The Lavender House was a fun who did it mystery with an interesting look into a complex house arrangement. I surprsingly enjoyed learning the introspect of the soap empire and the failings as well as the future of the company. It would have been fun to have even more peaks into the empire. I felt like there could have been a bit more with this.

I found each of the characters to have a unique opinion on who the murderer was. The plot was easy to follow. There is no tricking or trying to confuse you throughout the book. When something happened it made sense that it would. I thought the book was at a good pace and had a lot of really cute moments.

Sometimes I felt that when an event happened it could have been explored more. There were a couple things that the author brought up but never resolved which felt confusing and seemed like a big deal.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for an LGBTQIA+ read! The book was really fun and I enjoyed the overall character dynamics.

The audio was good and the narration clear,

Lev A.C. Rosen’s Lavender House is the setting for the death of Irene Lamontaine, head of the soap empire. She had a nose for scents and would famously change the soaps scents on a regular basis. Lavender flowers that grow on the estate give the house its’ name. Most of the family members and staff are queer so there’s a wink and a nod to the name Lavender House as well. Irene’s widow, Pearl, hires a down-on-his-luck former police inspector recently fired for gay lewd conduct to solve the mystery of her wife’s death. Evander “Andy” Mills discovers that this queer family live a life of freedom inside the gated walls of the estate and soon labels one of them a murderer. San Francisco in the 1950’s, gays and lesbians were treated differently from today. Gay bashings, homophobia and being called faggot were everyday occurrences for the queer community. Andy was “one of us” and Pearl knew he could be trusted to keep the secrets of Lavender House. Pre-order the book/audiobook to find out who is the murderer. Try to guess their identity. Request the book/audiobook from your local library. I enjoyed the audiobook’s narrator, Vikas Adam, and because of his narration, fell in love with Andy. You’ll be longing to smell the scent of lavender. Are you “one of us”? Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC.

✨ Review ✨Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen; Narrated by Vikas Adam

This is 1950s queer San Francisco in all its glory.

Evander Mills (Andy) is a San Francisco detective who has been fired after caught in a raid on a gay bar. The family of Irene Lamontaine, the recently deceased head of the Lamontaine luxury soap brand, hires him to investigate her death.

He finds Lavender House as a bastion of queerness where most of its inhabitants are living out their true identity with an openness uncommon in the 1950s in SF, let alone anywhere in the US. But, quickly, confusion, jealousy, seduction, and more come to reign in Andy's explorations of the house. Did someone inside Lavender House that murdered Irene?

I really enjoyed this book -- the queer 1950s SF setting, the mystery, the reflecting on identity. It's a slow (almost cozy) mystery set in a rich historic setting. I enjoyed the audio too (Vikas Adam sounds like Archer lol) and I binged this in a day!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: historical fiction, mystery
Location: San Francisco and Bay Area, 1950s
Pub Date: October 18

Read this if you like:
⭕️ slow cozy mysteries
⭕️ mid-20th c. queer historical fiction laden with opulence
⭕️ found family drama
⭕️ beautiful purple book covers 😍

Thanks to Macmillan Audio, Forge Books, and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

In an earlier time, when being gay was a sin and a crime, this story takes place. I will admit there are parts of this book, aspects of life in that time that were difficult to read and I usually don’t have trouble reading difficult topics.

Rosen does a fantastic job painting a picture of Lavender House and the extravagant acceptance that happens inside. It is a home and a safe haven for queer people, but it can also be a prison…

Lavender House is the home of Pearl and her wife Irene. Irene is the genius behind a soap empire, but she has fallen to her death and Pearl believes it may have been murder. She hires Evander “Andy” Mills, freshly exiled from the police force due to his predilection to the same sex, feeling that he is a safe bet to keep their lifestyle a secret, while still being able to get to the truth of what happened to her beloved.

I liked seeing Andy go from reserved and closed off in personality and fashion to more free while being in the house. It was a total transformation. I loved the odd dynamic between the many individuals living inside Lavender House. They are a big family of sorts and I really enjoyed them all, even if it took longer for me to warm up to some of them.

The way this story unfolds was so entertaining. I enjoyed it immensely! I really enjoyed the narration in this book. He gives each character a voice and cadence of the time.

🧼Blurb:
A delicious story from a new voice in suspense, Lev AC Rosen's Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.

💭Thoughts:
From the moment I started this book, I was drawn right in! I loved the setting of the hidden away mansion surrounded by flowers and full of secrets. This book is one part murder mystery and two parts a look at how gay people were treated in San Fransisco in the 1950s.

I found myself endured to the cast of dysfunctional characters. Especially to Andy and the double life he was being forced to lead. The pain and discrimination he experienced throughout his life, especially while working as a cop. The story he told of his grandpa. After all of that, I really enjoyed watching him become his genuine self while being at the mansion.

The middle part of the book was a little slow to unfold. I would have liked a few more twists, but I did enjoy the different facts about the mansion resident’s relationships that Andy uncovered during his interviews.

Overall, this is an interesting look at the treatment of gay people during the 1950s. This book motivated me to do more research about the topic. I think this book has a little something for everyone, including readers who enjoy historical fiction, romance, and murder mysteries.

Knives Out but make it queer, and historical? Um, yes please??

Lavender House delivers on its promise, with a quick yet dramatic read, full of intriguing characters and a complicated protagonist. The mystery is a little on the weak side - the culprit is a bit too obvious, the twists and revelations a bit off in their pacing. But that's made up for, at least for me, by the character dynamics and by the expertly crafted tension in the atmosphere, between the characters' feeling trapped - smothered, indeed, by family expectations, by societal danger, by the presence of a murderer in what should be the one safe place they have - and feeling, for once, at last, free.

