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  Publication Date:  November 1, 2022 Format:  Audio Genre:   Memoir Narrators:  Matthew Perry Publisher:  MacMillan Audio Length:   8 hours 49 min Buy:  Kindle  |  Audio Synopsis “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.” So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally r...

Publication Date:  July 6, 2021 Format:  Audio Genre:   Memoir Narrators:  Danny Trejo, Donal Logue Publisher:  Simon & Schuster Audio  Length:  13 hours 19 min Buy:  Kindle  |  Audio Synopsis On screen, Danny Trejo the actor is a baddie who has been killed at least a hundred times. He’s been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he’s a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend. Raised in an abusive home, Danny struggled with heroin addiction and stints in some of the country’s most notorious state prisons—including San Quentin and Folsom—from an early age, be...

  Publication Date:  December 7, 2021 Format:  Paperback Genre:   Crime Thriller/ Humorous fiction Publisher:  Headline Review Length:  316 pages Buy:    Kindle  |  Hardcover Synopsis Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug.  Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complic...

Publication Date:  June 15, 2021 Format:  Paperback Genre:   psychological Thriller Publisher:  Celadon           Length:  352 pages Buy:    Kindle  |  Paperback  Synopsis In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.   Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit--and her sister--before it's too late. Review:  This was a rough one for me as I personally have a daughter who is addicted and living in Kensington (yes the photo above is a real photo of the area). Once a thriving factory district n...

  Publication Date:  April 6, 2021 Format:  Hardcover Genre:   Addiction/Recovery/memoir Publisher: Gallery Books                               Length:  272 pages Buy:  Hardcover  |  Kindle  Synopsis When he was two years old, Hunter Biden was badly injured in a car accident that killed his mother and baby sister. In 2015, he suffered the devastating loss of his beloved big brother, Beau, who died of brain cancer at the age of forty-six. These hardships were compounded by the collapse of his marriage and a years-long battle with drug and alcohol addiction. In  Beautiful Things,  Hunter recounts his descent into substance abuse and his tortuous path to sobriety. The story ends with where Hunter is today—a sober married man with a new baby, finally able to appreciate the beautiful things in life. Review:  I didn't know that much about Hunter Biden bef...

Release Date:  May 8, 2018 Publisher:  Tiny Fox Press Format:  ebook Pages:  294 pages Genre:   YA/Substance Abuse Buy:  Kindle  |  Paperback   Synopsis: Eli had everything until one party took it all away... ...until an overdose at a party takes it all away. After nearly dying in the ER, Eli agrees to go to LakeShore Recovery Center, an inpatient substance abuse treatment program where he’ll spend the next 28 days. It's there that Eli meets Libby, the sharp-edged artist, whose freshly tattooed scars mirror the emotional scars Eli tries his best to ignore. Eli soon learns that if he's to have any chance at a future, he'll first have to confront his past. Review:  In the midst of the United States opiate epidemic this is a timely read. Eli has everything, goes to a private school, is captain of the lacrosse team, has a beautiful girlfriend but he also has a heroin addiction. Eli doesn't believe he has a problem he th...

Release Date:  April 12, 2006 Publisher:  Random House Audio Format:  Audio Length:  5 hours 32 minutes Narrator:  Cupcake Brown Genre:  memoir Buy:   Audible  |  Kindle  Synopsis:  Eleven-year-old Cupcake Brown woke up on the bicentennial and found her mother still in bed. She struggled to wake her up, pushing and pulling until she managed to tug her mother's lifeless corpse onto her own small body, crushing her beneath its dead weight. After squeezing out from under her mother, Cupcake calmly walked over to the phone and called her aunt Lori. "Lori, my momma's dead." Here is the threshold of a hell for young Cupcake. Rather than being allowed to live with the man she believed to be her father--who turns out to have been her stepfather--she is forced into a foster home where the kids were terrorized, the refrigerator padlocked, and Cupcake sexually abused. She eventually fled the house, only to find herself wandering fro...

Release Date:  October 3, 2017 Publisher:  MacMillan Audio Format:  Audio Length:  7 hours 50 minutes Narrator:  Russell Brand Genre:  addiction Buy:   Audible  |  Kindle   Synopsis:  "This manual for self-realization comes not from a mountain but from the mud.... My qualification is not that I am better than you but I am worse." (Russell Brand) With a rare mix of honesty, humor, and compassion, comedian and movie star Russell Brand mines his own wild story and shares the advice and wisdom he has gained through his 14 years of recovery. Brand speaks to those suffering along the full spectrum of addiction - from drugs, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar addictions to addictions to work, stress, bad relationships, digital media, and fame. Brand understands that addiction can take many shapes and sizes and how the process of staying clean, sane, and unhooked is a daily activity. He believes that the question is not "why are you ad...