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!

The Uncensored Library

           I'd like you to know that we have The Uncensored Library at our collective global (sanitized, socially distant) fingertips. I think that's so frickin' cool. Mind you, to access it, I personally would have to get my little godson to let me onto his Minecraft account, since the library's only available on that game, and simply having the bare bones version gives you access, but the fact that I’m still fairly young and already choose to be technologically out of touch is not as alarming as censorship and not as exciting as this resource! You see here, whippersnapper, this be impor’ant!

Puttin’ yourself on lockdown during a pandemic makes life more stressful, for damn sure. That said, a survival mindset typically means that you believe you're always lacking, whatever that lack means to you. It stems from an increase in the stress hormone cortisol, maybe even more adrenaline, which of course means more selfishness, anxiety, fear and greed. The more one might hoard toilet paper or baby formula or price gauge hand sanitizer, the more they are defeating their purpose of empowerment. They're giving their power away to stress. A more productive, less stressful way of managing hardship and a sense of isolation is to focus on a sense of community and of family, as well as personal growth.

           Recently on an episode of her "Better Together" podcast, Maria Menounos chatted with the fantastic psychic medium John Edward and said, “What do people do in prison? They work out, they read, get their Master’s degrees, they do all these things!”, which I think is an appropriate analogy.

‘Friends Without Benefits’ by Penny Reid, a Book Review

This is my fourth Penny Reid novel, and I appreciate how she adds depth to storylines and to main characters. Her books do not settle for having either of those key story elements be dumb and two-dimensional.

               

                Elizabeth, our protagonist, is fulfilling her residency as an ER doctor, working her butt off, spending one wine glass-clutching night a week with her knitting group, occasionally “using” guys in casual relationships from which she simply wanted sex for just a couple of months at a time.

'Worth the Trouble' by Jamie Beck, a Book Review

Everything's okay. That's the summary of my reaction to this romance novel. Two good-looking, decent people struggle with their mutual attraction, have sex that is enjoyable without being explicit and eventually find a good middle ground with a happy ending. It's okay.

Stacey Ballis' Writing

          I'm having thoughts about a novel I read, Off the Menu.

'The Hook Up', a Book Review

I've been having a summer fling with literary works and it's time to have something online to show for it!

I recently read The Hook-Up by Kristen Callihan for the second or third time since buying it in July.

'Thirty-Two Going on Spinster', a Book Review

I’ve recently finished reading the novel Thirty-Two Going on Spinster, about a thirty-something self-proclaimed “spinster” named Julie who keeps living in the apartment in her parents’ basement for ten years after college graduation, working the same corporate assistant job she doesn’t like, reworking mathematical formulas and gossiping on the smokers’ balcony with her work friend Brown.

'Scoring Wilder', A Review

Intelligent, relatively self-aware 19-year-old protagonist, check. Hot, talented love interest, check. A number of writing mistakes like "Her and Emily" and "the Coffee Shop", a big ol' check. Well-paced beach read that left me satisfied, check. 

It was refreshing that...