Book excerpt: Winter, 1939. Edna and Lucy, along with new-born babies Jack and Lily, return to London during the war to a world gone mad. Forced to live underground, sleeping on the dark and dingy platforms of the Underground, they emerge each day to be confronted by bombed-out houses, already picked over by looters, spivs, black market traders and swindlers. When the war ends, Lucy, a bright and ambitious woman, seizes the opportunities that their changed society now offers. Meanwhile, Edna remains rooted in the old beliefs of kinship and community. Struggling to overcome the trauma of five years of conflict and unable to come to terms with her separation from her husband, Edna worries that life will never be the same again. Robbed of their childhood by the war, Jack, Lily and her younger brother George attempt to forge their own definitions of normality. When as a teenager Lily discovers a scrap of paper in the lining of a classy cashmere coat gifted to her from the American Red Cross, she jumps at the opportunity to follow its trail, which leads her to a famous poet and a chance to reclaim her place in a broken world. See Out the Crazy Times shares the stories of five people whose lives have been changed forever by the war. It is a life-affirming story, bitter-sweet, filled with laughter, anger and hope, that will appeal to readers who enjoy fiction about the second world war and its aftermath.