8 Books to Get Excited for Spring 2018

*This 8 Books to Get Excited for Spring 2018 themed article includes Amazon Affiliate links. If clicked for purchasing, I will make a small commission off these purchases.

After having read 10 romance novels earlier in 2018, I moved on to a YA trilogy by Jenny Han. Then, I also found myself back to mystery and thriller reading with a few more current novels. Plus, I just couldn’t resist Kristin Hannah’s latest. And this Easter and April Fool’s evening found me finishing up yet another favorite book on my long list!

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So, thought it was high time to update all here on my recent Goodreads reading. So read on now for my recent reads and my reviews for the 8 books I read recently.

8 Books to Get Excited for Spring 2018

1. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (#1), by Jenny Han

While the story of Lara Jean Covey and her sisters was a bit slow building in this first installment, definitely was a fun and worthwhile read. In this first book, Lara Jean is sixteen years old. Her older sister, Margot is leaving for college half way across the globe to Scotland from their hometown in Virginia. That alone was traumatic enough for Lara, who is the middle child of the three “Song” girls. Ten year old younger sister, Kitty (Katherine) rounds out the trio. See these three sisters have each other and their loving dad. But their mom passed away years back when the girls were fairly young.

Big sister, Margot had to take more of a motherly role to her younger sisters after their mother’s passing. So with her absence brings heartache for the sisters, as well as Lara Jean having to step into the older sister’s footsteps to help raise Kitty. That alone would hard enough for Lara Jean. But then somehow her old love letters that she wrote to boys she knew, but loved from afar over the years get mailed to these boys.

What ensues is a bit of a fun romantic comedy finding Lara Jean somehow fake dating the school’s most popular boy in her grade. But can fake become real for these two. You will just have to read to find out!

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

2. P.S. I Still Love You (#2), By Jenny Han

When we last left off with Lara Jean in Book 1, we learn that Lara Jean has fallen for Peter aka the most popular boy in her grade. Even though these two spent much of the first book saying that they weren’t a real couple only pretend, it turns out that maybe it wasn’t just pretend after all.

So, here we find out if these two can really make it as a couple. But just when you think they might have a chance, one of the other boys Lara Jean wrote and untimely sent a love letter to resurfaces. Bonus is he was someone that Lara Jean was friends with in the past and also has a connection to someone that she is fairly close with now in present day.

So what is a girl to do when two very handsome and eligible boys are ultimately interested in dating her? That was seriously part of the fun reading this one and seeing it through to the end. Plus seeing first love through the eyes of Lara Jean, who is innocent is truly a breath of fresh air in my opinion.

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

3. Always and Forever (#3), Lara Jean, by Jenny Han

The third and promised final book in the Lara Jean story starts off with Lara and Peter finally happily together for real as a couple. The two are openly dating only each other at the start of their senior year of high school. They are happy and in love. So all seems to be coming up roses for these two finally. They both have a plan for senior year, as well as college and their future together.

But plans have a way of going awry sometimes. And here is no different. Because just when they think they have their futures indeed all figured out something changes it all for their future endeavors. Without giving away too much or spoiling it, I will say that both Lara Jean and Peter will have to go back to drawing board as far as their futures are concerned.

I will say the whole series truly is heart warming. I truly fell in love with Lara Jean’s sweet character. Peter is truly just a good guy at heart. Lara Jean’s family, especially her younger sister, Kitty was a breath of fresh air. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this series from start to finish.

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

4. The Broken Girls, by Simone St. James

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for ARC.

The Broken Girls travels back and forth for storyline purposes between 2014 and 1950. All-in-all, this novel did a wonderful job bridging the the past and the present stories. In 2014, Fiona is still reeling over 20 years later since the murder of her older sister, Deb in Vermont on Idlewild Hall Boarding School. See Fiona can’t seem to shake what happened to Deb all those years ago. Even though her sister’s supposed killer was arrested and convicted, Fiona questions not only what actually happened, but if the man jailed is the killer.

Fiona, also, happens to be a journalist just like her famous journalist father. So the journalist deep in her blood decides to write a story about the long shut down boarding school grounds, Idlewild Hall, where her sister’s body was found all those years ago. See, the boarding school grounds have been bought by a mysterious benefactor and is to be renovated to be reopened. So, hopes to get the bottom of sister’s tragedy once and for all.

But in doing so, we are thus given a glimpse into the lives and world of the young teenage girls who lived and attended Idlewild Hall in 1950 in Vermont. It is their stories that somehow bridge the past and present. Because in trying to finally put Fiona’s sister to rest once and for all, Fiona stumbles upon the mystery of one of the 1950s girl’s disappearance all those years ago.

Plus throughout this book, the readers are given front row access to the fact that Idlewild Hall is apparently haunted. This haunting is due in part to the possibility of another young girl (Mary Hand) dying many years even before the 1950s on the grounds, too. The folklore was that Mary was not at rest and was indeed haunting the Idlewild Hall grounds showing others their worst fears imaginable when she shows herself to them.

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

5. The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah

One of my all-time favorite novels, The Nightingale was written by Kristin Hannah. So I knew I had to read Hannah’s latest. When it became available for the February BOTM, I didn’t need my arm twisted by any means. Unlike The Nightingale, The Great Alone is set in the turbulent 1970s not during WWII. But still this historical fiction novel truly shines and has all the layers and heart that The Nightingale had and more.

