Lavender House

The beautiful lavender-colored cover of Lavender House.
Read Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

When you’re a cop in 1952 and your colleagues bust you in a raid on a gay bar, your career options become extremely limited. Former San Francisco Police Inspector Evander Mills’ retirement plan is to drink until his money is gone, then pitch himself into the bay. Until a widow sits down next to Andy at the bar and offers him a private gig—find out what happened to her wife.

Persuaded to take the case, Andy accompanies the widow to Lavender House, the family seat of recently deceased Irene Lamontaine, head of the Lamontaine Soap empire. At this secluded estate, where none of the residents, or the staff, need to hide their identities, Andy finds a bewitching freedom.

He also immediately finds himself a pawn in a family game of old money, subterfuge, and jealousy—and Irene’s death was only the beginning. The gates of Lavender House can’t lock out the real world, and it turns out that not even a soap empire can keep everyone clean.

A delicious story from an new voice in suspense, Lavender House is Knives Out with a queer historical twist.

A murder mystery set during the Lavender Scare and gay-bashing in 1950s San Francisco. Sometimes you want a neat little mystery that does exactly what the genre says it’s supposed to do. Sometimes you want it to be super gay. If that is the case and if you don’t mind a few graphic police beatings…

audiobook recommendations for Pride

Liked A playlist of audiobook recommendations for Pride (Mastodon)

I made a playlist of audiobook recommendations for Pride on Libro.fm

If you get the audiobooks through the playlist, you support both my reviews and an independent bookstore of your choice.

This is great! Audiobooks are cool and LGBTQ+ books are even cooler, and this playlist, which is also hosted on my lovely Libro.fm, which has an amazing business model. Check out Jude’s list!

Jawbone

Read Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda

Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of an abandoned cabin, kidnapped by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise?

I labored through this entire book waiting for the payoff. It didn’t pay off. The ending made me so angry, not because it’s anger-inducing but because it’s empty. You’re telling me I went through all these convoluted, « I love hearing the sound of my voice »-type monologues for this? I should have listened to my gut and…

This moment isn’t about decentralization

Liked This moment isn’t about decentralization by Ben WerdmullerBen Werdmuller (werd.io)

I think it’s important to understand that what’s happening today in social media is not because decentralization’s time has come: it’s because Twitter’s time has gone.
Many of us have been wanting decentralized social networking for a long time — I’ve been a part of these conversations for around twenty years. It’s tempting to feel like people finally get it. But that’s a trap and a mistake. As always, quite rightly, most people want something that works for them. If decentralized tech gets them there better than the alternative (and I think it can!) then there’s a wonderful route forward for everyone. But decentralization is not the goal. The goal is always a human experience for people who do not and should not care how the sausage gets made.

Liking this and putting here with no comment, but a personal blog post on that topic may follow, tomorrow or in 3 years.

What makes RSS better than social timelines? – Tracy Durnell

Liked What makes RSS better than social timelines? by Tracy DurnellTracy Durnell (tracydurnell.com)

Replied to The Fail Whale Cascade by Luke Harris (lkhrs.com)
I’m bored of what I call “the timeline era”. Scanning an unending stream of disconnected posts for topics of interest is no longer fun, I prefer deciding what to read based on titles, or topic-based discussion.
I am a huge fan of RSS…

Loved these nice little things about RSS feeds. (I also use a feed reader to follow my Mastodon timeline; it’s nice enough because I can just « mark all as read » if I’m not in the mood, and I don’t follow too many people, but it does have its limits.)

On Glenique Frank Returning Her London Marathon Medal

Liked On Glenique Frank Returning Her London Marathon Medal and Undefeatable Bad Faith by Niko StratisNiko Stratis (Autostraddle)

In sports, we point to the trans women who place second or third or 6,160th and say that we are not winning medals anyway, so why not let us in. That we are weakened by our hormones or the years of our lives and letting in what few of us are vying for position doesn’t hurt anybody., But then what happens when we succeed? What does this say of trans women who work and train and struggle to compete with the desire to win in their hearts. They are not great betrayers of the cause by simply choosing to excel. We should all be so lucky to find ourselves at the front of the pack.

On the right to thrive and perform well as trans women in sports – can we get another narrative than « oh but trans women don’t actually win », which is currently true, but also so demeaning?