How to Stop Time

To protect their secret, Tom and the others must change identity every eight years and keep moving, never becoming too close to anyone. Teaching history to teenagers who have no idea he lived through it, Tom begins to feel drawn to a French teacher at the school, and the old rule starts to weigh on him. At the same time, he is still searching for his daughter, who shares his condition and whom he has not seen for centuries.

The novel moves between Tom's present and his memories of the past: Elizabethan London, a long sea voyage, the Paris of the jazz age and his great lost love, Rose. These scenes are vivid, and Haig uses them to reflect on loneliness, grief and the way the world seems to repeat its mistakes. Some sad moments from Tom's early life are described with care. The book is gentle in tone, with flashes of humour, and its message about living in the present is hopeful.

Thoughtful, warm and moving, a good choice for readers who enjoyed The Midnight Library. Its short chapters make it easy to read, and its questions about time, love and what makes a life meaningful linger afterwards. About 352 pages in the Penguin Books paperback.