Top 10 Tuesdays: Books on My Spring TBR 2022

Looking back on some of my spring TBR lists from previous years, it was a little funny to see that I’d frequently commented that I don’t really read seasonally. That’s definitely changed in the past couple of years, where I’ve noticed myself feeling a bit “locked in” to read certain kinds of books in certain seasons. In certain cases, I think it just makes sense such as reading books set during snowstorms in the winter or spooky books around Halloween. For some reason, spring has always been most difficult season for me to pin down as having a specific kind of book associated with it. In general, I think I tend to gravitate toward books that have a lot of flowers or greenery on the cover for spring, or books that focus on animals or the weather. Spring also tends to be a bit hit-or-miss for me in terms of how much reading I accomplish. A lot of it depends how much time I have off work, although this year I’m expecting to have very little, especially since we now have Zoom programming available whenever we can’t be in person. It seems that we are going to be dropping almost all of our pandemic restrictions very soon, so it’s unlikely we’ll have any more random days off or lockdowns. It took me a while to figure out which books I want to read this spring, but I’m hoping to get to all of these!

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

1) The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

It was between this book and The Younger Wife by this author, but I don’t have a copy of that one yet so it seems less likely. This one screamed “spring” to me because of the flowers on the cover. As an added bonus, the two main characters are twins who are both named after plants — Fern and Rose. When Rose discovers that she cannot get pregnant, Fern sees her chance to finally pay her sister back for everything she’s done for her. Fern’s mission to find a father for a baby for Rose shakes the foundation of her carefully constructed routine, and threatens to stir up dark secrets from the past. To be honest, I’m getting a little burnt out on books that focus heavily on pregnancy and/or infertility, but I’ve really enjoyed the previous book I read by this author, and I’m looking forward to trying more. It definitely does not seem like as much of a thriller as I originally thought even though it is tagged as one, so I’m curious to see how that element is woven in.

2) You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao

This is another book that I’ve earmarked for spring because of the flowers on the cover, even though I think it will be really sad. This book is about a 17-year-old girl named Julie who has a future planned with her boyfriend Sam, but everything changes when he dies suddenly. When Julie discovers a message from Sam in her yearbook, she is desperate to hear his voice one more time and calls his cellphone to listen to his voicemail. Julie is shocked when Sam picks up the phone, giving her a second chance, however their temporary connection makes her fall for Sam all over again and she finds it even harder to let him go. I’ve read a couple of books with a similar concept of being able to speak to someone who has passed away, and they’ve generally been so good! I’m hoping to love this one just as much and I’ve already heard such great things about it. I’m expecting it to be very emotional, and if done well, it could be so impactful.

3) Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Aside from flowers and greenery on the cover, I also tend to associate rainy covers with the spring! Springtime in my area can be quite rainy, which I actually don’t mind since it tends to make my seasonal allergies a bit better. This book is one that I’ve purposely saved for spring because it seemed like the perfect time to read it. It is about a woman named Ari who works as a TV meteorologist, but her boss is too distracted by her relationship with her ex-husband, the station’s new director, to give Ari the mentorship that she’s looking for. The only person who seems to understand her is the sports reporter Russell, and he and Ari decide to team up to solve their bosses’ relationship problems to get them back together, and soon discover they have chemistry of their own. I love the Parent Trap-like plotline, although I’m not sure how believable it is for their bosses to be so easily pushed into getting back together. I’m very curious to see how the author handles this. I’m also planning to read The Ex Talk very soon, since I somehow didn’t get to it last year!

4) Lie to Me by J.T. Ellison

This is another one that I chose because of the rainy cover, which somehow reminded me of spring. It is about a couple, Sutton and Ethan, who seem to have a perfect life, but behind the scenes tensions between them are mounting. When Sutton disappears, leaving behind a note saying not to look for her, Ethan finds himself the target of vicious gossip as everyone speculates what really happened to Sutton. As the police investigate, the lies that they both have been spinning for years begin to unravel. I actually don’t know that much about this book, but I’ve been meaning to try this author for a while. J.T. Ellison is one of my priority authors to try this year, and it’s possible that this will be the first one I try. I might go for No One Knows first just so I can read them in publication order, but it doesn’t really matter since they are all standalones anyway.

5) Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

I chose this book because of the plant-based cover and title, which made it seem like a great fit for the spring. It is about a young woman named Elisabeth who was raised in one of the Great Libraries, where she has grown up among the magical grimoires that can transform into monsters if provoked. She hopes to become a warden to protect the kingdom from their power. When an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire, Elisabeth’s intervention implicates her in the crime and she is torn from her home to face justice. With no one to turn to except for her enemy Nathaniel, she soon finds herself entangled in a conspiracy that forces her to question everything she knows about sorcery, the libraries, and even herself. This is another author that I put on my priority list to try this year because her books have been very loosely on my radar for a while, but I hadn’t been particularly motivated to try them. However, the more I’ve been hearing about them, especially this one, the more they seemed like something I would love!

6) The Complete Tales by Beatrix Potter

I was very excited to grab a copy of this one from Book Outlet! I have always loved Beatrix Potter’s adorable animal stories, although I’m not 100% sure if I’ve read them all before. I used to have some of the small versions of these books, but they are so easy to lose! I decided it would be fun to have a complete set all together, and as an added bonus, I think the version I bought also contains 4 previously unpublished stories. I love Beatrix Potter’s illustration style and I remember reading Peter Rabbit and a few of the other stories so many times. I specifically remember loving The Tale of Two Bad Mice and The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, but there are several that don’t seem very familiar to me. Either way, this book seemed like the perfect one to pick up in the spring because of the animals as the main characters, and I can’t wait to read this one!

7) 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard

There’s technically nothing that screams spring about this book, but for some reason, I really wanted to read it in March, probably because it involves the COVID pandemic and the first round of lockdowns happened in March 2020. I’m hoping to be able to squeeze it in before the end of the month. This book is about a woman named Ciara who decides to move in with Oliver, her new boyfriend whom she met at the supermarket the same week COVID hid Ireland. When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests that she move in with him, and she sees it as a unique opportunity for their new relationship tp develop without pressure from friends or family. 56 days after they first met, detectives arrive at Oliver’s apartment to find a body decomposing inside, and need to determine what really happened and whether the lockdown provided the opportunity for this crime. I know a lot of people are hesitant to pick up anything pandemic-related, but I’m very interested to see how authors will handle the topic and this one sounds so good!

8) Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis

I chose this book for spring mostly because of the flowers on the cover art, but it also has a bit of an unintentional connection to the pandemic due to the idea of social distancing. This book is about a teenage girl named Stella who has cystic fibrosis and is awaiting a lung transplant. Stella must stay at least six feet apart from others to avoid the risk of infection, but this becomes more difficult when she meets Will, another patient with cystic fibrosis at the same hospital, who is looking forward to signing himself out of treatment when he turns 18 and exploring the world. As they grow closer, they begin to find it more and more difficult to keep apart, even knowing that getting physically closer could cost them everything. It’s so weird to think that this book came out about a year before literally everyone was being told to keep 6 feet apart for our own safety! To be honest, I was only mildly interested in this one at first, but the longer I’ve waited to pick it up, the more it’s started to interest me.

9) The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

I was very surprised to realize I hadn’t mentioned this book more often so far, considering it is one of the books I’m most excited to try. This book is about a woman named Jane who moves to a gated community in Alabama where she works as a dog-walker, and where she expects her customers won’t notice if she takes some small items from their houses. However, her luck begins to change when she meets Eddie Rochester, a recently widowed man whose wife Bea died in a boating accident, and Jane sees an opportunity to get the kind of protection from him that she’s always wanted. As Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane starts to become increasingly haunted by Bea’s story, and starts to wonder how she could ever measure up. This book is a modernized version of Jane Eyre, which is one of my all-time favourite classics, although the storyline does remind me a tiny bit of Rebecca as well. It’s been a long time since I’ve read Jane Eyre itself, but I’m really looking forward to trying this modern version!

10) Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

This one was another obvious choice for spring for me because of the bird on the cover. It is another book that focuses on the COVID pandemic, and it is about a woman named Diana who ends up going on a planned trip to the Galapagos Islands alone when her boyfriend Finn must stay behind to work in the hospital. When the islands go under quarantine, Diana finds herself stranded and starts to bond with a local family, causing her to re-examine her relationships and her choices. This book does seem to be along similar lines to Jodi Picoult’s previous release The Book of Two Ways, since that also focused on a woman travelling to another country and reexamining the life that she’s chosen. While I wouldn’t say that was my favourite of her books, I did really enjoy it and I generally tend to love her writing. I’m very curious to see how this author tackles the pandemic and I think the Galapagos setting sounds fascinating!

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