Swag Tuesday

Courtesy of the publisher, today's Swag Tuesday prize is Mary Ann In Autumn, the latest in legendary gay author Armistead Maupin's Tales Of The City series. Mary Ann In Autumn is now available online and at booksellers nationwide.

More than twenty years have passed since Mary Ann left her husband and child in San Francisco for the allure of a television career in New York. Now, a pair of personal calamities has driven her back to the city of her youth and into the arms of her oldest friend, Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, newly wed and happily ensconced with a much younger husband. Grateful for the temporary refuge their cottage offers, Mary Ann, now at the unnerving age of fifty-seven, licks her wounds and begins to take stock of her mistakes. With the help of the Internet, Facebook especially, and a few old friends, she begins to reengage with life, only to confront fresh terrors when – out the virtual blue – her speckled past comes back to haunt her in an unexpected way. Caught in her orbit is a cast of intriguing players whose stories play out against her own: her estranged daughter, Shawna, a popular sex blogger; Jake Greenleaf, Michael’s transgender gardening assistant; socialite DeDe Halcyon-Wilson and her wife D’orothea; and the legendary Anna Madrigal, Mary Ann’s former landlady at 28 Barbary Lane.

I read Mary Ann In Autumn during (appropriately enough) my flight to San Francisco last month and can report that it's every bit as delightful as the previous books in the series. As always, I most identified with Mouse (raised in Orlando, escaped to San Francisco, a single memorable night as a go-go boy) and that parallel continues in the new book with Mouse's middle-aged bear identity. Spooky!

We have three copies of Mary Ann In Autumn to give away. Enter to win by commenting on this post and please remember to leave your email address in the text of your comment. Entries close at midnight on Thursday, west coast time. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

RELATED: Armistead Maupin is currently making appearances to support Mary Ann In Autumn throughout the U.S., Britain, and Australia. On December 9th, he'll be reading at the Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. Hit the link for locations near you.