I really enjoyed Lavender House. I don't read murder mystery's as much as I would like because they tend to be predictable, but I'll honestly say I didn't see the ending coming. I found the book to be fast paced and over all enjoyable.

CW: homophobia

I really enjoyed this book! This is the first that I've read from Lev Rosen (though Camp has been on my TBR for AGES), and it was really good.

The story is about a former police detective who was kicked off the force when it was found out he was gay, during a raid at a gay bar. As much as I love to read books that don't include homophobia, it didn't feel gratuitous and was historically accurate for the time (1950s). This former detective is hired to investigate the murder of a queer, found family's matriarch, and it was great to see how Andy (the detective) came more into himself as he got to know the family more. It was a really interesting premise and one that I think probably happened quite often at the time, queer folks living together and pretending to be a blood family, as a way of protecting each other. Where this was a murder investigation, I was really worried about how it would go, if I would be destroyed by who the killer was, as I came to quite like all of the members of the family. Thankfully, I was very happy with the resolution.

I really loved how the book was written, it felt like a gritty, noir detective novel and I am so here for it.

I was dying for a cozy little mystery, and this hit the spot!! A touch of noir, a dash of romance, and a sprinkling of historical fiction were just what the doctor ordered to bump me out of this reading slump i was having. I savored every word of this old fashioned detective story, and loooooved the forbidden queer romance and found-family bonds. Ugh, deliciousssss!

I’ve heard this called gothic and I’ve heard it comped to Knives Out, and I’m not sure either is accurate. The feel of the book is closer to a noir detective story, which is fine but a bit disappointing for those who were hoping for a gothic murder mystery set in a creepy mansion, which is how the book was promoted.

I love the idea of bringing more diversity into the genre, and Rosen handles his characters deftly. But a mystery with zero atmosphere just doesn’t do it for me, especially when we’re lead to believe that it’s gothic in nature. And it’s a shame, because the family business in soap and the house itself is theoretically a great setup for a slow burn mystery that oozes atmosphere.

The mystery itself is fine and has a plausible and satisfying ending. Andy’s character arc is well written and he’s a very compelling hero. But the book just lacks the originality and sense of place that I need out of something in this genre. If you care less about that sort of thing than I do, I expect you’ll like this one well enough, because there is no issue with the quality of writing or the story.

4.5 stars

I requested this book because I saw it described somewhere as a queer Knives Out. I stand by not only this decision but this description.

The cast is full of complex, interesting characters who keep the mystery a nail-biter until the end. I loved that while the mystery was never far from the centre of attention, there were a lot of other things going on at the same time. Living a queer life in the 1950s was not easy, even in San Francisco. Lavender House may be a haven for this 'family', but this safety does not extend outside its boundaries.

I won't spoil anything here, but if you've ever pictured a queer cozy mystery set in the '50s, Lavender House is everything you were hoping for. Full of heartbreaking, honest moments, I thoroughly enjoyed this read.

It's 1952 and Evander (Andy) Mills is a disgraced former San Francisco police officer. He was caught in a raid at a gay bar and now he's lost the job that was his whole life. Right when he's thinking of ending his life, he's offered a new job: figure out who murdered Irene Lamontaine, head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire.

Andy is hired by Irene's widow and brought to stay at Lavender House, where both the family and staff have created a queer haven for themselves. Their happiness and safety depend on keeping others out, but now they fear they're keeping a murderer in. Andy is seduced by Lavender House, where a queer family lives openly and honestly behind its walls. But he's also convinced he's staying with a murderer.

This book is brutally honest queer historical fiction. It's not always an easy read because there is plenty of homophobia outside the walls of Lavender House. That being said, I loved getting to know the characters and the premise of a murder involving a soap empire. I love historical stories about queer people creating safe spaces for themselves and Lavender House is all about that! I really hope we get a sequel to this one because the potential set up for a sequel is there at the end and I want to see Andy solve a new queer mystery! I loved this one.

