The Algorithm of Us

Maya Lin believes in data—not destiny. As the lead algorithm engineer behind HeartSpark, the world’s most successful dating app, her entire job revolves around proving that love can be measured, calculated, and optimized. But after a humiliating breakup goes viral, her company’s reputation—and her confidence—take a devastating hit, leaving Maya convinced that love, at least for her, is something better solved with science than trust. Enter Eli Torres, charismatic host of the internet’s favorite podcast, The Anti-Love Experiment. His mission? Prove dating apps manipulate emotions and ruin authentic relationships. And HeartSpark is his No. 1 target. When Eli launches a public challenge encouraging listeners to date without algorithms, HeartSpark panics. To repair the company’s reputation, Maya is forced to work closely with Eli—publicly and professionally—putting the face behind the algorithm directly in the path of its loudest critic. What begins as damage control quickly becomes something more personal, especially as Maya starts to realize she may have miscalculated him—and love itself. Only one problem: Maya didn’t expect Eli to be funny. Or thoughtful. Or devastatingly sincere. Or someone she could fall for—fast, when falling is the one variable she’s sworn never to risk again. As they navigate bookstore meet-cutes, awkward “old-fashioned” dates, and viral challenge videos, the chemistry between them becomes impossible to ignore. But the closer they get, the heavier Maya’s secret becomes… and the more terrifying the idea of losing Eli feels, because when he fully understands who she is and what she represents, the fallout threatens everything—her career, his platform, and the fragile belief that love might be more than data after all. In a world where love is automated, what happens when two people choose to follow their hearts instead? Perfect for fans of The Love Hypothesis, The Soulmate Equation, and The Unhoneymooners, The Algorithm of Us is a hilarious, heart-squeezing, slow-burn romance about modern dating, second chances, and the magic that can’t be calculated.

Click here to get The Algorithm of Us

on Amazon Paperback

Click here to get The Algorithm of Us

on Amazon Kindle

A Different Approach on the Skills of Life

 

A Different Approach 

on the Skills of Life

By Leatrice D. Williams

What if the most important lessons in school were not only found in textbooks, but in the everyday choices that prepare young people for life beyond the classroom?

A Different Approach on the Skills of Life by Leatrice D. Williams opens the door to a curriculum built from more than three decades of teaching experience, community involvement, and a deep concern for how students grow as thinkers, citizens, and future professionals. This is not a traditional academic guide focused only on grades, tests, and classroom routines. It is a practical world of mock interviews, student portfolios, entrepreneurship projects, character education, public speaking, financial awareness, career exploration, teamwork, conflict resolution, and real-world readiness.

At its center is the belief that education should feel alive. A classroom can become a business trade show, a food truck competition, a career convention, a debate floor, a portfolio showcase, or a place where students learn how to speak, dress, listen, lead, apologize, and think with purpose. Leatrice’s approach brings “old school” fundamentals and modern life skills together, reminding educators that reading, writing, arithmetic, manners, character, and critical thinking still matter in a world shaped by technology and artificial intelligence.

The book carries the atmosphere of a busy, creative classroom where students are not passive learners but participants in their own future. They are asked to reflect on values, make decisions, solve problems, build confidence, and imagine the lives they want to pursue. The curriculum also responds to the social and emotional impact of the pandemic, recognizing that students may need renewed guidance in cooperation, attention, communication, and healthy interaction.

What makes this work stand out is its moral urgency. It asks educators to consider whether students are truly being prepared for life—or simply moved from one grade level to the next. The dilemma is clear: should education remain confined to academic instruction, or should it also teach young people how to function with integrity, independence, creativity, and respect in the real world?

Rooted in classroom experience and shaped by the Foundations program, A Different Approach on the Skills of Life presents education as preparation for more than a report card. It is preparation for interviews, careers, relationships, service, leadership, responsibility, and self-belief.

The final lesson is simple: when students are given practical skills, moral guidance, and room to discover their potential, the classroom becomes a foundation for life.

Click here to get A Different Approach  on the Skills of Life

on Amazon

Click here to get A Different Approach  on the Skills of Life

on Barnes & Noble

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LeatriceDWilliams/

The Apathetical Man

 

The Apathetical Man 

By Gregory M. McLeod

Imagine waking up inside your own life and realizing you have been moving through it without truly understanding why you are suffering, choosing, or even surviving.

