Elizabeth Murray has been condemned to burn at the stake when a strange man visits her. He offers her a deal: her soul in return for immortality. What he offers is not a normal life. To survive, Elizabeth must become Death. Elizabeth must ease the passing of all those who die, using her compassion to guide them.
She accepts and, for 500 years, whirls from one death to the next. Until one day, everything changes. She — Death — falls in love. Desperate to escape from her deal, she summons the man who saved her. He agrees to release her with the condition that she gives him five lives. These five lives she must take herself.