This was an interesting mystery that felt very Noir, but modern because of our gay detective. Andy has been blacklisted and kicked off the police force after being caught in a raid on a club with another man. While still nursing his wounds, he is approached by an older woman to solve the murder of her wife. He is invited into their home to investigate. Due to the sensitive nature of the home, he must proceed carefully without exposing anyone in the family.

It was an interesting environment and way of exploring the lives of these queer individuals and also the struggles they deal with in their daily lives and the lengths they go to to be who they truly are. I was able to predict who did it and why which was kind of a let down. but their unhinged last moments were pretty great.

"The table is quiet, and I can see them all thinking about what they'd said and done in front of me. I take a spoonful of soup."

I enjoyed #LavenderHouse by @levACrosen so very much. The concept of this "family" was brilliant, and yet for all of their safety, it comes at a huge cost of being trapped, literally. Yet I imagine that's nothing new for anyone not heterosexual during the 1950s. The opening, as Andy sits at the bar, contemplating his suicide, is incredible. I felt such compassion for him, and the shame he feels. And it's cathartic and uplifting when he comes into his own. Terrific read, blending social commentary and a cozy mystery. Highly recommend!

P.S. Thanks to #netgalley for the ARC.

4.5 stars

This was awesome! It felt a lot like a cozy mystery, except the main character is not a newbie to solving murders, but he is out of a job when he is outed after getting caught in a police raid at a bar where queer people hang out. The story takes place in 1952 in California when being queer can be a death sentence. When Evander "Andy" Mills loses his job, he is ready to call quits with life when a widow hires him to investigate the death of her wife, Matriarch Irene Lamontaine, head of the Lamontaine soap empire. Naturally, this marriage is kept a secret from the outside world, but she knows the circumstances of his dismissal and feels she can trust him with their family secret--a home that is a safe haven for queers, free to live their true lives behind closed doors. Despite the dark themes of persecution and abuse of queer people, this story managed to keep from being bogged down by them, perhaps because the darkness was balanced by Andy discovering the joy and freedom of being who he was meant to be. I like how even as he works to uncover the murderer, he gets to know members of the family and realizes that family can be found and made and you don't need to stick with those you were born with. Listening to him say that he wishes it was not this person or that person tugged at my heart a bit. Without spoiling anything, I'm hoping that the ending means there will be future books because I want more with Andy and this family.

The mystery was not super complex, but it was still a good yarn. The story felt like a cross between a cozy mystery and a hardboiled detective novel with enough back-story on the characters that I really started to empathize and connect with some of them. I'd say that the mystery was probably 3 stars for me, but the rest of the story was 4 or 5 stars, so I'll give it 4 stars. I have not read anything by this author before, but I enjoyed his writing style and will check out some of his other books.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

“People are always trying to claim you, without ever listening to who you are. They want you to be something else, to be the role they have for you in the family. But really, we’re all better off just making our own.”

Lavender House is a historical, queer murder mystery following a recently fired detective looking into the suspicious death of the Lamontaine soap empire’s matriarch. When he reaches Lavender House, he finds an unconventional family full of people who might have had a motive. But the closer he gets to the family, the more he wonders: how can a family who seems to have it all together fall apart? As Andy uncovers the mystery, he also starts to understand how even a place like Lavender House where you are free to be yourself can feel like a prison if you've been there long enough.

I loved this book! It was a quick but often emotional read, which I wasn’t expecting. I loved the found family theme, especially given the time period this book is set in.

thank you netgalley and forge books for this arc in exchange for an honest review!

Evander “Andy” Mills didn’t assume being a good cop made him immune from being a target. He just never thought he’d actually have the bad luck to get caught literally with his pants down when the San Francisco Police Department raids a gay bar. But that is exactly what happens. Andy is spared the typical bashing, but his career as a cop is done and he finds nothing but loathing from his former colleagues.

