Gin Palace 📚 by Tracy Whitwell, a Book Review

           I've been taking notes, if you'd like to read along. Recently, I wrote about 2012's The Accidental Medium by the same author, Tracy Whitwell, and this is a sequel titled, Gin Palace. Wanna watch a likeable, funny, flawed (and in my opinion, relatable) woman make mistakes and learn from them and live and feel sorry herself and solve crime with the help of dead people before she goes home to her coffee and fluffy cat and her well-written variety of relationships? If so, then come along!

 

- On 3.13...Just finished chapter 3 and I badly want to know more about the boy that Tanz sees in spirit in that old building known as the Black Gate.

- I also missed Tanz and it’s so nice to catch up…on the life and feelings of this fictional person I care about.

 - On page 50, just before starting ‘Paranormal Iain’, I decide to look up what a “stottie cake” is, though I have context clues from a mention in the same dialogue of eating one with sausages and brown sauce.  I don’t remember coming across that term before, and I’ve read a lot of things written by people from the UK.

 - As I've said before, I so appreciate how Tanz describes receiving messages and images from the Other Side. It’s more realistic than a couple of things we got from the Maggie TV series on hulu, a series that played out as if written by people who are not very in touch, if at all, with intuitive/psychic/mediumistic ability. Neither Maggie nor Tanz have made it sound, thus far, like they put in much effort to connect, but with Tanz, it clearly is different. In Gin Palace’s “Prologue: Enough Already”, she said that she had, “closed down the receiving tower”, that she, “couldn’t handle any more talking with dead people. It was just too much”. The reader gets more articulation with Tanz, more clarity, than they would with what I can safely assume is the majority of other characters thus far in modern fiction about how she receives and manages messages.

- By the end of page 120, I’ve finished a scene that gave me a further look into the dynamics in Tanz’s little three-person family and a good glimpse of her addressing her own judgement of some things she has learned or assumed or witnessed in her parents’ marriage, giving herself a healthy moment of thinking, “…Who am I to judge? People are what they are and, whatever has gone on, my parents seem to need each other”.

o   Y’ know? When you’re like, ‘To each their own. We all have our own needs and desires and beliefs’, even if some of them are painful, based on inaccurate ideas about one’s individual value or how existence works, etc. Most, if not all, people on Earth have dysfunctions and one will have an easier time making their way in the world when they consistently remember that and live by it.

- I’m intrigued by what’s building about Milo…

-  In my humble opinion, this novel does a good job of weaving together tension with plenty of insight into Tanz’s everyday life and her very human thoughts. I see Tanz beating herself up about her love life and crap at her job with the behavior of spirits who have dark intentions and give her nightmares and whatever is going on with Tanz’s longtime dear friend Milo. Mundane stuff and poor choices and feelings are meshing well with paranormal excitement!

- On 3.19...page 152: I'm so glad that Tanz and Gladys, the sensitive from the ghost walk, are "talking shop", so to speak. This could be hugely helpful for Tanz. She has loved ones who know that she has these abilities and they don't discourage her (or, in her parents' case, not for the most part), and her mom is a strong psychic medium, but up to this point, Tanz has had just one person in her life who willingly and regularly used these abilities, someone who is proud and skillful about it, serving as a resource, and for all I know, Gladys may become a mentor, right? Or at least a generous, powerful friend.   

- Page 159: Hell fuckin' yeah! I'm so proud and awed over the fact that the kind of healing described in the chapter that ends on page 159 is something that humans really can do for each other. I love that we can focus and "stand in our truth" as the saying goes and have those things really bring about tangible change. There are all of these advantages to taking personal responsibility and...I love learning more about what we're capable of. Reader, I hope you feel the same. 

- Please don't tell me that Library Iain is going to show up again. I just finished the "My Old Nanna" chapter and I would love for both our protagonist and myself to lead an Iain-free life. 

 - On 03.29...In all of my complete ignorance on the topic, if you've had an eye removed and you're considering prosthesis, how common is it these days to have a glass eye? 

- Maybe researching a haunted location has helped Tanz to picture or to be willing to 'see' the environment at the time of the crimes. It could have allowed her to focus. 

- Page 257. Yes yes yes yes. 

- Once again, guys, I recommend the audiobook for The Accidental Medium and Gin Palace. As much as I've enjoyed this sequel, I was really into listening to the story of this Geordie woman, read in the Geordie accent by an actress who knew how to do the job, using inflection, tone and the like. 

- This book has some truly insightful and touching moments. I really appreciate that.  

-I'm proud of Tanz.

        By the way, I'm aware that pulling off a successful interactive live book-reading would involve an altogether different approach than what I used, but hey, I made a choice. If you read this post and not the novel itself, go fix that! Get the book, fall into a glorious friendship with Tanz!