A MANUAL FOR HEARTACHE

(Picador £7.99) RENTZENBRINK’S first book, The Last Act of Love, was an account of the final years of her brother, Matty, who was knocked down by a car when he was 16 and spent the last eight years of his life in a persistent vegetative state.

The grief of losing him continued to haunt Cathy long after his death.

Her new book is the one she wished she had had at that time, filled with advice on how to keep going when life seems unendurable.

Cathy acknowledges that she is ‘not a doctor, a therapist . . . or an expert on anything,’ but her book is full of good sense, kindness and the wisdom that comes of long acquaintance with grief.

‘I think of [it],’ she says, ‘as a verbal cuddle or a loving message in a bottle. . . Take from it what you will.’