Amazing luck behind novelist’s war romance

Author Sandra howard’s new novel is inspired by a cache of wartime love letters given to her by a cruise ship passenger.

the Distances of War is based on the true story of a young British woman who travelled through the torpedo-infested Mediterranean in 1940 in search of one man.

‘After attending a talk of mine, my heroine’s only living son very generously gave me several files of letters that his mother and her future husband wrote to each other,’ says Sandra, wife of former tory leader Michael.

‘the letters are the sort of thing that every novelist dreams of stumbling upon. I was very moved by their story and am now immersing myself in the privations and passions of the day — the sense of grabbing life by the throat and living it to the full when it could be snuffed out at any time.’