The Cocoon Within was awarded the Readers Choice award from the Open Book Awards in October 2025! And I am so grateful to have received this award for my debut fantasy adventure book. It just underlines the fact that you should just go for it! It being whatever it is that you're passionate about... enter that competition, try your hand at something new, start that side hustle or business venture, no matter how small. It's the small things that really do matter, because consistency over time, accumulates and those small things become bigger things, sometimes than you even dared to imagine. And believe that you can and you will, doubt the doubters and the ones that say to you "no! do it this way or that way." surround yourself with encouragers, positive people, the ones that bring the good energy, the ones that won't try to "rain on your parade." So in the words of Nike... "Just do it!" Write that book, take the trip, start that community group or creative idea that you keep putting off. Live to your fullest, have no regrets...

On that note I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year too!! Love & blessings Liisa Sabah author of The Cocoon Within