I did not record exactly when I started reading this series, so I am going to call it 9 months for 9 novels. At the beginning it was a window to a marvellously unfamiliar and queer world, the San Francisco of the 1970s, half a world away and before AIDS was a name anyone knew.

After that, well. The coincidental twists and turns of the plotting may have stretched credibility. But the drama was delightful. And after spending so many pages and so many narrative years becoming familiar with these characters and their found ('logical', as Anna Madrigal would have it) family, I have grown rather fond of them. There are still tears in my eyes from the final pages.

I do not know yet if I will go on to read the subsequent post-post-final book "Mona of the Manor". But I suspect fate will toss it into my path sooner or later.