Shirley Melisis a longtime business writer, travel writer, and newspaper columnist who traveled the world interviewing everyone from busboys to heads of international organizations before launching a career in public relations in Washington, D.C.

When her husband of thirty years dies suddenly, Shirley is convinced she will never find another man like Joe. Then she meets John, a younger man who tells her during their first conversation that he has lived for many years with a rare but manageable cancer. She is swept off her feet in a whirlwind courtship, and within months, made brave by the early death of a friend's husband, she asks him to marry her! What follows is a year-long odyssey of travel and a growing erotic and creative partnership, until a mysterious bump on John's forehead proves to be one of several tumors in his brain and spine. The nine months that follow are filled with a life-threatening infection, three brain surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. Two years and one week after their wedding, John dies at the age of fifty-nine.

Banged-Up Heart - Dancing with Love and Loss, is an intimate and clear-eyed account of finding love late and losing it early, and of the strength it takes to fall madly in love a second time, be forced to relinquish that love too soon, and yet choose to love again.

Join Shirley Melis and me on Tuesday, August 15, 10-11 A.M. CT US as we discuss her memoir and how passion ignites, romance fuels, and love sustains.