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First up was A Certain Kind of Starlight by Heather Webber. A woman returns to her (of course magical) small Southern hometown to help her ailing aunt run the family bakery (where all the food is magical!). While there, she's forced to interact with both the half-sister she always resented and the "one who got away", the guy who wound up with her now-deceased high school bff and dad to bff's daughter. Of course the town is riddled with secrets that will come to light and of course there's a sappy...uh...I mean "happy" ending. The book was as light and sweet as the airy cakes Aunt "Bean" bakes and about as "nutritious" too, but sometimes we need a light, sweet read. B+, maybe an A-.

The Umbrella Academy series 2: Dallas by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá - Last month I read the first collection of comics, gathered in a graphic novel, about the unlikely superheroes in The Umbrella Academy. I was both surprised and not surprised at how much the first season of the show differed from the comic. But compared to the second collection and second season of the show, the first is practically word for word canon <g>. About the only thing the second season of the show shares with the second collection of the comic is the setting, which is...yes, Dallas. And JFK plays a role in both. I'm still not a fan of graphic novels but I will be looking for the third collection to see how it compares to the third season of TUA <g>.

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave - A wealthy old man plummets to his death off the seaside cliff at the edge of his summer home's property. The police rule it a suicide but his son isn't convinced, so he persuades his nearly estranged sister to help him investigate. This was a very formulaic murder mystery (because--SPOILER ALERT! Dad was pushed) and the writing was both dull and rather poorly paced. I found I didn't really care about, well, any of the characters, except maybe dear dead Daddy. Even the reveal was anticlimactic, though I did like who the murderer was. I'll give this one a C and recommend everyone else give it a miss.

The Last Heir To Blackwood Library by Hester Fox - Before I review, I have to admit I'm amused by a Gen Z author with the first name "Hester", though I suppose it could be a pen name. Anyways...at the turn of the 20th century, a nearly penniless young woman discovers she's inherited a great estate from a distant relative she knew nothing about. But there's something not quite right about the place...so far, it's almost the exact same plot as a book I read in January (In the Lonely Hours) but this one has fewer ghosts and more occult. To say more would be to give too much away...I will say it was a good book but not quite great. B.

Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton - A rare foray into non-fiction for me...in, uh, I want to say 2019, the author--at the time an occasional correspondent for CBS's Sunday Morning--got dumped by his fiancé. As a longtime lover of the outdoors, he decides to heal his heart, and maybe make some money, by visiting each of the (then 59) national parks over the course of a single year. Sunday Morning agreed to loan him a videographer (occasionally) and air his videos about most of his visits. This was a very interesting read, though I wish the book had been longer. Most of the parks only get 2-3 pages' mention, with the rest of the book being about the author's personal journey and the various threats to the parks. There's a bit less description and a bit more politics than I wanted (even if I agreed with what he was saying) but I did like how Knighton grouped parks by themes (mountains, water, people, food, light, silence, etc.) and I did like how he kept the tone mostly light and humorous. I'd say I was jealous of him for visiting all the parks but honestly, there are quite a few I don't have much desire to see (mostly the ones that would require either being able to hike long distances or being able to scuba dive). Still, a very good read, perhaps the best of the month: A-, maybe a full A.