2024 will be a red-letter year for iconic queer writer Armistead Maupin who will be celebrating both his 80th birthday and a new book in his critically acclaimed Tales of The City series.
Maupin published the first of the novels Tales of The City in 1978 after it had been a newspaper serial for the past 4 years. It was followed by five more in the 90s ending with the last book, Sure of You, in 1989. Then in 2007 Maupin published 2007, Michael Tolliver Lives, which continues the story of some of the characters, It was followed by an eighth volume, Mary Ann in Autumn, published in 2010, and a ninth and final volume, The Days of Anna Madrigal, in 2014.
Mona Of the Manor. is set in 1993 and Maupin says it answers the question he is most asked “But what happened to Mona?” The novels follow the adventures of Mona Ramsey, now the widowed Lady of a glorious old manor in Britain’s golden Cotswolds, and her fabulous adopted son Wilfred, as they come to the aid of an American visitor with a troubling secret.
The blurb of the novel reads: “When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa—allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfill his wildest dreams—she never imagined she would, by age 48, be the sole owner of Easley House, Teddy’s grand, romantic country manor in the UK.”
“She also didn’t imagine that she’d need to open the manor’s doors to paying guests to afford the electric bill and repair the leaking roof. Yet somehow she and her young friend Wilfred–whom guests assume is serving as Easley’s charming but clumsy butler–and the loopy old gardener Mr. Hargis, are making it work.”
“This delicate equilibrium is upended when Americans Rhonda and Ernie Blaylock arrive for a weekend vacation at Easley, and Wilfred stumbles into their terrible secret. Now, instead of being able to focus on the imminent arrival of her old friend Michael Tolliver and beloved parent Anna Madrigal, Mona will need to focus all of her considerable charm, willpower, and wiles—and the help of Wilfred and Mona’s girlfriend Poppy, the town’s postmistress and local calligraphy whiz—to set things right before the Midsummer ceremony when the whole town will descend on Easley’s historic grounds.”
