With her debut novel, THE WONDROUS LIFE AND LOVES OF NELLA CARTER, Brionni Nwosu presents a stunningly beautiful story about a woman who makes a deal with Death.

We meet Nella Carter in 1784 when she is 24 years old and on the verge of death. She is alone in the slave's cabin where she has been left to die of her illness. But Death is astounded that Nella can see him, recognizing him for what he is, and starts a conversation with him. When he tells her that she's going to a better place and that humans do nothing but spread pestilence throughout the land, she dares to disagree. Nella says that she has done nothing wrong. She tells him that there is beauty and love, family and good memories, and that those things make humans worthy of life. Coming from an enslaved person whose life is about to end, Death listens. He is entranced by her bravery, passion, intelligence and logic.

"The stories of each love and each life kept me riveted.... The themes are worthy of book club discussions and will have readers pondering Nella's choices long after the last page is turned."

Finally, Nella and Death come to an agreement. Nella will provide Death with proof of the good of humankind. She will write about it, and document instances of goodness and humanity. If she can prove that there are humans worthy of life, he will allow her to live and continue to fight for the continuance of mankind.

The story is told in third person each time Nella meets with Death, and the rest is in first person. After the prologue, where we learn of the agreement, the narrative moves to present-day Savannah, as Nella narrates. She meets Sebastian, a brilliant young man with whom she feels an immediate connection. In spite of Death's condition that she never disclose their agreement to anyone, for the first time in her long life, she tells someone her story.

Nella lives over 300 years, so to narrate the whole course of her life would entail volumes. Nwosu carefully shares those parts of Nella's life that involve important people to her, those with whom she has fallen in love or whom she loves. The book is divided into eight parts, not including the prologue. As in many great novels, the story circles around, as it begins and ends in Savannah. In between, Nella lives --- under different names --- in New Orleans, Paris, London, New York, Montgomery and Buenos Aires.

Of course, there are numerous other places where Nella visits and resides, but she tells Sebastian the essential parts of her life and the difficulty and pain of living for so long. As in many novels about immortals, the worst thing about a long life is outliving all of those one loves. Spouses, partners, children and friends grow old and die while the immortal person continues to live, unchanging and left alone. Nella is forced to move and change names to keep her secret as she never ages.

Nwosu doesn't dwell on the injustices that Nella endures because of her skin color, but neither does she gloss over the prejudice and discrimination that she faces. Nella is a writer, and early in her long life, she submits her essays under false names so that her gender won't keep her work from being published.

The stories of each love and each life kept me riveted. Nwosu's ability to provide rich detail about the settings and the time periods, and to convey the depth of the emotions Nella both feels and engenders in others, is striking. She also stretches our credulity when she posits that Nella and her earnest defense of life and love even manages to change Death. Readers are asked to consider all of the vile actions that mankind has engaged in: wars, torture, cruelty, greed. Are we worth saving, or would the world be better if --- as Death posits --- a plague wiped us from the face of the earth?

The themes are worthy of book club discussions and will have readers pondering Nella's choices long after the last page is turned. How do we survive losing those we love? Does loneliness kill? Do our connections with others make our lives worth living? There are many questions that arise from this brilliant novel, and I often found myself reading more slowly --- to savor Nella's lives and loves, and to ponder what it means to be human. But at the same time, because of the cadence and structure of the narrative, it is difficult to put down.

Nwosu considers the age-old question that we first encounter as children when we read TUCK EVERLASTING and asks: Would you want to live forever? This wondrous novel paints a picture of what that would entail, and the heartbreak --- and the joys --- that might result.