I got Mona of the Manor by Armistead Maupin for my birthday in July and read it on a walking holiday in the Isle of Wight. This is the latest in the Tales of the City series (see my blog on The Days of Anna Madrigal), which so gripped me when I was at University in the early 1990s that I made a pilgrimage to San Francisco to Barbary Lane where the series begins, to see it for myself.

It’s been a ten year wait for the latest in the series and it was delicious to dive right back into spending time with these characters, this time centring, as the title suggests, on Mona, who left San Francisco to marry an English Lord, which did them both a favour despite the fact that they were both gay. We are back in the early 1990s in the latest instalment, earlier than the previous book in the series, and Mona is at this point 48 (I can relate) and in a sort of relationship with millhouse owner and local artist Poppy. All seems to be going well, with Mona finally admitting the depth of her feelings to herself, when she is confronted by Poppy’s negative views on trans rights. 

When Mona’s old friend Michael Tolliver comes to visit from San Francisco he brings Mona’s mother Anna Madrigal with him and the old gang are reunited in protecting one of Mona’s paying guests escape from her abusive relationship. The previous book had been billed as the last in the series until this one came along, so there’s still hope for all of us who love Michael, Mona, Anna and their friends that this isn’t the end of their stories.