Now is Not the Time for Flowers: What No One Tells You About Life, Love and Loss

by Stacey Heale

AS SEEN ON LORRAINE AND FEATURED IN THE TIMES

'Stacey Heale ... has such a muscular take on grief, and her ideas around how we live with profound loss are truly original.' Clover Stroud

When Stacey Heale's husband, Greg, was diagnosed with incurable cancer on their daughter's first birthday, everything changed. She quickly realised how little is spoken about what the harder times in our lives really look like, leaving us lost to navigate the unknown alone.

Confronted with a new life she was not prepared for, Stacey began to untangle the brutal realities of life and death - and the fundamental differences between our expectations and reality.


Now is Not the Time for Flowers is Stacey's unflinchingly beautiful and raw memoir that addresses the big conversations that imminent death dictates, boldly taking the reader on a journey through the full spectrum of our lives and their complexities. Told through vignettes of her own life and the death of her husband, Stacey offers a movingly honest, insightful and humorous account of modern womanhood through the lenses of love, desire, motherhood, death, grief, identity, personal growth and the challenges and questions that our lives force upon us.


Now is Not the Time for Flowers is a powerful call to arms for us to discuss the messy and unexpected truths of our nuanced lives.


'To tell the explicit truths of lives is critical; to refrain from doing so keeps us lonely and isolated. Women are shamed for their emotional natures and their desire to talk so much, so we've shut down these avenues between us. ... To be honest is to show care, for ourselves and others. There is integrity in truth; it is freeing even when it's painful and hard. Sometimes it can land like a blow to the head, but its ripples are in no way as far-reaching as secrets.'

Genres: Nonfiction

297 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 28, 2024

Reviews

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve followed Stacey for about 3 years on Instagram. I remember reading her post for The Mother of All Lists, ‘What I’m thinking as my husband dies’ and feeling absolutely devastated for her. I also felt fearful: my Mum had had cancer for a long time and I couldn’t stop crying reading the blog. So obviously 3 years later, in the grief trenches, I had to buy this book.
Now Is Not the Time For Flowers made me SOB but it was also funny, beautiful, so real and honest. We are approaching the 1 year anniversary of Mum’s death in a hospice and some of this was so familiar and devastating to me - but I also found myself nodding and underlining. Yes, that’s what it felt like. Even though I was the child of a dying loved one and not their partner, this was one of the first times I felt actually seen in it.
Seeing someone you love die is the worst thing I have ever experienced. But this book was a light, like someone holding my hand - totally honest and real but hopeful and fizzing with life.

“We will all need to understand and accept grief doesn’t have one set path because if we are lucky and live a long life, we will grieve many different people we love. Each individual grief will expand and change with each new loss, as our hearts do with each new love.” ❤️

[Abi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very poignant themes which were at times, very emotional. I did also enjoy reading the point of view of ghe carer. However, I felt like the way in which the book was grouped into sections made it confusing and difficult to read at times, meaning that I lost sight of the emotional response the author was trying to provoke because I either couldn’t remember what had happened or felt like I’d already read this part of the story before.

[Jenny Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so beautifully written. Having followed the author for a while, I knew she'd write well on grief and loss; I hadn't anticipated gaining so much from her writing on growth and identity. I know I'll come back to this book time and time again

[J.M. McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started following the author on Instagram around the time that the tragic story of Deborah James brought bowel cancer into the forefront of all our thoughts. Ms Heale’s husband, Greg Gilbert (lead singer in the band The Delays), was also dying from the disease. An attractive, talented and creative young couple in their 40s, parents to two small daughters dealing with a situation they could never have imagined. I followed their story and found her social media posts to be refreshingly honest and moving. When she published a book about her experiences of death and dying in the context of family life, relationships and parenting, I felt compelled to read it.

