When you have decided that your time is at an end, and that it will come by your own hand, the countdown to the final event is when your deepest regret will come for you, and hard.

Yet for Henry, almost 500 years old, the newfound purpose of living to die has finally given him clarity. Life without the promise of death is meaningless and cyclical. The only thing left that scares him now is dying without explaining his actions, without saying he’s sorry for what he has done.

He uses his last days to set pen to paper, to gather his journals and accounts. His focus is finally clear, death has given him the impetus required to face his greatest shame before it is too late. He will tell his story, and be what may, he will have a clean conscience when the time comes to die.

The hope is to seek forgiveness from the son he shamelessly abandoned only days after the birth. Even if it is only words and memories that he offers, it is surely better than nothing. Yet what he creates is not just a recounting of secret history, it is also an honest explanation, a confession, of his darkest deeds and gravest sins; it is a parable that he hopes his own flesh and blood can learn from and hopefully not repeat the same mistakes.

The entries range from early sixteenth century to the present day; from setting the dinner table for evening meal on Good Friday 1532, to sailing across the Atlantic Ocean in 1814, onward to the war with the USA; from scaling the tower of Pope Clement VII, to eating gingerbread in the company of three extremely bizarre sisters and a very greedy young Germanic girl named Gretel.

We travel with Henry as he transforms from an innocent child into what he must become in order to survive the trials placed in his path. As those closest to him die, Henry turns away from love, allowing anger to fill the void. Rage becomes the fuel that stokes his fire. And he uses this inferno to numb the pain of loss. Before long we have a man with a good heart that does terrible things, and all in the name of revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge.