Happy Medium by Sarah Adler #bookreview #romance #paranormal #fantasy #ghosts

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Title: Happy Medium

Author:  Sarah Adler

Publisher: Berkley

Publication Date: April 30, 2024

Page Count:  412

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

About the book:

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 (read: 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 beneficentone. 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 Everett: 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 life: being fully, genuinely herself.

Happy Medium by Sarah Adler is a paranormal romantic comedy novel. The story in Happy Medium is one of an enemies to lovers romance with a fake medium falling for a skeptical man with a little help from a hundred year old ghost.

Gretchen Acorn was pretty much raised to be a grifter spending her life conning unsuspecting people. Gretchen’s father had taught her the ropes but when he took things a little too far for Gretchen she struck out on her own building up her “fake” medium business.

Gretchen didn’t want to hurt anyone with her con but she still needed to survive the only way she knew how. When Gretchen is approached to “cleanse” a property of it’s spirits how can she say no? After arriving at Charlie Waybill’s property though he quickly runs her off seeing her as the fake she actually is but as Gretchen starts to leave she runs into Everett, an actual ghost, who begs for Gretchen’s help to save Charlie’s life.

Happy Medium by Sarah Adler was a fun story mixing a rom-com with the paranormal of a very pushy ghost. The characters were likable, even Mr. Grumpy himself in Charlie who was quick to push away help but also quick to offer it when Gretchen needed it. My one complaint with this one that brought my rating down from a solid four star fun read to only three and a half stars was that the story did drag here and there and seemed it could have been edited down a bit more with this being a really lengthy read when otherwise it was a really enjoyable read.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:

Sarah Adler writes romantic comedies about lovable weirdos finding their happily ever afters. She lives in Maryland with her husband and daughter and spends an inordinate amount of her time yelling at her mischievous cat to stop opening the kitchen cabinets.