For a man whose entire identity was being a cop for the sole purpose of helping people, this harsh new reality saps Andy of his will to live. In fact, he is contemplating ending things when he meets Pearl Valez. Having been recently widowed, Pearl is convinced her significant other didn’t die in an accident, but has actually been murdered. Andy, knowing his policing career is completely kaput, struggles to care, until Pearl mentions she not only knows about his proclivities, but is part of the same family. In fact, she is reaching out to Andy because she needs a detective to investigate and feels only another queer person could take the death of her wife seriously.

Pearl whisks Andy away to Lavender House, her family estate nestled far away from the hustle and bustle of downtown San Francisco. The house is unlike anything Andy has ever seen, let alone experienced. It’s not the profusion of fragrant flowers growing across the grounds or the richly appointed rooms and competent staff. It’s the fact that Lavender House is a haven for Pearl and all her queer family. Henry, her gay son, is in a committed relationship with Cliff; the man is for all intents and purposes Henry’s husband, but officially his business secretary. Margo is his trophy wife, bringing a veneer of social acceptability to Henry, but actually in love with Elsie, who owns a queer night club in the city. The cook and gardener are a matched set and the butler is an older queen who keeps the whole show running. Of course, both family and detective are wary of each other at first. The family is worried about Andy sussing them out and reporting them all for lewd behavior. Andy, on the other hand, is concerned that one of them is a murderer. As his investigation continues, he finds each person in the household has varying degrees of plausible motive…but who would risk ruining this slice of heaven by committing an act as heinous as murder?

Lavender House is a whodunit mystery set in mid-century San Francisco. In the spirit of a police procedural, Andy methodically examines the scene of the crime, interviews the suspects (all conveniently living at Lavender House), and checks his hypotheses as he tries to piece together the truth. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting each member of the family and household. The supporting characters work as a marvelous ensemble; each relationship has clear facets that cleaved them together…or apart. Henry, for example, seems like a hard-ass business man, but he’s an utter simp for Cliff. Cliff likewise dotes on Henry, but is a terrible flirt and harbors a secret or two that could cause trouble for the family.

Until a few days before the story begins, Andy was content as a police detective. He managed to avoid raids mostly by hearing through the grapevine where his fellow officers would strike next. Andy never thought to share this information with others in his community. In hindsight, and juxtaposed with Lavender House’s small community fiercely protected by a pair of matriarchs, Andy realizes how selfishly he acted — and that he has a chance to try to remedy that. Andy’s very recent past as a police officer also adds extra layers of interest in the interpersonal relationships. Most people living at Lavender House view Andy with a high degree of skepticism. First, the sheer fact that he is a detective sets many characters on edge. Second, nearly everyone is convinced Pearl is grasping at straws by hiring someone on the suspicion that Irene died not by accident, but by murderous intent. But then, Pearl sees him as her champion and Andy finds an ally in Pat, the butler.

The best part of the engrossing cast is that they’re all likable or relatable in their own way. And that makes it all the more tantalizing to know that one of them is the murderer. There are a few times where Andy grows a bit wary of being at Lavender House. He stays as a guest and the further his investigation goes, the more convinced he is that Irene was, in fact, murdered. However, the only real tension between Andy and the others comes in the form of a dead rat being hidden in Andy’s bar of bath soap. It’s clearly a sign he’s not wanted, but it felt like the only one. I’m not sure if the suspense intentionally took a backseat to the interplay between Andy and the others, but I would have liked a bit more of it in the story.

Overall, Lavender House is an engrossing mystery. I loved the vivid depiction of life in the 1950s and Rosen incorporates working class and upper class queer characters. Andy made for a great narrator and, while all the clues point in the direction of the killer, it was his ability to interpret a situation to arrive at the right answer when the real suspects get narrowed down. If you like this time period or detective stories, or books about queer characters that include romance but don’t focus on it, then I think you’ll really like this book.

After Andy is fired from the San Francisco Police for being caught in flagrante delicto in the bathroom of a gay club, he is recruited to solve a possible murder. It's early 1950's, and homosexuality is a crime and universally despised, which means that Andy has been hiding his true self his whole life. The woman who hires him has created a safe haven and home for her gay friends who have become like a family to each other., but she suspects that her wife's death was malicious. In Agatha Christie fashion, there is a limited number of suspects, who all seem implausible at times, and very likely perpetrators at others. The action progresses at a good pace, and the historical context of gay prejudice is informative and heartbreaking.

