(NewsUSA) -  

“Ruin: A Novel of Flyfishing in Bankruptcy”
by  Leigh Seippel       

A thoroughly engrossing novel about a young couple’s struggle to come back from financial catastrophe. Having fled their urban life, they begin to build a new life together in a rural setting, only to have it fall apart all over again in ways that could never be predicted.  

Former hedge fund owner Frank Campbell has gone bankrupt and lost the entire inherited fortune of his artist wife. The couple takes refuge in an abandoned Hudson Valley farm shared with a resident herd of congenial goats.  

Frank tries to build a new business, but it is not the answer. Only when he turns to flyfishing, traveling the world in search of the ever more perfect and elusive trout (and one memorable carp), does he find his way forward.  

Purchase at https://amzn.to/3zncGJK.

“KGB Banker”
by William McCormick and John Christmas  

A pulse-pounding international thriller spanning the globe. A return trip to the land of his ancestors is about to turn deadly for one whistleblowing Chicago banker.  

When financial executive Bob Vanags takes a job at  the ominous Turaida Bank in Latvia, he hopes to learn of his heritage and to fight economic fraud in Eastern Europe. Instead, Bob finds himself pulled into a world of political intrigue, blackmail and murder.    

Aided by his son David, his beautiful colleague Agnese and a fearless Latvian journalist named Santa Ezeriņa, Bob begins to unravel his employer’s darkest secrets, discovering their sins and conspiracies beyond his wildest fears. Secrets that Turaida wants to keep hidden, even at the cost of Bob’s life.

Purchase at https://amzn.to/3MLchUz.

“Double Exposure”
by Jeanee Sacken  

It’s November 2015. Seasoned war photojournalist Annie Hawkins returns home after an assignment to find her life falling apart. She’s under investigation for an incident that happened six months earlier in Afghanistan. Her best friend’s daughter is still missing, apparently with her Taliban boyfriend. Her daughter and friends are fundraising to rebuild the Wad Qol Secondary School for Girls and expect Annie to deliver the money.  

When Annie returns to Afghanistan to cover peace talks between the government and the Taliban, she goes to Wad Qol, where she discovers that not everyone wants the new school. Sabotage delays construction, and when a worker ends up dead, it’s clear the militants are to blame. It’s also obvious that they know exactly where Annie is.

Purchase at https://amzn.to/3M8n5fn.

“Mirth”
by Kathleen George  

“You cannot fail to fall in love with Harrison Mirth.”  

“Mirth” chronicles the struggles of a writer, Harrison Mirth, a romantic man who writes about love and tries to find it through three marriages, in three cities, and always with renewable hope. Amanda is first -- New York City and youth. Maggie is second and spans the middle-age years -- Upstate New York. Liz, the third, from Pittsburgh and the senior years, sees him as a man sheltering a secret lake of sadness, but somehow always upbeat, cheerful, a willful optimist, forever innocent. To her, that is irresistible.  

Margot Livesey, author of “The Boy in The Field,” calls the book “a dazzling portrait of a man who lives up to his name, and of those who love him. A wonderful novel.”

Purchase at .

NOTE: BookTrib’s Bites is presented by Booktrib.com.

(TVA) - As food costs continue to rise, many people are seeking creative solutions to stretch their dollars and reduce wasted food. Buying and cooking food in bulk helps save money, as well as time and resources. However, frugal shoppers then face the challenge of how to safely store their bounty for future meals.     

And … what about leftovers? Even the best storage bags and containers, when sealed properly, lock in damaging oxygen which can cause mold, oxidation and bacteria to set in.     

The right storage solutions can help extend the shelf life of everyday food and other products at home. MAP (Modified Atmosphere Packaging) is a patented system designed to help consumers keep food safely for longer periods by using nitrogen to maintain freshness and deter spoilage. This technology has been used by food processors and packers since the 1930s and is now available to the general public. Fruits, vegetables, cheese and meats stay fresher.     

“Using MAP, the bad air inside packaged products is exchanged and replaced by good air,” says MAPWARE creator Gary Growden.     

"Natural Preserve is simply highly filtered air, leaving 100% safe, natural, organic, inert nitrogen,” he explains.     

The MAPWARE natural storage system allows consumers to use MAP safely and effectively right at home. With MAPWARE, oxygen inside the container is reduced or eliminated, thereby lowering the chances of bacteria and oxidation setting in that can cause food to spoil.     

Here’s how it works: Place food in a MAPWARE container, seal with the locking lid, and use a specialized canister of their foodgrade nitrogen to flush out the bad air, leaving food sealed similar to the way it came from the store.     

