Books Completed Since March 1

 The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl
This is a beautiful nonfiction book in which Renkl shares her observations of wildlife in her backyard and neighborhood. Renkl's brother contributes the gorgeous cover and interior illustrations.

Oh, the chapter "It's a Mystery" is very funny. I read it to my terminally ill husband and it was one of the few things that made him laugh.

  Scythe & Sparrow, Brynne Weaver
This is the final book in the Ruinous Love trilogy featuring Rowan and Lachlan Kane's younger brother, a doctor, and circus motorcycle daredevil Rose Evans, a previously abused young woman who encourages other abused young women to fight back. Rose is a neat character, but Fionn remains a little dull until the end when he embraces his violent side. Still, you get updates on Rowan and Sloane, and Lachlan and Lark.

 The First Ladies, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
From the authors of The Personal Librarian, the story of the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and famed Black leader Mary McLeond Bethune, although the former's friendship with the latter scandalizes half of the white community. Bethune hasn't been chronicled as much as Roosevelt, so one learns many of her accomplishments, but it's in a way that requires great swaths of dialog to lecture you about them, making some of the talk sound unnecessarily didactic. Those who recoil at the thought of Eleanor possibly being...gasp!...a lesbian will probably want to avoid this book

  Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop, Roselle Lim
Another winner from Lim, about a reluctant fortune teller who hates her fate. Vanessa has always been able to predict the future correctly, but she hates it when she has to give bad news. Predicting a death chills her, so she decides to train under the family fortune teller, Aunt Evelyn, who's setting up a tea shop in Paris, and resign herself to the fact that she will never have a relationship, just like her aunt. But life, and Paris, has a way of changing her.

  Maria, Michelle Moran
This book has some details about the Von Trapps I'd never read, but if you want to know about the family, you'd be better off reading Maria's books, especially the final one where she came clean about several incidents she'd skipped before, and Agathe Von Trapp's book. And the behind-the-scenes of mounting the musical are okay. Fran and her boyfriend, however, exist just as sounding boards to tell Maria's story.