Claudia Hampton--beautiful, famous, independent--is dying. As memories crowd in, Claudia recreates the richly patterned mosaic of her life and times, from childhood just after the First World War to the present day. But as Claudia discovers, her story is enmeshed with the stories of others, and they too must speak: Gordon, her brother and adored adversary; Jasper, charming, untrustworthy lover and father of Lisa, her cool, conventional daughter--and, at the centre of Claudia's life--Tom, her one great love, both found and lost in wartime Egypt.

PENELOPE LIVELY is the author of more than twenty books of fiction and non-fiction, including Moon Tiger, which won the Booker Prize in 1987; The Road to Lichfield and According to Mark, which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize; A Stitch in Time, which won the Whitbread Award; and most recently Consequences, which was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her work has been widely translated. She is a companion of the British Empire, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, PEN, and the Society of Authors. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Lively moved to England at the age of twelve, and now lives in London.

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