Thanks to NetGalley for the digital ARC. I will always read another installment of Tales of the City even though it's written by a cis man. (I don't read a lot of books by men, but somehow this is my 6th this year of 73 total, or 12%--probably an all-time high since I made the decision to stop reading male authors for the most part)

We're back in the 1990s with Mona (who I thought died of breast cancer, but maybe that's later?), who is Lady of the Manor at an estate in England that she inherited from her Lord of a husband, who also happened to be a queen, who preferred to hang out in San Francisco. Mona, a lesbian, who needed to get away from San Francisco, accepted a payment to marry Teddy keep an eye on Easley House. Teddy is now dead, and Mona together with her 26-year-old adopted son Wilfred (an indigenous Australian, also queer) take in guests to keep up the expensive old house. 

We meet their guests, Ernie and Rhonda Blaylock, from North Carolina. Ernie is a crank who works for Jesse Helms, and Rhonda puts up with him, until...she doesn't. Ernie has slapped or otherwise been violent with her, and instead of concealing her bruises with make-up, Rhonda decides to go free. She also plots with Mona to leave her husband of 30something years. 

Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Michael Mouse (this book is best if you already know the characters, I assume) is convincing Anna to accompany him to visit Mona. Michael loves Mona like a gay man loves his lesbian best friend, but he's kind of also visiting to see Wilfred again. They've been exchanging letters for the past several years and lusting after one another since before Wilfred was legal. 

It's a short, sweet, slightly twisty tale where the surprises are surprising, but the heartwarming bits mostly land. I don't know that Maupin is at his best writing cis women, but it's okay. This isn't a particularly deep book. It's mostly sentimental.