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

'The authentically inspiring hope Stacey's beautiful writing offers, is mined at the coalface of grief and survival. She shines much-needed light into dark spaces.' Donna Ashworth

'This is not just a book about surviving the unimaginable; it's a book about finding beauty in the wreckage and living fiercely in the shadow of loss. Stacey writes with such searing clarity that you'll feel as though she's sitting across from you, holding your hand, and telling you the truths you didn't know you needed to hear.' Bryony Gordon

'Heartbreaking, hopeful, and beautifully honest, Now is Not the Time for Flowers is a story of grief but ultimately, love. Stacey's words will wrap around you like a warm hug on the hardest days and remind you that even in the darkest moments, there's light to be found.' Giovanna Fletcher

'A truly raw and beautiful read. Whether you've been through grief or not, Stacey's writing is funny, poignant and immensely helpful.' Cariad Lloyd

When Stacey Heale's husband, Greg, was diagnosed with incurable cancer on their daughter's first birthday, it felt like her life as she knew it was drawn to a halt.

Confronted with the end of her relationship and her family as she knew it, Stacey started contemplating the realities of life and death - and the fundamental differences between our expectation and reality.
Now is Not the Time for Flowers is Stacey's unflinchingly beautiful and honest memoir that addresses the big conversations that imminent death dictates, boldly taking the reader on a journey through the full spectrum of our modern lives and its complexities. Told through the lens of her own life and the death of her husband, Stacey examines the messy and unexpected realities of love, desire, motherhood, death, grief, identity, personal growth and the challenges and questions that our nuanced lives force upon us.

Now is Not the Time for Flowers is a powerful call to arms and a new way of looking at life, love and loss.

'Raw. Powerful. And, it's confusing, but apparently a book about grief and parenthood and finitude can also be funny. Stacey Heale is telling us the truth about love and loss.' Kate Bowler

'Stacey has had the courage to stare, unflinchingly, down the barrel of her own grief and in doing so has written a book about the one thing no one wants to talk about, but that we all must.' Jo Elvin

'Stacey Heale knows feelings. And boy, can she write about them.' Dr Jennifer Cox, author of Women Are Angry

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

Stacey Heale is a writer, speaker, curator, fashion academic and campaigner who is inspiring radically honest discussions on the lived experience of women, focusing on the realities of difficult times and how to rebuild your life from the ground up. Her academic research centres around the use of creativity to process trauma and the concept of the teenage bedroom as a site for identity construction. Stacey's 2018 TED talk focused on post-traumatic growth and the power of social media during a personal crisis. In November 2016, her husband, Delays lead singer Greg Gilbert, was diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer and died in 2021. In that time, she has campaigned for lowering the age of bowel cancer screening in the UK, research into treatments for stage IV cancer patients, access to unfunded drugs on the NHS and the financial rights of widows.

Stacey lives on the south coast of England with her two daughters and their blind toy poodle Milk.