How to Start a Home-Based Etsy Business by Gina Luker

     How to Start a Home-Based Etsy Business by Gina Luker has a lot of good advice starting with your reasons for starting a craft business and how to set it up in a manner that will be exactly what you want and still satisfy the IRS.
     The author mentions hidden costs, things you might be inclined to throw in, "It only takes a minute...", and how to see which items might be the most profitable. It tells how to determine a reasonable price for your crafts and how to work on promoting your Etsy shop.
     If you have an Etsy shop already, you will learn some new tricks. If you are thinking of starting one, read this first so that you don't make beginner's errors.

Kathi Linz

The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand

Every summer, I look forward to a new installment from Elin Hilderbrand. Her books have the island of Nantucket as the setting.  The Matchmaker did not disappoint.

Dabney Kimball Beech is a 48 year-old woman who has lived her entire life on Nantucket.  She is the  highly successful President of the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce.  Dabney also has a special vision for figuring out who would be compatible as a couple.  She has matched over forty-two couples on Nantucket.   Dabney has a "gift for love, the way one has an eye for color."   Dabney's husband is John Boxmiller Beech, an economics professor at Harvard and an economics specialist to the President of the United States.  Dabney affectionately refers to him as "Box."   Box commutes to Harvard on Sunday evening and he returns to Nantucket for the weekend.

Dabney's high school sweetheart, Clendenin Hughes returns to Nantucket after twenty-seven years.  Hughes left the U.S. after graduating from college to pursue his lifetime goal to be an internationally renown journalist in the Pacific Rim.  Clendenin returns to Nantucket hoping to renew his relationship with Dabney even though he knows that Dabney is a married woman. 

To complicate things even further, Dabney's daughter, Agnes returns to Nantucket for the summer because her job as a Boys & Girls Club Director is phased-out due to the Club temporarily closing during the summer.  Agnes brings her much-older fiance' CJ, who is a sports representative for professional athletes.  Upon meeting CJ, Dabney immediately knows that CJ is not the "right one" for Agnes.

Kim

Tabula Rasa by Kristen Lippert-Martin

Tabula Rasa by
Kristen Lippert-Martin

I was given an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I wasn't sure about this book when I started reading. But when I found myself thinking about it when I WASN'T reading I knew that something in this story resonated with me. Isn't that the mark of a good story? It's a super charged, super fast, stand alone read! Did you hear that? IT'S NOT A TRILOGY!!! Thank you! However, fans of trilogies Maze Runner and Hunger Games and Divergent would probably like this strong heroine.

Lola

Escaped With Honor by Charles Layton

Escaped With Honor by Charles Layton

What I loved about this book wasn't the writing or even the story itself. What I loved was the heart behind the story. I read a lot of woe is me books by people who blame their current life on their past. This is NOT that book. Yes, Layton's childhood was heartbreaking, his time in Korea tragic, and his search for love and belonging touching but it's his continual hope and refusal to wallow in self pity that reached me the most.

In his own words, "looking back, I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I assumed I could deal with the experiences in my life - and the consequences - on my own. I thought I was strong enough to hold it all in and not burden others with my past. However, as I have made new friends - people of faith that I have learned to trust - they have encouraged me to tell my story. Through the pledge I made in the Hooch to use my life to care and do good for others, I am now surrounded by friends who have helped me to examine my life from a new and beautiful perspective. I know that I did not make this pledge to myself sixty years ago because of where I was, but because of who I am.

Lola

The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun

Adam Braun spent one college semester studying and traveling around the world with a program called Semester at Sea. He determined to ask one child at every port-of-call, "If you could have anything in the world, what would you ask for?" One child said, "To dance." Another said, "A book." But the child who made the biggest impact said, "A pencil."

Adam understood that what the child really wanted was a chance to go to school and learn. He determined to start a "for-purpose" organization that would help build schools in the poorest places on earth. He called it Pencils of Promise. At last count, they had over 200 schools and are breaking ground on a new one every 90 hours. He added a section to his website called "The Impossible Ones" for youth and adults who are doing extraordinary things to raise funds to help build schools on three continents.

This story is worth reading if you have a heart for helping people in under-served parts of the world.

Kathi Linz