She let me go and disappeared … without a backward glance. And I, I turned away, sick at heart, but not knowing … that I had said goodbye to her forever.

Now I wish, as much as I have ever wished for anything … that I had been able to cage those precious minutes within the nets of gold I could not recognise as such. And that I had been somehow able to prolong those minutes into years.

Nine years ago, at the age of fifty. Gillian Bouras’s sister, Jacqui, took her own life. Here Gillian explores what went so wrong in Jacqui’s life and why her family and friends could not save her. She examines their shared childhood and their growth to womanhood and independence, picking apart the different threads of their lives, seeking answers and solace.

No Time For Dances is a frank, heartfelt, lyrical and compelling examination of the nature of grief and mental illness. It is also the story of a warm, delightful and fragile woman who lived much of her life in mental pain.