4.5 STARS! This book was beautifully and thoughtfully written. There is a lot of queer representation in this which is so important for the time period in which it is being told (1950s). On top of that, the mystery is also quite fun, although not as shocking an ending as I expected. Still, excellent read.

4.5*

Lavender House was an entertaining whodonit! I really enjoyed this book, particularly the setting and the time period. There was a great cast of characters, and it really did remind me of the movie Knives Out, which I thought was great.
Andy was a very likeable character, very endearing. He had me worried there at the beginning, but I think, after this case, he's got a second chance at a wonderful life.

This wasn't a fast paced story, it was more of a slow burn, and not in the romantic sense, and I think it worked well. There were a lot of characters in play, which could have been overwhelming to keep track of, but we got a good feel for them through Andy's eyes, as he spent time with them, interviewing and getting to know them. I kind of had an idea of who the murderer was, but as the story progressed I was second guessing myself- it could have been any number of the habitants of Lavender House! And even though it ended up being that person, I was surprised with the way things played out.

Books like Lavender House make me realize I need to, on occassion, step away from the romance genre and mix up my reading a bit more!

In 1952, matriarch Irene Lamontaine passes away. Her recipes for her soap empire are hidden within the Lavender House, an estate where people are free to be who they truly are and not hide it. In order to do so, they've needed to keep others out; this means they may be harboring a killer. Irene’s widow hires Evander Mills to uncover the truth behind her mysterious death. Andy, recently fired for being gay, jumps at the opportunity and safety of this queer family. He is soon a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy—and Irene’s death is only the beginning.

Though this family is free to be who they truly are within the house, that also makes it a prison. They can't hold hands with their loved ones, see a movie or go out to eat as a couple, or even do ordinary things like grocery shopping. We take that for granted, though this is still a reality for some queer couples now. It was certainly the way of the world in 1952. Andy is hit hard by the reveal of his sexuality, but that doesn't put a damper on his actual investigative skills. This book is described as similar to "Knives Out," which should tell you a lot about how the book progresses once Andy knows it was indeed murder.

This is a noir style murder mystery, one that drew me in. Andy really is good at what he does, and continually keeps an open mind. The real fear of everyone in the house, the reasons why they might have done it and why they wouldn't have, all increases the tension as the novel progresses. It wraps up neatly and with hope for the future, that ultimately people can and will continue taking care of each other. Legal justice could never be served in this situation, but family endures, and we know the truth.

Real Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars

You know, I’ve been seeing reviewers comparing this novel to “Knives Out”, and I honestly can’t see any resemblance between the two besides the two properties both being closed-loop mysteries involving the head of a wealthy family being murdered. Other than that, I can’t think of them being anything alike. So if you want to take this reviewer’s opinion into consideration when looking to read this novel, I can tell you (as a huge “Knives Out” fan who watches it all the time) that if you’re looking for a book that’s similar to that movies, then “Lavender House” is not it.

That’s not to say that “Lavender House” doesn’t have its own charms, though I don’t seem to have fallen in love with the book as many other readers and reviewers have. It’s a closed loop mystery in the style of Agatha Christie and her detective Hercule Poirot, but with some of the pulp charm of hard boiled noir detectives like Raymond Chandler’s Sam Spade. By this, I mean that the mystery and setting themselves are closer to Christie, but the detective himself is like a queer version of Sam Spade… or maybe queer Sam Spade just as he started up his PI business.

I’ve got a great deal of love for old dogs that are taught new tricks in our glittering world of literati: when we take the old tropes, genres, and more and breathe new life into them using the issues, themes, and conflicts we face today. What this book shows us, in a way, is that we faced these issues back when Raymond Chandler was even writing Sam Spade novels, but some of those issues more than often had even more life-threatening consequences back then than they do now. Consequently, it’s only now that authors can write novels using those genres and tropes to showcase those dangers without facing the end of their careers or worse.

