WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE WORST HAPPENS?
Colors of Goodbye, an April Release from Tyndale
Momentum, Receives “Starred” Review from PW
Carol Stream, Ill. – Colors of Goodbye (Tyndale Momentum/April 6, 2016/$15.99/SC/978-1-4964-
Before May 31, 2008, September Vaudrey’s life was beautiful. But on that day, with one phone call from the ER, her whole world―everything she knew and believed―was shaken to the core. Katie, her 19-year-old artist daughter, had been in a car accident and would not survive. How does a family live in the wake of devastating tragedy? When darkness colors every moment, is it possible to find light? Can God still be good, even after goodbye?
With the depth of C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed and the poignancy of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Colors of Goodbye offers a moving glimpse into a mother’s heart. Combining literary narrative and raw reflection, Vaudrey walks through one of life’s worst losses―the death of a child―and slowly becomes open to watching for the unexpected ways God carries her through it. It’s a story of love and tragedy in tandem; a deeply personal memoir from a life forever changed by one empty place. And at its core, Colors of Goodbye calls to the deepest part of our spirits to know that death is not the end . . . and that life can be beautiful still.
Wrote Publishers Weekly:
On May 31, 2008, Vaudrey’s 19-year-old daughter Katie was in a fatal car accident. She was home on summer break from Azusa Pacific, where she was studying art, and that particular day she was running late for her waitressing job. Vaudrey and her husband, a pastor at Chicago-area megachurch Willow Creek, rushed to the hospital to find Katie in a coma with a broken neck and severe intracerebral hemorrhaging. Was her accident the result of sloppy teenage driving, or—as Vaudrey saw in a vision—had Katie already been unconscious at the time of the crash from a burst aneurysm? With Katie brain-dead, their large, close-knit family had just 24 hours to say goodbye. This moving debut memoir, richly illustrated with Katie’s own artwork, interweaves medical detail, flashbacks to Katie’s childhood, convincing reconstructions of dialogue, and a brave rendering of the two years following her death. The content is lovingly arranged under color headings and inspirational epigraphs. Grief was often nearly overwhelming, but the whole “horrid-beautiful” time drew Vaudrey closer to God. “Don’t put it off. Don’t avoid. Lean into the pain,” she kept reminding herself. Exquisitely balanced between sadness and joy, this sensitive account of a mother’s loss will leave ripples. Agent: Christopher Ferebee, Christopher Ferebee Agency. (Apr.)
September and her husband, Scott, have been married for thirty-two years and have five grown children and two grandchildren—and counting. Scott and September live just outside of Chicago. September grew up on an old dairy farm in Issaquah, Washington, is writer/curriculum developer in the pastoral response department at Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Ill., where she also teaches in workshops on parenting, grief/loss, and marital restoration.
More information about Tyndale Momentum is available at: http://tyndalemomentum.com/
Tyndale House Publishers, founded in 1962, is the world’s largest privately-held Christian publishers of books, Bibles and digital media. Tyndale Momentum, Tyndale’s non-fiction imprint, is the publisher of many New York Times bestsellers such as Quiet Strength andUncommon by Tony Dungy, The Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef, and Winning Balance by Shawn Johnson. The largest portion of its profit goes to the nonprofit Tyndale House Foundation, which makes grants to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of people around the world. Tyndale was founded to publish Living Letters, which later comprised part of The Living Bible, a contemporary paraphrase of the Bible that became a global publishing phenomenon. Tyndale now publishes the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), the translation of choice for millions of people.
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