Ms Heale is a fashion lecturer and a talented writer. She is open about the fact that she struggles with ADHD and anxiety. Life has thrown her more challenges than any young mother should have to bear, but she powers through them with fortitude, determination and humour. She doesn’t take herself too seriously and is not afraid to acknowledge and examine her flaws. She is witty and funny and brutally honest about everything she has gone and is still going through. Of course I don’t know her, but after reading this book I feel as if I do – a little at least. I sincerely hope better times come her way again. She more than deserves them.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I savoured this book, because what Stacey says about relationships, marriage, grief, dying, death (and almost certainly parenting, but I don't know firsthand) is so important, so resonant for me, and really worth contemplating over time. Stacey's husband, Greg Gilbert (frontman of the band The Delays), was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016, on his second daughter's first birthday, and died from it in 2021 at age 44, leaving behind Stacey and their two young daughters, Dalí and Bay. I've followed Stacey on Instagram for years and am so impressed with her writing, her insight, her willingness to access and explore emotional complexity, her thoughts on memory and the tricks it plays, and how she writes about her personal life in a way that makes it so relatable, even if your life isn't the same. The book focuses on Greg's diagnosis and how he died, but also on his life before cancer, and her life apart from his, and their life together as a couple and as parents, and her life since -- and she harmonises it all with such apparent fluency, so seamlessly. Her descriptions of incredibly difficult, layered, and ineffable emotions, ideas, and events are extraordinarily clear and complete.

[L Powers (Bookish_Mum) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now Is Not The Time For Flowers by Heale
Rating:5/5
Release Date: 28 March 2024

"Now is Not the Time for Flowers" is a poignant and candid memoir by writer Stacey Heale. Triggered by the death of her husband, Greg, Stacey delves into the multifaceted experiences of women. Through the lens of her own life, she navigates the intricate and often messy realities of love, desire, motherhood, death, and grief, along with the profound challenges and questions that arise from our nuanced lives.

This book captivated me despite stirring emotions I'd prefer to keep buried away. It articulates truths and presents perspectives that I believe will be profoundly meaningful for others to explore.

Stacey's writing possesses a magical, funny, bright, and unusual charm. Her perspective on life, including the profound subject of death, is refreshingly brave, raw, and honest. Having recently lost my father to the side effects of cancer, I found this book deeply resonant and, in a strange way, comforting. It provided a sense of solace that I haven't been able to find elsewhere.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Bonnier Books UK | Lagom, and the author, Stacey Heale, for providing me with an ARC copy in exchange for an honest and fair review.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. Loved it even though it stirred stuff in me that I'd rather leave shut in the deepest drawer of my mind.
Stacey's writing is magical and funny and bright and quirky. Her way to see life - and importantly, Death - is brave and honest. I found her on Instagram when my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2021 and been a fan ever since. Her posts and now her book have helped me during the darkest of times.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part memoir, part musing on love, life, death, grief, this is rather hard to categorise. I hadn't heard of this family, but the husband who died was a somewhat famous musician, so it's also partly a celebrity biography. But mainly a gutsy no holds barred honest account of what it was like for this woman to lose her partner. As someone who's been in that position this year, it was refreshing to read something that was so 'real' and raw and believable.

[Dudley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a heartbreakingly honest and beautifully written book. Please read! Stacey is true to her emotions and converses with such openness you will look at life, love, death with a fresh perspective

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stacey Heale writes openly about living with her husband and young family after his diagnosis of terminal cancer and the grief that follows.
An account that will resonate with the reader whatever their personal life experiences.

[Leonie Youngberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautifully written.

[Csilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about so much more than just grief. Written beautifully and thought-provoking.

[Jessica]

The conversational tone and approach to writing doesn't suit the way my thoughts are ordered, and the way I understand information. The use of humour isn't something I understood.

[Nicolarowlands · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest, smart, endearing, clever, sharp, funny, beautiful and so refreshing. Really enjoyed.

[Francine Chu · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that nobody should have to write; I wish Stacey and her two daughters peace.

[Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of my top books of the year, her writing absolutely floored me

[Dawn Elizabeth Laidlaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautiful book to read

[Diane Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm admittedly quite biased for several reasons but I think this book is just beautiful. It's raw and heartbreaking and is such vulnerably and generously honest writing from Stacey.
It speaks truths and offers perspectives that I am sure are going to be so important for other people to read.