Sarah Adler follows up her debut novel MRS. NASH'S ASHES with an even better book. In the newest release HAPPY MEDIUM, Gretchen Acorn is an ethical con artist. She spends her days as a (fake) Spirit Medium to the wealthy and elite in Washington, DC but with a moral compass. Her number one rule is that she only takes people's money if she's certain she can leave them better off than she found them. Her best paying client appears to be sufficiently healed after numerous "talks" with her recently deceased daughter. Just as Gretchen is building up to telling Mrs. Easterly that the link to the spirit world is quiet, Mrs. Easterly hires and pays for Gretchen to cleanse the Gilded Creek Goat Farm of ghosts for her bridge partner, Charles Waybill, so he can sell the property. Upon arriving in rural Maryland, Gretchen is shocked when she finds not an elderly bridge partner but young, sexy Charlie and a real ghost that she can see and converse with at the farm. Charlie wants nothing to do with her and throws her off the property. The chatty ghost Everett explains the curse that says death will occur for any Waybill that leaves the farm without a Waybill left to live there. He has been watching the family since his death almost one hundred years ago. Grechen agrees to stay so she can try to get Charlie not to sell and save his life. Gretchen strikes a deal with Charlie to work at the farm for a month for room and board in exchange for trying to convince Charlie of the reality of the curse so he won't sell the farm. If she loses, she has to return all the money she received from Mrs. Easterly. As the month progresses, Gretchen and Charlie grow closer by working together to turn around the financially struggling farm and finally realize where they both belong. A sweet book with interesting characters and a little bit of fantasy that doesn't distract from the plot.
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.
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