Friends,

We're over 70% funded! Why is that such a big deal? Because all of the Unbound books that have made it to 70% have gone on to be fully funded. Yes, there is still a way to go but this feels like a massive leap forward. I have to admit to having a confidence wobble in the mid-60s because I wasn't sure where the remaining supporters were going to come from. But after a pep talk with John, Aliya and Suze, the fantastic team at Unbound who are working with me, I took a deep breath, stopped panicking and realised I just had to trust the process. And what is really wonderful is that there are new supporters coming on board all the time. So if that is you, hello, welcome and many, many thanks.

Loads of you have been helping me spread the word which is just brilliant. I was trying to work out if I could do that thing that lots of online businesses/shops do... you know, where you recommend a friend and both the person recommending and the friend get some kind of benefit (like a discount on the next purchase). Unfortunately, it isn't practical to do this for my book because the system isn't set up for it. That said, if half of you guys could persaude one other person to support the book, we'd be over the finish line. If you fancied sharing the link with the excerpt with your friends and family, that would be amazing. There might not be an extra financial incentive in it but you'd have my undying gratitude :-)

https://unbound.com/books/love-lay-down-beside-me-and-we-wept/excerpt

Meanwhile, for no good reason other than to make you smile, here is a picture of one of my writing companions proving that he is triple-jointed. (I've been doing 30 Days of Yoga with Adrienne on Youtube to increase my flexibility and my terrible hunched-over-the-computer writer's posture but I can only dream of being able to contort myself like this).

Until next time

Helen xx