"I HAD been disabled for years, ever since the strokes. One day about three years ago I sensed the wafting odour of death unfolding about me. I went back to the neurologists. They said, 'too late, it's just a matter of time. One year, maybe two, you certainly won't have three'." (excerpt from Love in Shades of Grey).

Wellington author Glynne MacLean says her latest book, Love in Shades of Grey,is about not dying. The idea sprung from observing her uncle who was diagnosed with cancer and given three months to live. Years later the hospital where he was an outpatient affectionately called him "the noxious weed," something he was very proud of.

"He said nobody can judge how much time you've got," says MacLean. The book's central character Claire, is told she has three years to live, at the same time as she is commissioned to write an opera.

"Claire then decides to set aside her own values because she won't have to live with them. She [later] has to come to terms with the fact that she may have a future."