It was meant to be the journey of a lifetime, but as the first torpedo hit Emily Taylor knew she was in trouble. As she clung to the rails her thoughts flashed back to that first cruise, the one where she also clung to the rails, but so she could lean over and wave to no-one in particular on the quayside below. Because that, she thought, is what people did on ocean liners.

Reality comes back with a jolt. Now her only hope is to find one of the Lusitania’s lifebelts, but they’ve all gone. Just 760 of the nearly 2,000 people aboard that day would survive and Emily was one of them. As she went under for what would probably be the last time, a familiar, strong hand pulled her out of the water and into the safety of a tug boat.

Their eyes met with incredulity. The hand belonged to Emily’s husband Niall, who she hadn’t seen since war broke out a year before.

Talk about being in the right place at the right time… Emily is a fictional character based on Joanna Joslin’s great-aunt Annie Elizabeth Taylor, and the inspiration for the Tadcaster author’s second novel, Lesson for Life, is the wooden box that she kept her toys in as a girl.

No ordinary box, though. It bears a torn Cunard Line baggage label and the initials AET, because it was the chest Annie took on her own epic voyage on the Lusitania.

Fortunately that was a year before the ship was destroyed by a German U-boat, but for dramatic effect Jo decided to place her character on board during the fateful attack. After all, what better way to end a romantic thriller than have the heroine rescued by her long-lost husband?

“I chose to concentrate on the impact of the torpedo,” says Jo. “I’d researched into the fact that even the ship’s cat hadn’t wanted to travel that day – which seemed to be an omen – and I built the story up. Emily is a teacher and back then it would have been frowned on for her to marry. So she weds Niall in secret and of course he has to be the person to save her, the readers would be disappointed if it was anyone else.”

Don’t worry, you might know how it ends, but Lesson For Life will have so many twists and turns that it will keep you guessing all the way. And Jo promises plenty of intrigue, with a bit of spying thrown in for good measure.

The book follows on from her highly regarded debut, Conflict Of Class, which was also based loosely on her family’s life. Because Jo writes historical novels, she is conscious of the need for thorough research to make sure her facts are spot on. This has already earned her something of a reputation for fine detail.

And Jo devotes an equal amount of time perfecting her storylines. She only writes once a week and that leaves time to mull over what her characters are going to do next.

“Sometimes I might leave the chapter as a cliffhanger, which is very important to me. It gives me the opportunity through the week to think about the plot, the stories and the characters, to work them out in my mind, and decide what’s going to happen next.”

It might be on the drive in to Tadcaster, where she is head of technology at the Grammar School, or during the lunch break. But whenever the muse takes, Jo is armed with a pen and paper to jot down her latest plot twist.

It’s two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. The research has been done and it’s time for Jo to travel back in her mind to the early part of the 20th century; to catch up with her mother and great-aunt Annie, both of whom are ready to guide her through the next chapter.

“I immerse myself in the characters and when I write I often hear members of my family talking to me, which can be a little bit eerie. I often wonder where they’re coming from and although I know broadly where the plot is going, the characters almost seem to take over. I find myself lost in that world, at that time with my relatives directing the story to some degree from the conversations that come through.”

Perhaps some of the influence also comes from the stories Jo’s mum told her when she was a little girl growing up in Bradford. Many of them she says have stuck and her writing style is heavily influenced either by her parents’ lives or photographs of ancestors. Especially the ones who lived during the Edwardian period or the ‘twenties and ‘thirties. While Jo doesn’t view those years with rose-tinted glasses, she does admire their elegance.

And she goes back in time every week to write about the ancestors she never met; it seems a cathartic way of getting to know them.

“I feel very privileged to be able to visit in a way. Most of my family have died and without wishing to sound morbid, it almost brings them back to life – and it keeps them alive. There’s nobody left to answer my questions and in a sense the only way I can find those answers is by doing the research, going back myself and trying to put it all together as a story. It’s almost like building a family history.”

Jo talks with pride about the Gathorne Street house in Great Horton, Bradford where her mother was born, and the one a few doors up that she later moved into. Both houses were dismantled and rebuilt in the city’s industrial museum. She is also fascinated by her family’s association with the mills and textile trade, so it comes as no surprise that social history is Jo’s great passion – and fabrics, as her doll’s house proves. The sofa, which she covered in moquette, and the anti-macassars would be instantly recognisable to her grandparents and the model is another way to keep her family history alive.

Jo calls herself a romantic novelist and cites the likes of Sidney Sheldon and Tess Gerritsen as her favourites. But she smiles at the suggestion that she is more Agatha Christie than Sheldon.

“Actually I visited her home last Easter and you’re quite right, to go through the rooms, to see the clothes and the style was fascinating and of course her characters have stood the test of time. Mine aren’t like hers, I don’t have a Poirot, but the time period and houses, the clothing and manners are definitely the same.

And Ms Christie would probably have been glad of another similarity; the army of ghost writers who every Sunday help to keep Jo on course as she navigates the unchartered waters of her next gripping chapter.