The audiobook is read by Vikas Adam, who adopts an appropriately growly, hardboiled voice for narrator Evander Mills that I thought suited the story well, along with an array of solidly distinct voices for the rest of the cast.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the advance review copy!

Evander (Andy) Mills is a cop, and a good one, until he's not. It's 1952 and he is fired after being caught in a raid at a gay bar in San Francisco. Luckily he's quickly picked up to do some private investigation work for a local wealthy family, the Lamontaines who run a soap empire.

The Lamontaines own a compound called Lavender House and Andy is astonished to learn of multiple gay couples who call the House a home. In a classic whodunnit, the reader wonders which character is the murderer, and it all comes to a crescendo as Andy and his cohort confront the accused.

A quick-paced thriller of a book which also covers the atrocious treatment of the queer community in the 1950s, Lavender House will keep you guessing and keep you entertained.

The audiobook narration is expertly performed by Vikas Adam who brings the various characters to life with all the voices he uses throughout the novel.

Thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan Audio, and Lev AC Rosen for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

When will I learn that just because something is compared to Knives Out, it doesn’t mean it will BE Knives Out?

I mean, of course it won’t be the same thing. But I wanted more of the fast paced, exhilarating vibes that I adored in Knives Out and I didn’t find that here.

I was really intrigued by the premise of the book, as well as my initial perspective on the pages I was able to read through BookishFirst. Unfortunately, I found myself struggling to get through my physical copy due to pacing. I was grateful to pick up where I’d left of with an audio copy and that went a lot better for me.

So, yes, that’s my first complaint. The pacing. I knew it was a standard mystery, not an edge of your seat thriller, but I still expected it to be a bit more exciting.

Still, the author offers some profound tidbits throughout the narrative, which I really enjoyed.

Are there some Knives Out vibes? Absolutely. You have a murder that isn’t immediately confirmed as a murder and a bunch of shady characters all in one house. They’re rich, somewhat unlikeable (although character development allows for some nuance), and almost all of them have motives. Rosen puts his own unique spin on the trope but making this a house where gay people can be themselves in 1952. It’s enticing enough, for sure, but not wholly compelling.

The unfortunate thing is that I don’t think you need to be a detective to know where to point your finger. The murderer was rather obvious, just as the little twist at the end was. That certainly doesn’t make for a worthless story but since I wasn’t terribly excited by the book at any point, it does make a statement about my enjoyment of the tale.

This was the second time I’d been duped by the Knives Out claim, although this was actually more enjoyable for me than the other book with that comparison. That’s a positive! I’ll probably give Rosen’s YA books a shot at some point since I did enjoy his writing style.

I am immensely grateful to Forge Books, BookishFirst, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for my review copies. All opinions are my own.

This book serves a reminder of what our queer elders had to go through. My generation is hopefully/likely the last generation who will ever have to hide from everybody.
It used to be illegal to be gay. Now we can all marry whoever we want to marry, if they will have us.
I liked the twists and the mystery. The narrator was good for the role, but I really can't help cringing whenever a man imitates a woman's voice. That somewhat ruined it for me.
Maybe I would have enjoyed it more as a book, but then again, it was a good performance.
If you ware interested in LGBTQ history - this is a good one.

Set in the San Francisco area in the early 1950s, LAVENDER HOUSE is a bit of a locked room mystery where almost everyone is queer and hiding something. Most of the plot is slow paced and unfurls like a retired P.I. is telling you about one of their cases they could never forget over cups of coffee late at night at a 24-hours diner. And that's part of the beauty of Rosen's novel, that it's a quiet mystery focusing more on the true nature of people both in how they react to queer people existing and how queer people survive within the society that shuns them.

The murder mystery itself was interesting and while it wasn't a shocking reveal, it makes sense and overall there is a satisfying ending. Some of the characters are a little flat, but the others make up for it. At the end, I genuinely wanted to know what happened next to everyone and if Lavender House itself would be ok.

I enjoyed Vikas Adam's performance listening to the audiobook.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

Did you somewhat recently finish _A League of Their Own_ on Prime and wonder what would happen if there were a side plot featuring a murder mystery fronted by a queer detective? If so, Rosen has you covered here!

It's 1952, and Evander (aka Andy), the m.c., has recently left the police force by, well, force, because he has been outed. His new professional endeavor? PI time! Once he's clocked by Pearl Lamontaine, whose wife has just died under potentially mysterious circumstances, he finds himself surrounded by a family that is both chosen and blood with an opportunity to solve their mystery and to - for once - get a sense of what it's like to live his truth with others who not only support him but also possess similar identities.

While the mystery is compelling enough, it's really the m.c.'s quest to understand himself and his contemplations of the social barriers and opportunities that surround him that become the most intriguing parts of the novel. I really enjoyed the queer spin on a position that just features toxic masculinity over and over again. This is a nice twist and an engaging read overall. Folks who are able to access the audio version should as the narrator adds to the magic.

Taking place in 1952, Lavender House, home of the Lamontaine Soap Company there is a death. Covered up by the "family" that lives there, a private investigator, like them, is hired to solve the mystery of who the killer was.

I think I am going to try the physical version of this once it comes out. The narrator and whole feel of it seems very police procedural right now, which isn't really my thing. And I don't think that's what the book is either, but the narrator isn't helping it.