The Apathetical Man unfolds as a deeply personal spiritual reckoning shaped by pain, addiction, mental illness, and a desperate search for meaning. Its world is not built from fantasy landscapes or external spectacle, but from rehab rooms, inner battles, prayers uttered at the edge of collapse, and the long, difficult road back from self-destruction. The atmosphere is raw and confessional, filled with the urgency of someone who has looked at his own life and understood that change is no longer optional. Early on, the narrator frames life itself as a matter of “understanding,” then ties that idea to a near-death confrontation with addiction and the need to choose a different path before it is too late.

A powerful, soul-baring testimony of redemption, The Apathetical Man reveals how understanding, faith, and grace can transform even the most broken life.

At the center of the book is a relentless question: what happens when a man has spent years numbing himself, only to discover that numbness is its own kind of spiritual death? The pages move through themes of grace, endurance, surrender, temptation, discipline, and rebirth, creating the sense of a testimony that is also a call to action. Again and again, the book returns to one recurring framework—chance, choice, and change—not as abstract ideas, but as forces that shape whether a life keeps falling apart or begins to be rebuilt.

What makes this work stand out is the way it treats apathy not as laziness, but as a soul-level crisis. This is a book concerned with what happens when self-will becomes a trap, when pain isolates, and when understanding becomes the difference between living and slowly disappearing. It speaks most directly to readers who know what it means to feel stuck inside their own habits, their own wounds, or their own silence, and who are willing to ask whether surrender might be the first real step toward healing. The dedication itself broadens that reach, extending the book’s burden and compassion toward those struggling with addiction, mental illness, and the families carrying that weight with them.

Sometimes the first miracle is not escape, but finally caring enough to change.

Click here to get The Apathetical Man  on Amazon / Kindle 

Click here to get The Apathetical Man  on Barnes & Noble

MANUFACTURED MINDS: The Invisible Architecture of Algorithmic Control and the Art of Opting Out

  

MANUFACTURED MINDS:

The Invisible Architecture of Algorithmic Control and the Art of Opting Out

They didn't target your child's attention. They targeted the window before your child could defend it.

Internal documents unsealed in 2026 reveal how major platforms segment children by "age of acquisition" — tracking lifetime revenue projections that are three to five times higher for children captured before age ten. Their internal term for these children is not "users."

It is native integrations.

Your child wasn't exposed to the algorithm. Your child was installed by it. Before identity formed. Before the prefrontal cortex could push back. Before you knew there was a window — and that the window was closing.

Screen time limits don't work. The platforms' own suppressed research proves it: by month six, restrictions return usage to within five percent of baseline. The parental controls weren't built to protect your child. They were built to protect the platform from the appearance of not protecting your child.

Manufactured Minds gives you what the platforms spent billions making sure you'd never have:

• The truth about the "installation window" — and how to close it before the machine opens it
• Age-adapted protocols for every stage: Foundations (4–9), Awakening (10–13), Sovereignty (14–17)
• The Cognitive Immune System — the one capacity the algorithm's entire business model depends on your child never developing
• The Family Freedom Compass — a shared household tool that turns your liberation into theirs
• The Algorithm Spotter, the Choice Game, the Maker Hour, and the Identity Journal — practices that build minds the feed cannot predict

You started this book reaching for your phone. You will finish it reaching for your child's hand.

The platforms called your children native integrations.

This book turns them into native immunities.

K. R. Strand — Researcher, rebel, and survivor of the attention economy.

Your thoughts aren't yours anymore. They're predicted, shaped, and sold — every scroll, pause, and hesitation harvested to keep you hooked, divided, and compliant. Platforms don't recommend content. They engineer your reality. And they're terrified you'll notice. Manufactured Minds is the book that makes you notice — then hands you the escape keys.

THIS IS NOT ANOTHER BOOK ABOUT SCREEN TIME. Every chapter answers the question the previous one planted. Every exercise compounds. By the final page, you won't have merely read about opting out — you'll have performed your own escape.

