Maya Shankar: The other side of change - who we become when life makes other plans, Riverheas, 9780593713686, pub date Jan 16, 2026

Cognitive scientist Maya Shankar, herself not a stranger to life's disruptive plans, has spent decades studing the human mind and how people cope with major disruptions even when things seem hopeless. 

I found her book, composed of the stories of people whose lives were turned upside down, well written, thoroughly researched, thought provoking, wise and very helpful at understanding how even unsettling change can help us grow and discover a new person within us opening new doors if we embrace these changes. One part of the book compiles the scientific research applied to the case studies, the other of individual life stories which I found very demonstrative. 

 

Roxanne Bouchard: We were the salt of the sea, Orenda Books, paperback or ebook, 

I stumbled across this book when reading a review that prompted me to download the ebook. Set in Quebec' outlying Gaspe Peninsula, it provides a very atmospheric background for the small fishing community which appealed to me the most. The crime novel as such did not capture me as much as i had hoped. 

Catherine Day leaves Montreal to find her mother who had left her to be raised by friends to allow her to keep on sailing the world. When she gets to the village,  her mother's body has just been found and she learns that Marie Garant had been an independent spirits and a beauty who had twisted several men's heart. Detective Morales has just arrived in the village and finds himself investigating the death of this charismatic older woman with an equally stunning daughter. 

For me there was too much repetition of love stories between Marie and the men in the village, a story I found uninspiring  and when Detective Morales gets the hots for Catherine, I finally thought this novel did not deliever what I hoped it would. Such are differences in taste. I will not be reading book 2 or 3.

 S.R.White: White Ash Ridge, Headline, paperback 

I have a weakness for crime novels set in foreign countries such as Australia for example. S.R.White's detective Dana Rosso does not quite match Garry Disher's Hirsch or Chris Hammer' Nell Buchanan but it's a close call.

 White Ash Ridge is the name of a hotel in the Australian wilderness where the body of a guest is discovered during a heatwave. The hotel only had 5 guests who attended a meeting of a charity plus the hotel owner and his daughter, so Dana Rosso knows when tasked with the investigation that the murderer is most likely among these 6 people. It does not help that Rosso investigated the murder of the charity founders son which did not go too well caĺling for a tense first meeting between the media savvy mother and Rosso.

 I found the unraveĺling of the case  very well done, it certainly kept me guessing whose motive was enough for such an act, a very atmospheric portrait of the surroundings and an excellent crime novel.

 Chris Chibnall: Death at the White Heart, Penguin, 9781405959513

Chris Chibnall is an award winning screenwriter, playwrite and producer, of Broadchurch fame. 

His debut crime novel "Death at the White Heart" shows all the signs that this too could be turned into a series. I really liked this excellent whodunnit novel, with a stellar cast of characters and a very solid plot.  All the ingredients a good crime novel should have. 

Would love to read more of DS Nicola Bridge and her sidekicks Harry and Mel who swiftly solved the murder of pub owner Jim Tiernan who was found dead and naked, tied to a chair, in the middle of a road with stag antlers on his head.