More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

[Tales of the City spoilers ahead]

She was not moving back to Cleveland. She was not running home to Mommy and Daddy. She knew that much, anyway. For all her trials, she loved it here in San Francisco, and she loved her makeshift family at Mrs. Madrigal's comfy old apartment house on Barbary Lane.

So what if she was still a secretary?

So what if she had not met Mr. Right...or even Mr. Adequate?

So what if Norman Neal Williams, the one semi-romance of her first six months in the city, had turned out to be a private eye moonlighting as a child pornographer who eventually fell to his death off a seaside cliff on Christmas Eve?

-More Tales of the City 

When I was reading More Tales of the City, words to describe it kept popping into my head: soapy, fizzy, fun, &c. Although the book has its share of dramatic moments, they're all so overblown that I can only describe this as a light read--and a thoroughly enjoyable one.

More Tales of the City picks up just weeks after the events of Tales of the City. All of our favorite characters are ready to embark upon new (and often exciting) adventures. Some friendships and relationships blossom, while others are tested. Mary Ann Singleton and Michael Tolliver go on a Mexican cruise, courtesy of her late boss, Edgar Halcyon. Edgar's widow Franny is struggling to find herself after his death, and their daughter DeDe tries to cope with her thoroughly jerky husband Beauchamp and the imminent arrival of her twins (not Beauchamp's, naturally). Meanwhile, Mona Ramsey goes to Winnemucca, Nevada to find herself, leaving behind landlady Anna Madigral, whose mysterious past is finally starting to come to light.

There is quite a lot of plot, and if you took it terribly seriously, it would never be plausible--amnesia! Sudden paralysis! Being drafted to work as a receptionist in a whorehouse for a week!  When you put it all together, it doesn't sound at all likely, but that's really beside the point. More Tales of the City is a fast and engaging read because you can't wait to see what happens next--and really, experience has shown it could be anything.

Up next: Still have a lot of choices here. I will probably go with Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, which ought to be a change of pace.