“Lavender House” has a great story to tell and great lessons to impart about queer love in mid-century America and a little about queer history in San Francisco, but the mystery itself is where the story fell flat for me. It’s not that I could guess who was the killer; it’s rather that I didn’t much care. I ended up being much more intrigued about the family, the detective, and the other characters than I did about the mystery death at the heart of the book. I’d say you have a huge problem if your reader doesn’t care about the mystery in your mystery novel.

I still recommend it, because the glimpse of what it takes to live a queer life in 1950s San Francisco is really worth it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Forge Books for granting me access to this title.

File Under: Crime Fiction/Historical Fiction/LGBTQ Fiction/Mystery/OwnVoices

This book had the perfect balance of queer and mystery for me. Andy reminds me a bit of the good-looking Nick Nowak only less slutty and maybe a little less cynical and gritty, and this should be taken as a compliment because Boystown is my all-time favorite PI series.

Filled with a queer household of eccentric characters, this 1950s historical mystery is told in first person from Evander Mills who was recently fired from the San Francisco police department after being caught in a raid on a gay bar and feels like this is the end of the road for him. Out of the blue, he is hired to investigate the accident/possible murder of the head of a local, successful soap company. A good mystery with a variety of suspects living in the same household, I’d liken it to a cross between Agatha Christie and a G-rated Boystown rather than the popular movie that’s been previously referenced. Recommended to semi-closed room mystery lovers.

Thank you to Netgalley and Forge Books for a copy provided for an honest review.

Okay, I'm going to state what is probably obvious – if you pitch a book to me as being a queer version of Knives Out, I will read it. And I'm probably going to cherish it will all of my heart. That was certainly the case for Lavender House, written by Lev A.C. Rosen.

The year is 1952 – a time when it wasn't safe (or legal) to be openly gay. This is the world that Evander Mills lives in. Until recently, he was a police officer. Until the force learned the truth about him, they quickly turned their backs on Mills.

However, Mills might just have a chance to find a new career that will let him help even more people. His people. The famous Lamontaine owner, Irene, has suddenly died, and her widow believes foul play. She wants somebody safe and trustworthy to look into the situation because she knows her family can't risk having the police.

Wow! I can see why people are going wild for this book. Not only is Lavender House amazing, but it perfectly delivers on its promise. This novel very much feels like a different version of Knives Out, only it's set in 1952 and has way more political commentary and representation. In other words, it's pretty perfect.

You need to look no further if you're looking for a complex murder mystery full of unique and compelling characters. Lavender House is the book for you. There are so many layers to this investigation. In fact, there are enough where it's probably worth a second read-through. And maybe a third (or fourth). And don't even get me started on the potential for an adaptation!

In truth, Lavender House was a delight to read. Some books just have this air of magic about them, and Lavender House is one such book. Everything about it worked to catch and hold my attention, including the setting, characters, mystery, and even the subtext. It's an absolute must-read.

Very much enjoyed this cozy mystery, especially considering the focus on queer history and lavender marriages. Lev AC Rosen does a fantastic job creating intrigue and mystique, and I believe this book does a lot in terms of paving the way for new and more diverse cozy mysteries.

Lavender House is a captivating new mystery by Lev AC Rosen set in 1952. Andy Mills was recently fired from the police force for being caught at a gay bar. He is contemplating ending it all when he gets a proposal he can’t refuse. Irene Lamontaine the matriarch of the famous Lamontaine Soap Company passed away under suspicious circumstances, her personal assistant, who is secretly her widow, wants Andy to prove whether Irene’s death was a tragic accident or murder. Andy feels a sense of safety at Lavender House, where almost everyone is gay including Irene’s son and the staff, and is able to be his true self, but he becomes increasingly suspicious about what happened to Irene. The ending though the one I was hoping for, felt a bit simplistic for what was otherwise a fairly gritty story. I would recommend the book for its interesting fictionalization of a tumultuous time in LGBTQ history and engaging characters.