear again and again. I wonder how someone with all those faces in a tin can end up alone. Is it that easy for people to drop out of your life, one by one? Is this how I will be?

The novel explores the connections between these people and how and why they did (or didn't) end up alone. Cooksley's evocation of the two different periods in British history is beautifully observed and the heartbreak caused by not speaking up (a character trait  embodied by many British people throughout the twentieth century) informs the plot. I urge you to speak up at your local bookshop and ask for a copy.