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.
Spice rating: 4/5 explicit open door.
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 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 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.
Don't just take our word for it...
“Happy Medium is a sincere and sincerely funny romance populated by a higher-than-average number of goats and ghosts. I stayed up late to finish it, and fell asleep smiling.”
– Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of Starling House
“Hilarious! This is exactly the kind of rom com I love to read—the perfect alchemy of romance, humor and quirky originality. Gretchen is now one of my favorite heroines. This book is going to be huge.”
– Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Next Year and The Good Part
“Adler dazzles yet again with a voice that leaps and twirls off the very first page. Equal parts hilarious, whimsical, and utterly unique in the best way, Gretchen, Charlie, Everett (and the goats) stole my heart and ran away with it.”
_ Amy Lea, international bestselling author of Exes and O’s
Taste the very first page
Gretchen Acorn is a bullshit artist.
The talent for it runs in her family—her daddy’s a bullshit artist, as was his daddy before him, and his before him. And so on, all the way back to Fritz Eichorn, who scammed his way into first class on the ship that carried him to the US by posing as a recently heartbroken Austrian count. But while great-great-great- grandpa Fritz and most of his male descendants gravitated toward the hasty brushstrokes of shell games and selling landmarks to tourists, Gretchen has found her own, more sophisticated medium.
No pun intended.
“Ah.” Gretchen presses two fingers to each of her temples. She winces as if her mental call to the spirit realm has conjured nothing except a headache. “I feel Ronald trying to be here with us, but the connection is fragile. Too fragile to make anything out, I’m afraid.”
“It’s my aura, isn’t it?” The elderly woman across the table…
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