The products in the MAPWARE line include specialized canisters of nitrogen and the MAPWARE series of bowls with lids, available in a range of sizes. In addition, the Zip and Zap bags are MAP-compliant zipper bags that can fit easily in the freezer, fridge or pantry and are perfect for meats, cookies, breads, fruits and vegetables, snacks and any other cooked or uncooked foods. Other MAPWARE products include specialized clips and caps that can be attached to bags of store-bought products, such as bread and buns.     

The MAPWARE products help prevent food waste and save money, so they benefit your wallet as well as the environment.     

MAPWARE’s Gary Growden  received the “Inventors Recognition Award” for the “Most Innovative and Best New Invention” by the International Housewares Association.       

The MAPWARE products are completely recyclable, reusable and renewable.     

Visit Mymapware.com for more information.

(NewsUSA) - Every family’s financial situation is unique, with different challenges, opportunities and cultural considerations affecting their decisions about money. For some -- particularly families who have immigrated from Latin America, where financial services are less regulated than in the United States -- a mistrust of financial institutions may also influence decision-making.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Latino households are five times less likely than white ones to have a banking relationship. Other research has found that financial challenges facing the Latino community range from higher debt and lower household wealth to less awareness of, or access to, diverse financial products.

Although this can make planning for your family’s future seem complicated and overwhelming, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM professional has the education and experience to help you make sense of your financial options and chart a path to reach your short- and long-term goals. CFP® professionals also make a commitment to the CFP Board to act as a fiduciary when providing financial advice to clients, which means they have agreed to put their clients’ best interests first.

Here are three tips for building trust and making the most of a partnership with a CFP® professional:

1. Look for a CFP® professional with international expertise. If your family members don’t live near you, estate planning can be challenging, so make sure you prioritize that with your planner. Cross-border issues need to be taken into consideration to minimize financial consequences. Make sure you ask your financial planner to give examples of how they’ve dealt with similar client issues in the past.

2. Include your family in the planning process. If your focus is on taking care of your family as a unit -- or you rely on your closest relatives for advice -- it may be smart to involve your partner, parents and children in your financial plan. This enables you to work together as a family to align your financial plan with the family’s well-being. It can also accelerate relationship-building with your financial planner as they learn about your values, culture and unique traditions.

3. Make sure your financial plan covers your needs. Most plans include cash flow planning, retirement, education, taxes and estate planning. Including plans for establishing credit, debt management and asset protection is also important. Don’t be afraid to ask your planner questions about financial structures and products that you’re not familiar with, or have them explain the advantages and disadvantages of different options. You can also ask your planner for illustrations or other graphic representations of your options. Visit LetsMakeAPlan.org to find a CFP® professional in your area and for more tips on making a solid financial plan.

Getting started on a comprehensive financial plan today will prepare you for a more secure tomorrow.

That's according to Fidelity Investments' latest biennial Retirement Savings Assessment study, which - while mostly upbeat - also makes clear that all too many of those surveyed remain "at risk" of not being able to fully cover essential expenses in retirement if they don't turn things around.

Specifically, after totaling up the assets of the 25- to 74-year-old respondents earning at least $20,000 annually - and that included current or expected Social Security benefits - Fidelity estimated that the typical saver is on track to have 80 percent of the income he or she will need to cover retirement costs. That's the highest it's been since the study was first conducted in 2005, when the same figure was 62 percent and people were just beginning to know the joys of watching videos of cats performing weird tricks.

"It's a significant improvement," says Ken Hevert, Fidelity's senior vice president of retirement, who attributed the rise to both a higher median savings rate compared to 2006 (8.8 percent vs. 3.6 percent) and better portfolio asset allocation.

Even more comprehensively, four color-coded categories were used to show where households fell on a retirement preparedness spectrum based on their ability to handle estimated expenses in a down market:

* Dark Green Thirty-two percent were on target to cover more than 95 percent of their freight (up 1 percent from 2016).

* Green. Eighteen percent were looking good as far as essentials go, but not discretionary items like travel and entertainment (down 1 percent from 2016).

* Yellow. Twenty-two percent were off track, with "modest adjustments" likely required to their planned lifestyles (down 1 percent from 2016).

* Red. Twenty-eight percent definitely "need attention," to put it kindly (up 1 percent from 2016).

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the study had to do with Millennials.

For the first time ever, those born between 1981 and 1992 surpassed the older Generation X in Fidelity's unique cross-generations scorecard. The latter are on track to have 78 percent of the retirement income they'll need, while the former lags behind by 1 percent - though that's presumably after many of them dipped into their own savings to pay the college tuitions of their Millennial offspring. "Millennials are clearly putting money aside for retirement and taking more control of their personal situations," says Hevert.