Click here to get MANUFACTURED MINDS

on Amazon / Kindle 

Cipher: A Proven Framework to Hire the Best People

 

Cipher:

A Proven Framework to Hire the Best People

Nearly half of new hires fail within 18 months. That’s not a “people problem”—it’s a process problem. Most hiring still runs on gut feel, vague job descriptions, and unstructured interviews—an approach with odds worse than a coin toss. The cost shows up fast: wasted time, lost money, and a team that can’t deliver. For 15 years, Craig della Penna has helped leaders hire with clarity and rigor using his proprietary HireBest® system resulting in better hiring decisions, reduced attrition, and less time wasted in extraneous interviews. The key component of that system is the Cipher®, a simple, powerful framework that defines what success must look like before you meet a single candidate. It distills any role into four essentials: Charge, Outcome, Deliverables, and Efforts so everyone evaluates talent against the same standard. In this practical, step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to build and use Ciphers to help: • Replace hiring based on gut feel with a structured, repeatable hiring system • Reduce bias by anchoring interviews to what truly predicts performance • Compare candidates consistently based on data-rich perspectives • Hire better, onboard faster, and coach performance using one framework If you hire or your business depends on hiring, stop gambling with your most important asset. Learn the clear, teachable framework that improves decision quality and hiring outcomes. It’s time to HireBest.

Click here to get

Cipher: A Proven Framework to Hire the Best People

on Amazon / Kindle / Kindle Unlimited 

 

Best of Friends Trilogy

    

Best of Friends Trilogy

Book 1: Best of Friends: What happens when a family death wreaks havoc among siblings? What would you do if the ‘peace-maker’ of the family suddenly loses control? If the opportunity arose, would you agree to simply ‘burn the will,’ sell the estate and split the proceeds? What would be your response when calling the cops and being told: “We’re not coming out, unless there are bullets flying and bodies to count?” Elizabeth Caliente is faced with such propositions in Sherry Brantley’s award-winning ‘Best of Friends’ trilogy. Best of Friends has won two national awards for ‘Best Fiction of the Year!’

Book 2: Before Best of Friends: In this much-anticipated prequel to the ‘Best of Friends,’ trilogy, readers discover how the Fabulous Five group were formed in their youth, and are introduced to the unfolding of the powerful secrets binding the group together. Secrets only this private group were privileged to know. Join this tight-knit group as you uncover the mystery of the ‘Secret of the Blanket.’ Included is an excerpt from the books’ final work of the trilogy, ‘Still Best of Friends.’

Book 3: Still Best of Friends: The explosive conclusion of the ‘Best of Friends’ trilogy! The Fabulous Five were bound together by secrets they’d all swore to carry to their graves. But with the ‘Dastardly Duke Discovery’ exposing the ‘Secret of the Blanket,’ will the Fabulous Five find themselves desperately being consumed in a modern-day media frenzy that is threatening to consume them? Will this group of friends be able to survive the onslaught of the public revelation of their past deeds? Or will they crumble under the weight of their unexpected circumstances? Travel with the Fabulous Five: Elizabeth Caliente’, Kim Worthy, Kiona Stone, Angela Jackson-(A.J.) and Quineeta Davis as once again, they attempt to weather the storms of adversity that threaten to decimate their bond, their friendship, their past! Will the ‘Dastardly Duke Discovery’ prove to be the final nail in the coffin? Or will vow to continue to ‘deny ‘til they die,’ their involvement in the mystery they’re shrouded in?

Meet the dynamic members of the Fabulous Five as this explosive trilogy takes readers on a whirlwind excursion among five friends. Though often humorous, the ride is filled with lessons on friendship, family dynamics and strong relationships. You’ll love connecting and bonding with the members of the Fabulous Five, as they deal individually and collectively with the drama that surrounds them!

Click here to get Best of Friends on Amazon / Kindle

Use the Link Below to learn More About the Trilogy

and the Author

www.sherrybrantley.com

 

  

BREAKTHROUGH PRAYERS FOR DIFFICULT BATTLES

Discover the Power that Breaks Every Chain.

Breakthrough Prayers For Difficult Battles is a spirit-filled guide to overcoming life’s toughest challenges through the unstoppable force of prayer. Each page stirs faith, renews strength, and ignites divine breakthroughs where human effort fails. If you’re facing impossible odds, this book will show you how prayer turns every battle into victory. 

Click here to get

BREAKTHROUGH PRAYERS FOR DIFFICULT BATTLES

on Amazon / Kindle