SAM&PAM's Book Radar

My Darling Boy , a novel by John Dufresne , published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3EuCsjG "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." It explores a father's desperate attempt to save his opioid-addicted son. The story revolves around Olney Kartheizer's quest to find and rehabilitate his son, Cully, while grappling with themes of love, loss, addiction, and hope...

Why Are We Here?: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants by Jennifer Moss is a business and leadership book published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3WWQhhs "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The book explores how to transform a workforce weighed down with ennui into a healthy and high-performing one. Key themes and eleme...

The Power of Purpose, Fourth Edition by Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro is a self-help book published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4hENt0z "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." Summary: The book explores the concept of purpose as the essence of who people are and what makes them rise every day. It emphasizes that everyone has a purpose, regardless...

A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics by Juanita Tolliver is a non-fiction work set to be published in January 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QeMUyp "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The book explores a fundraiser held in 1972 at Diahann Carroll's home to support Shirley Chisholm's presidential campaign. It...

The Neighbor by K.M. Scott is a work of fiction published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3CZniCB "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." It falls into the thriller genre. The story is set in the seemingly perfect suburban cul-de-sac of Park Circle, where manicured lawns and friendly neighbors hide dark secrets. A killer moves into the neighborhood, threatenin...

The 12-Week DBT Plan by Valerie Dunn McBee is a self-help workbook published in 2022 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QeGlvP "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." It offers a practical, accessible , and informative overview of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) . Key aspects of the book: Aims to provide skills and techniques for emotional balance, offering a 12-week...

"I'll Tell You Everything" by Rebecca Kelley is a work of fiction published by Lake Union Publishing available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QgkdkU "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The novel centers on complicated women who make impulsive, reckless decisions . The story begins and ends on the shores of a secret lake called Shangri-La. The characters Amy and Ramona are...

How to Be Enough by Ellen Hendriksen , a self-help book published in 2024 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4jYasVR "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." It explores perfectionism , its origins, and how to manage it so it works for you and not against you . Hendriksen contrasts clinical perfectionism, which has more costs than benefits, with adaptive perfectionism, wh...

The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government by Tyler O’Neil is a nonfiction book published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4gyAFY9 "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The book explores the author's view of a network of left-wing organizations and funding that he claims are manipulating the U.S. government O'Neil argues that a "d...

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune is a romance novel published in May 2022 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4jREHxN "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The story revolves around Persephone (Percy) Fraser and Sam Florek , whose lives become intertwined during their summer cottage vacations. Over several summers, their friendship blossoms into a deep connection, b...

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin is a science fiction novel published in 2023 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4jQgXKl "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The novel is set in Prospera, an isolated archipelago state hidden from the world by an electromagnetic barrier called the Veil The story follows Proctor Bennett , a ferryman, as he uncovers unsettling truths about...

Talk: The New Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Alison Wood Brooks is a self-help book published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/42U3IlU "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The book aims to enhance conversational skills by viewing conversation as a coordination game. Key themes and unique elements include: The TALK maxims (Topics, A...

"The Love of My Afterlife" by Kirsty Greenwood is a romantic comedy published in 2024 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/42MCL3y "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The novel centers on Delphie, who dies after choking on a burger and is given a second chance at life by her Afterlife Therapist, Merritt. Delphie is sent back to Earth with only ten days to find Jonah, h...

"The Fraud" by Zadie Smith is a historical fiction novel published in 2023 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4jQbhjv "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The novel revolves around the lives of Eliza Touchet , a widowed housekeeper, and her cousin, William Harrison Ainsworth , a popular novelist in Victorian England. It explores themes of identity, authenticity, and t...

The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer is a fiction novel published in 2024 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3WWx27C "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The story revolves around Lucy Hart , a former runaway and current teacher's aide, who receives an invitation to compete in a contest on Clock Island held by her favorite childhood author, Jack Masterson . The prize is th...

The Last Human by Zack Jordan is a work of science fiction , published in 2020 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4jSPeZs "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The novel revolves around Sarya the Daughter , a Human raised as a Spaal (an alien species), who lives on Watertower Station, an orbital water-mining station. The story explores themes of identity, belonging, an...

How We Heal by La June Montgomery Tabron is a memoir published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4hLMXOB "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The book chronicles the author's personal journey as a Black woman in the United States and her work in racial healing. It emphasizes the importance of truth-telling, empathy, and understanding in addressing racism and...

What Trumps Second Term Means for Australia by Bruce Wolpe is a political analysis book, updated in 2025 , that examines the potential impact of a second Donald Trump presidency on Australia available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/42RT2nM "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The book analyzes how Trump's policies and actions could affect Australia's foreign policy, domesti...

The Ageless Revolution: Healthy Cells and Longer Life by Dr. Michael Aziz is a non-fiction health and wellness book published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3CLC5kk "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." Summary: The book focuses on understanding the body at a cellular level to promote health, vitality, and longevity. It provides a step-by-step guide to slow...

Getting It Right This Time: Break Free from Your Hidden Blocks to Lasting Love by Orna and Matthew Walters, is a self-help book published in January 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3WR5mRx "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." Summary: The book aims to guide readers in creating soul-satisfying, long-lasting love by helping them break free from hidden blocks. It...

The Perfect Mother by Claire Allan is a psychological thriller published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4aW6h8Z "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." Summary: The story revolves around Mel, who is haunted by a past tragedy involving the death of a baby during a home birth she attended as a doula. Fleeing the aftermath of public blame and personal attacks, M...

The First Husband by Elisabeth Carpenter is a psychological thriller published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Qc7Gi6 "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The story revolves around Leah, who is about to get married, but strange occurrences and a threatening message signed by her first husband, Callum, who disappeared eight years prior, begin to surface. Se...

His Other Life by Anna E. Collins is a gripping page-turner in the emotional fiction genre, published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/40NUEwh "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The story revolves around Isla Gallagher, who is struggling with grief and memory loss after a car accident that killed her husband, Jonah. As Isla seeks answers about her past, a...

Becoming Aotearoa by Michael Belgrave is a history book published in 2024 by Massey University Press available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Cymchb "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." Written in response to the Christchurch massacre in 2019, the book explores the idea of national identity in New Zealand, particularly inclusion and exclusion throughout the country's histo...

The Playbook of Emma by Brynne Asher is a fictional novel published in 2025 available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Qajphf "Using our affiliate links helps support the content we create." The story revolves around Emma Hollingsworth, a sideline sports reporter, and her unexpected entanglement with Jack Hale, her brother’s best friend, amidst a scandal involving NFL player Brett Sullivan. Emma lands...