E-galley Review: Happy Medium by Sarah Adler

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Happy Medium by Sarah Adler
Published by Berkley on April 30, 2024
Genres: Adult Contemporary Romance, Adult Paranormal Romance
Pages: 416
Source: the publisher
Format: E-galley
My Rating:
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Blurb:

A clever con woman must convince a skeptical, sexy farmer of his property’s resident real-life ghost if she’s to save them all from a fate worse than death, in this delightful new novel from the author of Mrs. Nash’s Ashes . 

Fake spirit medium Gretchen Acorn is happy to help when her best ( wealthiest) client hires her to investigate the unexplained phenomena preventing the sale of her bridge partner’s struggling goat farm. Gretchen may be a fraud, but she’d like to think she’s a beneficent one. So if “cleansing” the property will help a nice old man finally retire and put some much-needed cash in her pockets at the same time, who’s she to say no? 

Of course, it turns out said bridge partner isn’t the kindly AARP member Gretchen imagined—Charlie Waybill is young, hot as hell, and extremely unconvinced that Gretchen can communicate with the dead. (Which, fair.) Except, to her surprise, Gretchen finds herself face-to-face with the very real, very chatty ghost that’s been wreaking havoc during every open house. And he wants her to help ensure Charlie avoids the same family curse that’s had Everett haunting Gilded Creek since the 1920s. 

Now, Gretchen has one month to convince Charlie he can’t sell the property. Unfortunately, hard work and honesty seem to be the way to win over the stubborn farmer—not exactly Gretchen’s strengths. But trust isn’t the only thing growing between them, and the risk of losing Charlie to the spirit realm looms over Gretchen almost as annoyingly as Everett himself. To save the goat farm, its friendly phantom, and the man she’s beginning to love, Gretchen will need to pull off the greatest con of her being fully, genuinely herself.

My Review

Other than this being 3rd person, I loved everything about this book! Sure it was a little long, but all of the story was needed in my opinion. I’d wanted to read this author’s first book, but didn’t get to, and so when this one popped up and the publisher offered me the chance to read it early, I jumped on that chance!

I normally don’t care for reading about con artists or criminal type of characters. So you’d think that I wouldn’t like Gretchen. However when I got to know her, her family background that led her to where she was, as well as how she might be conning older women, but she is doing it so that she is leaving them better off afterward, I was won over. And her surprise when she actually did see a real ghost, and how that went for her, it was hilarious! Oh my gosh, Everett was so much fun, he made the book!

Charlie, our love interest, also a great guy. It was easy to see why he wasn’t a fan of con artists, especially worrying about what was happening to a friend of his. His taking care of his grandpa brought to mind some of my current issues with my stepdad’s dementia slowly getting more of a hold on him. Every little detail we learned about Charlie as he let Gretchen in bit by bit made me fall in love with him right along with her. And when she told him she found a way she could stay and he could go, wow, I hate the way she did that! How could she not even throw out the suggestion he could stay too?

So much humor and emotion in this story. I will definitely need to go back and get my hands on the author’s last book and will recommend this one highly as well!