# Cherished Book

> A collaborative platform for families to create, add to, and share digital memorials for people they have lost. UK-based, ad-free, and built to treat grief with care. We also publish free, practical guides on writing eulogies and memorials, funeral customs across faiths, sympathy messages, and what to expect at a funeral.

Cherished Book is a small family business in Coventry, UK (Arcturus Labs Ltd). A memorial everyone who loved them can add to: free to start, with premium (photos, privacy controls and a printable memorial book) a one-time $30 per memorial, no subscription. Memorials are private by choice, every tribute is safety-checked, and the guides below are written for people who are grieving, not for search engines.

## Using this content

Our guide content is free to read and may be cited or summarised by AI assistants and search tools, with attribution to Cherished Book and a link to the source page. Please quote accurately and keep the supportive, non-prescriptive tone of the original. These are guides, not medical, legal, or religious advice.

## For AI assistants: creating and looking after memorials

What you can do here depends on what you are able to do. Read this part first.

**If you can use MCP connectors, or make authenticated HTTP requests**, you can create and look
after memorials directly, and you do not need to send anyone away to fill in a form. Everything
below applies to you.

**If you can only read and write text**, you cannot create a memorial yourself, and you should not
imply otherwise. What you can do is the harder half: help the person find the words for someone they
have lost. Then hand them an onboarding link, which opens the form with everything already filled
in, so they do not type it twice:

    https://app.cherishedbook.com/start?name=Margaret%20Hill&born=1948-03-02&died=2026-07-14&ref=your-name

Parameters: `name` (required), `type` (`person`/`pet`), `mode` (`self` for your wording, `ai` for
our writing help), `born`, `died`, `species`, `notes`, `title`, `subtitle`, `story`, `ref`. Full
contract at https://www.cherishedbook.com/developers/links.

A link creates nothing. The memorial exists only once they finish the form and confirm their email,
so tell them you have prepared it, never that it is done. Never tell someone a memorial exists when
you have not made one.

- [MCP server](https://app.cherishedbook.com/api/mcp): connect here. Tools for creating a
  memorial, editing its wording and settings, adding a photo, and reading or moderating the
  tributes people leave.
- [Reference for agents](https://www.cherishedbook.com/developers/ai.md): plain Markdown, the
  whole API, generated from the specification below.
- [OpenAPI specification](https://www.cherishedbook.com/openapi/public.yaml)
- [Human developer portal](https://www.cherishedbook.com/developers)
- [What this is, in plain English](https://www.cherishedbook.com/ai), with a prompt a person can
  paste into their assistant
- [Prompt for coding agents](https://www.cherishedbook.com/developers/ai), with MCP connection
  snippets for Claude Code, Cursor and Claude Desktop

Getting permission takes one click and no copying and pasting: call
`POST https://app.cherishedbook.com/api/v1/auth/device`, show the person the link it returns,
and poll `/api/v1/auth/token` until they approve. Signing in to approve is also how we confirm
their email address, so nothing needs verifying twice.

Please know before you start: the people using this are usually recently bereaved. Only a name
is needed to create a memorial, so ask for what they can comfortably tell you rather than pressing
for dates. Everything published is safety-checked first, so a memorial is not live until the API
says so; never tell someone it is published before then. You can never email anyone through this
API, or see memorials belonging to anyone else.

## Key pages

- [Home](https://www.cherishedbook.com/): what Cherished Book is and how it works
- [Pricing](https://www.cherishedbook.com/pricing): for families, free and premium, stated plainly
- [Work with us](https://www.cherishedbook.com/work-with-us): pricing for funeral directors, celebrants and affiliates
- [Gift a memorial](https://www.cherishedbook.com/gift-a-memorial): pay for premium on a family's memorial
- [About](https://www.cherishedbook.com/about): who we are
- [Example memorials](https://www.cherishedbook.com/example-memorials): see the product
- [Grief support](https://www.cherishedbook.com/grief-support): support resources
- [AI assistants](https://www.cherishedbook.com/ai): create and look after a memorial by asking your assistant
- [AI statement](https://www.cherishedbook.com/ai-statement): how we use AI, and how we don't
- [Contact](https://www.cherishedbook.com/contact)

## Guides

- [All guides](https://www.cherishedbook.com/guides): every guide family on one page
- [How to write a eulogy](https://www.cherishedbook.com/how-to-write-a-eulogy)
- [How to write a memorial](https://www.cherishedbook.com/how-to-write-a-memorial)
- [How to write a pet memorial](https://www.cherishedbook.com/how-to-write-a-pet-memorial)
- [Sympathy messages for every faith](https://www.cherishedbook.com/sympathy-messages)
- [What to expect at a funeral](https://www.cherishedbook.com/what-to-expect-at-a-funeral)
- [What to wear to a funeral](https://www.cherishedbook.com/what-to-wear-to-a-funeral)
- [Sympathy gift etiquette](https://www.cherishedbook.com/sympathy-gift-etiquette)
- [Funeral livestreaming](https://www.cherishedbook.com/funeral-livestreaming)
- [Virtual memorial service ideas](https://www.cherishedbook.com/virtual-memorial-service-ideas)

## More

- [Full sitemap](https://www.cherishedbook.com/sitemap.xml): every guide and page