Here we are not treated to actual war-time like WWII. But the aftermath of the Vietnam War, which gets to the heart of the matter with how war can not only impact those who serve, but the family the return home to. See Ernt Allbright is POW from Vietnam, who returned home understandably a changed man. No longer is he the easy going man that Coraline Allbright fell in love with and married or the father that 13 years old Lenora (Leni) remembered beforehand. Ernt is now abusive and a shell of the man he once was. Also, he can’t even hold job. Then, Ernt gets a letter from the father of a soldier (Bo) he served with and watched lose his life. It is in this letter he learns that Bo left him his cabin in Alaska.

He makes the decision to move his family to Alaska. See he believes this move will help him move past all that plagues him now. Cora love Ernt and wants more than anything to see him get better. So, she goes along with Ernt’s plan. Leni, therefore, has to go along with this and also has hope that things will get better for her family.

Their initial arrival is during the late spring/early summer. During this time of the year, Alaska is sunlit for over 18+ hours. Ernt’s mood is actually promising. But as the weather changes and the cold, harsh Alaska, winter rolls in, Ernt’s mood turns cold and harsher still. See Alaska is a beautiful place to live, but is also a very dangerous place even for those know it in and out.

The novel spans that first winter, as well as a few more years in Leni’s teen years. It is during this time that Leni falls in love with the son of the man that her father feels is his mortal enemy. We are treated to the beauty of her first love, as well as the tragedy that follows this.

And yet with the suffering that ensues, there is still hope and underlying need to see it through for Leni. It is this faith that as a reader that had me enthralled and needing to read to find out how the story concluded for Leni. Yet even after I finished it, I couldn’t forget this story anytime soon.

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

6. The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn

This was my BOTM for January 2018. While I do enjoy a mystery and/or thriller novel that has twists and turns, this one wasn’t really anything ground breaking after all the other books I have read in this genre over the years now. See the novel first begins with Dr. Anna Fox, once a renewed child psychologist afraid to leave her home. She is a shut-in, who is also separated from her husband. Her husband, Ed on top of this seemingly has custody of their young daughter, Olivia.

While we are led to believe, Anna has some sort of breakdown. Thus her husband leaving and taking their daughter with him. All is most definitely not how it appears with this. Still, Anna is stuck in her own world and head inside her home. However, she is taken by the couple across the way from her. She is befriended by a mother and son (Jane and Ethan Russell).

But their friendship may very well be smoke and mirrors. Plus, one night after over-medicating and drinking Anna thinks she witnesses a crime in the Russell home. However, Anna seems to be the only one who did and can’t prove it. It would appear she may have just imagined it or plain hallucinated it.

But did she? There are three major plot twists here. The first while a definite twist made sense as I read it. So not a huge shocker to me. The second seemed to neatly tie up the plot. But the third unraveled all the second led us to believe. That said while this one slower in the start and wasn’t anything earth shattering by any means with its mysterious twists and turns, still worthy of a read in my honest opinion.

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

7. The Lying Game, by Ruth Ware

This was my BOTM for August 2017, which I finally got a chance to read. I previously have read, The Woman in Cabin 10 by this same author. I didn’t truly love that previous book by her. Still I enjoyed it enough to want to give another by her a chance.

So, the Lying Game is essentially a novel about 4 high school girl friends (Isa, Katie, Thea and Fatima) from an English board school. These girls are all grown up now. But cannot escape a tragic and life changing event that occurred back during their high school tenure. This time included Katie’s step brother, Luc and father, Ambrose.

See the girls from their early days played a game, known as The Lying Game, where they would give each other points for how well their lie would be received by those they lied to. But one of the biggest and worst lies as a collective group just won’t die even years later. Therefore, the girls get together to try to deal with the aftermath even so many years later. As the book unfolds we find out more about their teenage years, the lie to end all lies and how it is indeed impacting their current lives 15+ years later. Along the way, we are also left to try to figure out exactly what happened all those years ago and where the fault is indeed to lay blame.

That said, the mystery and plot itself, was descent. But honestly I wasn’t left feeling overly shocked by any means. Not to say, I didn’t enjoy this novel. But again, the book itself wasn’t earth shattering and neither was the ending by any means. Nor were any of the main characters truly memorable for me either.

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

8. Not That I Could Tell, by Jessica Strawser

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Marin’s Press for the ARC.

My third mystery novel in a recent times. This time out, a group of neighborhood women get together to drink and enjoy a Saturday night in one of the women’s backyards. Seems all straight forward where these women are just hanging out, drinking and enjoying each other’s company But all seemed to have drank a bit too much and Sunday goes by like a blur collectively for them. But by Monday one of their own goes missing.

Kristin cannot be found. She seemed like the perfect mother and wife. She is a doctor’s wife and is the mom to twins. But as picture-perfect as her life may have appeared, appearances may be deceiving to say the least. Because her husband Paul, the so-called good guy, doctor becomes a main suspect. But nothing can be proven or is definitive though.

Still as the book unfolds and the mystery surrounding Kristin’s disappearance continues we get to know more about the neighbors, including Clara and Izzy. Clara and Kristin were next door neighbors and pretty close, as far as friends go. Izzy lives across the street, dealing with a broken heart and quickly became friends with the two women. After Kristin’s disappearance her estranged husband takes an interest in Izzy. And that is where the story takes off.

See we are left to try to read between the lines and figure out what actually happened to Kristin, as well as what the true nature of Paul is. And in all honesty I was left questioning this practically through the duration of the novel. Plus, the ending also neatly wrapped up all.

My Good Reads Spring 2018 Books Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Well that wraps up my books read since last time out. I hope out of these 8 Books to Get Excited for Spring 2018 I have given some great reading suggestions.

*A side note, linking up with this week’s FTSF with Kenya and Kristi, where the sentence to finish is “This April Fool’s and/or Easter…”

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