And Baby Boomers? Collectively, they're in the best position of all, especially those Baby Boomers with increasingly rare pensions, and are on course to have set aside 86 percent of the money they'll need.

For those curious where they stand, Fidelity allows anyone to access their retirement score online. And if you really want a cushiony retirement, keep in mind that you could have 108 percent of what you'll need by embracing all three of the following "accelerators": saving at least 15 percent of your income yearly; ensuring an age-appropriate asset mix; and deferring Social Security benefits till at least 66 or 67.

"While these actions taken separately are clearly helpful," says Hevert, "doing all three could help bring you from good to great."

The weightlessness of a water environment allows individuals with a range of injuries or disabilities to exercise, relax, have fun, and gain confidence. Children and adults with challenges including traumatic brain injuries, amputation, spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, and blindness can enjoy the physical and psychological benefits of scuba diving.

Diveheart, a nonprofit organization founded in 2001, trains thousands of volunteers and works with injured and disabled individuals across the world, in areas including the United States, Mexico,UK, Malaysia, Israel, Philippines and the Caribbean.

As Darrell Young, a Vietnam veteran who is paraplegic as the result of a spinal cord injury, explains in a testimonial on the Diveheart website, "Diving gives me a high expectancy of myself. It gives me a goal to accomplish knowing that when it comes to the finish line it doesn't matter how I finish my dive, but the feeling of strength I gain from diving," he says.

Diveheart relies on volunteers and donations to help provide adaptive diving and scuba therapy experiences at no cost to the participants. Most of the initial training and first diving experiences occur in school or community pools. Participants don't even need to know how to swim to benefit from therapeutic scuba diving, and the learning curve is almost immediate, according to Diveheart's website details.

Diveheart works to spread the word that diving is a real option with many benefits for the individuals affected with injuries and for the volunteers who get involved as "dive buddies." The basic experience of being in the water with the support of a trained "dive buddy" can relieve pain, improve focus, and bring joy, according to Diveheart participants.

Diveheart also provides adaptive dive training for those who want to take the next step and become adaptive divers or dive buddies to help others.

Most Diveheart participants are eager for destination scuba-diving adventures once individuals are trained and comfortable with the scuba experience. Diveheart offers opportunities for fundraising and also works to find grants for those who struggle with the cost of a dive getaway.

In addition, Diveheart works with the science and medical communities to provide data and research opportunities on the benefits of therapeutic scuba diving for a range of medical conditions.

For more information on participating, volunteering, or donating, visit diveheart.org.

Enter the AngelPay Foundation, a nonprofit payment processing company. The AngelPay team originally invented the first secure, scalable, and reliable Internet payment processing platform called Authorize.Net back in 1996.

Today, they provide the same tools and service, but they believe operating as a nonprofit helps to restore trust and integrity to the industry. It also gives the team an opportunity to give back to the merchant community that has been good to them over the years.

"Over the past couple decades, we've seen a lot of companies resort to shady tactics to satisfy shareholder demands. If you're operating as an aggressive for-profit company in this industry, there are just too many temptations to exploit your customers," says Ferris Eanfar, AngelPay's CEO.

"The credit card payment processing industry has not always treated merchants fairly, and we realized we could do something about that," says Jeff Knowles, AngelPay's CTO.

Payment processing can be a challenge for businesses large and small, nonprofits, and artists who need to accept credit cards. AngelPay recognizes that many merchants feel exploited by their existing payment processors, but they don't know where to go.

To this end, AngelPay believes that merchants can benefit from its payment processing program for the following reasons:

A Solution for Merchant Pain. AngelPay developed their "Pay-What-You-Can" pricing structure and "Emergency Contract Triage" program. "The Triage program started out as a way to add a little levity to the lives of our merchants, but we've been surprised at how many merchants have taken it seriously," says Eanfar. The programs help merchants manage their costs more effectively, in addition to revealing how they're being exploited by other payment processors.

Simplicity. One of the things that differentiates AngelPay from other payment processors is the simplicity of its fees and nonprofit cost structure. Anybody who has ever implemented credit card processing for their company knows that the complex fees of most processors can be frustrating.

Proven Experience. AngelPay was launched several years ago after the team sold Authorize.Net, but AngelPay has grown quickly and its mission - "Return wealth and power to the creators of value" - seems to be resonating with the merchant community. Given the cost advantages, it makes sense that merchants would choose a veteran team operating as a nonprofit provider over more aggressive financial companies that may not have their customers' best interests at heart.

To learn more about AngelPay, visit: https://AngelPayHQ.org