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 blown up and run over. Ruby charges forth through the rubble of coincidence and time, determine to illuminate the darkest corners of history, from the calamities of two world wars to the forked fates of three lost buttons. Along the way, she must confront those who would rather suppress, deflect, and deny this story: those with things to hide, including herself.