Mona of the Manor cover art

Mona of the Manor

Tales of the City, Book 10

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Mona of the Manor

By: Armistead Maupin
Narrated by: Mara Wilson
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Mona is the eccentric Lady of Easley House, running a bed and breakfast to keep her inherited English manor afloat.

Wilfred is Mona's 26-year-old adopted son who spends his weekends in London, looking for love in the gay bars of Soho while pining after his pen pal, Michael 'Mouse' Tolliver.

The current guest of the manor is Rhonda, a straight-laced southern belle who has left her abusive husband and has no idea what to do next, especially in the company of the free-spirited Mona and Wilfred.

Mona of the Manor, the tenth self-contained Tales of the City chronicles, is a sharply witty comedy about identity, assumptions and finding a logical family in 1980s Thatcherite Britain.

©2024 Armistead Maupin (P)2024 Penguin Audio City Life Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Urban Comedy City Witty

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Very much a book for those familiar with the full Tales of the City series. As a standalone, it doesn’t work. That’s likely not the intent. Slightly annoying where narrator calls Poppy Polly on occasion, but overall enjoyable … if short and slight of story. One for the fans. I am a fan.

Time with old friends

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Absolutely loved every chapter. Excellent writing as usual, and very well read. A great srory

Mona of the Manor

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A nice addition to the TotC series. A pleasure to revisit much loved characters.

Sadly though, the narrators generalised one size fits no one English accents are awful. Actually worse than Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

Truly terrible and surely there must be American actors out there who can do accents. I feel
mean saying this but it spoiled the book for me (good work on the American characters though).

Historical note - yes, we had safer sex tables on the Heath, but nowhere near the play spaces (it intimidates people). Handed out condoms (not “Jonnies” 😆) and lube to those on the way in, and safer sex literature to those leaving for home.

“Willy” is not a term that would be used in a sexual situation 😆 as it’s more used by children than adults.

Can’t remember using a candelabra, but it does sound like something some of the volunteers would have loved to do. I hope we did.

The tree you mention is still there and still in action, especially during the long hot summer nights.

Loved the detail of the scene back then (especially the old style bar layout at Comptons). Neat detail and thanks for researching this.

Hoping a new story follows this, and soon.

A lovely chance to visit old friends

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Love this latest addition to the Tales of the City collection. Beautiful to revisit old characters and new adventures

Fabulous return of old friends from Barbary Lane

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Loved the story lines and it was a good end to the tales of the city series. The American narrator should have avoided the attempt at a British accent though

Refreshing story and old favorites

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This a slight, sweet addition to the TOTC series. After a very slow start it finally picks up in the last third and cements itself as a welcome addition to Maupin’s magical world. Despite very little happening to his beloved characters & a disappointing lack of insight to Mona’s story as a whole, it still contains those wonderful Tales touches… quirky locations, eccentric queer lives & a little bit of twisted darkness. Now can we have Michael Tolliver in his dotage, back at Barbary lane running the house in his 70s… a fitting close to the series, surely ;)

An all too brief glimpse back at this iconic series

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Great to be back with these characters, but the mistakes in the book and strange narration were jarring. One chapter they were in Worcestershire, the next Gloucestershire, people’s names changed and the wrong accent was done for the wrong character. Was the narration rushed, or partly AI? Gorgeous setting though.

Interesting accents!

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Returning to the characters from the long Tales of the City books, was like coming home. Mapping moves the story alone without the reader having to have read previous entries (although, that wouldn't hurt), as there are enough call backs to update new readers and reward those who have been long time fans.

A comfortable blanket

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Great to hear more from the.main characters, though only Mona really gets much 'screen time". It's a more slight story than the others but the scene setting is good and great descriptions of the house and area.
The narration is a bit odd and to my English ears the English accents are all over the place and don't actually sound like any real accents at all. I can't say how authentic the American accepts would sound to US ears. it was quite distracting though and didn't help make the characters real.

Short and sweet

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I loved getting another Tales of the City book , adore the authors writing. I wish I had read it. I’m from England and the UK accents were all over the place , I found it so off putting. There were Australian , Manchester, London , Scottish ( I think ?!) characters and they all ended up sounding like a bad impression of Bert from Mary Poppins. It really spoilt it. Not to take away from the story and the nostalgia of the characters from all the books.

The characters

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