Reeves recounts in loving detail the globe-hopping she embarks upon to chart a new path after the death of her husband. It is in these details-a perfect cappuccino at a cafe in Amsterdam, a moonrise in Mykonos-that she reveals how we carry on after loss-and take loss with us as we carry on.
-Sue William Silverman, author, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences
In gentle, gorgeous, and elegiac prose, Judy Reeves pulls the reader into a journey of quiet courage and insight that shines from her paragraphs in this memoir of midlife journey. Against a backdrop of foreign countries, her reverie on recovery-from alcohol, intimate losses, young widowhood-shows emergence in a woman who has spent the thirty years since then guiding others through reflection and self-inquiry. Reeves' contributions as a teacher of the writing life are known to thousands: this is her origin story.
-Christina Baldwin is the author, Life's Companion, Storycatcher, and other titles
As Judy Reeves goes lightly and quickly across Europe and India, her private grief for losing her husband sharply interrupts the journey. This diary-like memoir is haunted by his death and the nagging refrain that Reeves is unsure she's a writer while she journals her wonder, often in exquisite detail, at the undiscovered world. Her 'search for meaning and connection' is to find and let go of connection, to begin asserting her feminist self, and to finally own the necessity of being alone-a precis for the writing life that is and also awaits her.
-Thomas Larson, author of The Memoir and the Memoirist
In scenes of quiet brilliance, Judy Reeves crafts a dazzling memoir of a woman in search of herself after the death of her husband. As she travels around the world--Paris, Athens, Moscow, Bombay-- we discover the geography of her life, with its griefs, sensual joys, challenges, and dreams. This is Eat, Pray, Love for women who know that the greatest journey of all, is the one that points inwards. I savored every page.
-Mary Reynolds Thompson, author of A Wild Soul Woman and Reclaiming the Wild Soul
Never have I felt so carried off inside a dream with all the sensual details, encounters with fellow travelers and citizens of society than when reading When the Heart Says Go. Both a love story, and a tale of grief Judy writes with achingly provocative descriptions of her around-the-world trip, taking us along on her intimate journey to heal from a tragically lost love. I fell in love with every word, just as she fell in love with who she would become.
-Amy Wallen, author of How to Write a Novel in 20 Pies and When We Were Ghouls
There are many compelling travels in Judy Reeves's captivating memoir. She introduces us to people, places, trains, and moments that define her year of travel. More so, she takes us up close into her inner journey of grief, loneliness and deciding who she was going to be and how she was going to live her life after the death of her husband. Reeves's writing speaks to something universal about loss, longing, and the human spirit. While reading her story, I was drawn into myself-a sign that a gifted writer is leading the way.
-Lynda Monk, Director, International Association for Journal Writing, IAJW.org
Written in luscious poetic language by a master wordsmith this memoir is filled with exquisite sensory details, colorful settings, and interesting personalities she encounters along the way. I highly recommend it!
-Jill G. Hall, author of the Anne McFarland Series
Through eloquent and finely articulated details of her travels, painting images from words and hoping to insulate herself from the depth of heartbreak, Reeves realizes that no matter how many different landscapes she traverses, outer change is a futile substitution for inner healing and freedom from unbearable loss. When Your Heart Says Go captures the meandering lostness of losing one's beloved, and the compassionate joy which eventually emerges to hold it. Reeves's book is a reminder of the truth of life creating itself newly.
-Laura Basha, PhD, author of The Inward Outlook
Reeves shares from her heart as she processes the death of her soulmate, taking us along on an adventurous around-the-world journey. She writes deftly and poetically from exotic cities where she not only discovers herself again but ultimately her calling in life.
-Leslie Johansen Nack, author of Fourteen
What an inspirational journey! In her memoir When Your Heart Says Go, Judy Reeves's vivid descriptions take us with her as she encounters the places and people that help her open up and become a fuller person. Reeves's beautiful book is a testament to the power of writing as well as the human capacity for resilience.
-Sandra Marinella, author of The Story You Need to Tell
Go on a mind-expanding, heart-expanding journey with Judy Reeves as she recounts her worldwide journey of exploration after the death of her husband.
-Eric Maisel, author of The Coach's Way
