Ruby Lennox is conceived to the twelve strokes of her great-grandmother's clock. Born in her father's absense (he's courting a stranger at the Dog and Hare), she is delivered under the new reign of Queen Elizabeth II by an angry doctor late for dinner. Beginning as a cluster of cells in her mother's womb, Ruby narrates the epic tale of her life and all the lives that led to it. Many end in death, as lives tend to - her family has a knack for getting...

Ruby Lennox is conceived to the twelve strokes of her great-grandmother's clock. Born in her father's absense (he's courting a stranger at the Dog and Hare), she is delivered under the new reign of Queen Elizabeth II by an angry doctor late for dinner. Beginning as a cluster of cells in her mother's womb, Ruby narrates the epic tale of her life and all the lives that led to it. Many end in death, as lives tend to - her family has a knack for getting...