Mary Ann in Autumn

Mary Ann Singleton is in her late fifties and has left New York City for San Francisco. She asks her old friend Michael Tolliver for a place to stay, and he offers his guest cottage. She is recovering from a health scare and facing a personal crisis she cannot settle from a distance.

Her return draws in the Barbary Lane circle, and the book follows several of the original characters through their own turning points. Michael's assistant Jake is in the middle of his transition and struggles to pay for surgery. Shawna is raising a child and starting a new relationship.

The narration moves between multiple points of view, so Mary Ann's story sits beside the others rather than above them. Aging and illness run through every strand, and the tone is reflective, shaped by long friendships that have become a chosen family.

A threat from the past also resurfaces in the neighborhood, and the group has to face it together. The question is whether Mary Ann's homecoming can hold up against that old danger and her own trouble.