ANDREW FFRENCH takes the time to find out more about our latest Book of the Month, The Time Traveler’s Wife.

THE BOOK: I’m ashamed to say I missed this first time round, but now it’s back in the bestseller lists, thanks to the movie, I thought I would give it a try.

It didn’t take me long to see why The Time Traveler’s Wife has sold more than 2.5 million copies since the book was first published in 2003.

The novel is a strange combination of science fiction and romance and has a dreamlike quality that I soon found completely addictive.

The author allows her two main characters, Clare and Henry, to tell the story and the slightly sarcastic, world-weary tone of voice they sometimes slip into reminded me of Holden Caulfield in JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.

If you can’t get your head around the time travel element – which HG Wells made popular in The Time Machine in 1895 – then you are left with a moving story which examines issues of love, loss and free will. The Time Traveler's Wife tells the tale of Henry DeTamble, a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and his wife Clare Abshire, an artist who makes paper sculptures.

Don’t snigger at the next bit – Henry has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to travel through time, although he can’t choose when to go on a time travel trip.

When 20-year-old Clare meets 28-year-old Henry at the library in 1991, at the opening of the novel, he can’t remember seeing her before, although she has known him most of her life.

There’s a scene early on, when a grown-up Henry meets his five-year-old self, wandering around a natural history museum.

I’m not a massive fan of science fiction, preferring a nice linear narrative and at that point I could quite easily have dumped the book and reached for something more reliable – the new Gerald Seymour thriller, or an old John le Carré.

But I persisted with this queasy mixture of sci-fi and romance because Niffenegger is quite adroit at creating two believable characters whose story tugs the heartstrings.

Don’t get bamboozled by all the time travel stuff, although if you stop to think about it you can have plenty of fun trying to work it out.

Instead, just relax and enjoy the quirky story – a true original that other novelists will find impossible to copy.

Niffenegger began writing the book in 1997, and apparently wrote the last scene first.

The novel became a bestseller after an endorsement from legal thriller writer Scott Turow on The Today Show.

Now that the film is out, starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, pictured, this modern classic is certain to win thousands of new fans.

* The Time Traveler’s Wife is published by Vintage, price £7.99.

THE AUTHOR: Audrey Niffenegger is a visual artist and a part-time guide at Highgate Cemetery in London.

In addition to her bestselling debut novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, she is the author of two illustrated novels, The Three Incestuous Sisters and The Adventuress. She lives in Chicago.

The author, 46, is believed to have received a $5m advance for her latest novel, a ghost story, Her Fearful Symmetry, published this month.

In 2003, when The Time Traveler’s Wife was not yet published, the author approached Jean Pateman, chairman of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery, for access to the burial ground, which provides the backdrop for Her Fearful Symmetry.

She was a teacher at Columbia College’s Center for Book and Paper Arts in Chicago, and still teaches one class a year.

She was raised a Roman Catholic, and despite the subject matter for her latest novel, does not believe in ghosts.

It is understood Niffenegger has avoided screenings of the film of her book because she doesn’t want it to spoil her own visualisation of Clare and Henry.

She considers London to be a home from home, and fans might spot her from time to time in Highgate Cemetery.