Book Club January 2025- Happy Medium
By: Sarah Adler
Published Year: 2024
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 388
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): 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.
What I thought
This book was different than I expected. I kind of expected it to be silly and light hearted, and while it had its moments, it had a lot more serious moments than I expected.
Gretchen was raised by a con artist to be a con artist. She currently runs a business where she claims to talk to the dead. She mainly focuses on old rich women outside of DC. When one of the women comes to her asking for assistance to exorcise a ghost at her friend’s farm, Gretchen goes expecting another older resident. She is surprised by a man in his 30s as well as an actual ghost.
This book is a little bit of an odd combo of enemies to lovers and insta love. Both Gretchen and Charlie are immediately attracted to each the to the point where they want to jump each other’s bones. However, Charlie immediately sees Gretchen as the fraud she is and wants her gone.
My favorite part of the story was easily Everett the ghost. I liked his relationship with Gretchen a lot and found them to be very silly. He’s obsessed with TV and it made me laugh when he would get mad about the TV being left off. Charlie can be a bit over the top sometimes. I understand he doesn’t want to get conned, but he can be a bit practical for my tastes. I also found his attraction to Gretchen to be a little less believable than her attraction to him. I think Adler at times took on too many plot points and the book did seem to feel a little bumpy at times for lack of a better word. I think there could’ve been a couple of cuts that wouldn’t have impacted the story at all, but nothing that majorly bothered me.
I liked Gretchen’s character development a lot too. Her growth from con artist to good person was fun to read and I liked how she addressed some of her issues. Overall, this was a cute book. I don’t know how much conversation it’s going to bring as a book club book, but it was a cute story.
What Book Club Thought
Everyone really loved this one. I think I was the one who liked it the least, but that doesn’t mean I disliked it. We had an interesting discussion about why Gretchen was able to see Everett as well as some discussion about her dad and his con artist past. We had more discussion about the book than I thought we would, so that was good. A few of the other Book Club members said they are going to look into Adler’s other books which is always a win. This was a fun and different read that was easy to get through. If you’re looking for an easy read with a few laughs, I definitely recommend this one.