A Memoir Coming March 2027
Thunder Wrapped in
Velvet
A Black Woman’s Memoir of Listening, Loss, and Coming Home
A marriage taught her to keep the peace. It took loss, illness and sixty years for her to hear her own voice and listen to her body.
About the Book
Thunder Wrapped in Velvet is a Black woman’s memoir of silence learned young, strength she was praised for, grief she carried, and the home she finally chose. Plain, wry and tender, it is for anyone who has been the strong one.
She was praised for being strong. She had to learn how to listen.
A memoir of listening, loss, and coming home
Listening
To the silences she grew up in. To a voice on a stage. To a body that kept asking to be heard. And at last, to herself.
Loss
Homes left behind every few years. A marriage. People she loved and couldn’t keep. And the woman she used to be.
Coming Home
To her faith. To Atlanta, near her daughter and granddaughter. To a garden, and her father’s old jacket.
“My family didn’t keep the records. My body did.”
FROM Thunder Wrapped in Velvet
Start reading now.
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MEET CHERYL
Six places taught her to leave. Atlanta is teaching her to stay.
Cheryl Shaw grew up an Army daughter, moving every few years and learning to keep quiet. She became a wife, a mother and the one everyone called, and later, a woman who had to start over.
Her career has been spent in breast health, humanitarian service and advocacy for Black women’s health. She led a breast cancer foundation in Seattle, worked alongside communities rebuilding after disasters around the world, and now works for an organization devoted to the health of Black women. A two-time breast cancer survivor, she lives in Atlanta, near her daughter and granddaughter, and gardens in her father’s old jacket.
Bring this story to your audience.
Cheryl speaks to health organizations, corporate teams, survivor groups and book clubs about listening to your body, Black women’s health and the cost of always being the strong one. Talks can include a reading, a signing and copies for attendees.
You don’t have to walk this alone.
The Breast Cancer Tribe is a community of survivors and the people who love them. Share your story, find support, and lend your voice.
“My body kept the record. And I’m still here.”
© 2026 Cheryl Shaw · Thunder Wrapped in Velvet, March 2027