'If you'd already died five times, would you be scared to die again? If you lived six lives, what would you learn?
'One woman, six lives, five centuries. From Renaissance Italy and Amsterdam to revolutionary France and Russia, to Eastern Europe and finally Australia, Francesca is a woman of many times and places. Awaiting her final, natural death, 21st-century Francesca looks back on her previous lives with tough-minded clarity and humour, finding that there's always a price to pay for being her own woman. This novel in six novellas contemplates life, death, love, sex, gender, ageing, war and politics through a gallery of diverse characters deftly placed in a variety of historical settings. Francesca's lives and deaths will keep you reading till the end.' (Publication summary)
