This book is everything to me!!! 5 stars!

It’s been a while since I have read a book that was all at once funny, heartfelt, and sexy. Plus, there’s a horny ghost that loves watching TV!

Something that made me love this book so much was seeing how the relationships changed over the course of the pages. Between Gretchen, Charlie, Everett (the ghost), Yolanda (Gretchen’s friend), and even the farm itself, a lot happens and the pacing feels perfect.

I will be thinking about this book for quite some time and I’m excited that I have recently learned how to knit because I might need to make a zany sweater in honor of Charlie – IYKYK.

Thank you Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

overall - i enjoyed Happy Medium! It’s not my favorite Sarah Adler book, but it was still fun, witty, and an easy read :)

gretchen acorn was a hoot of a character and i absolutely adored her so much!

thank you berkley, netgalley and sarah adler for the arc!

Thank you NetGalley for this digital ARC.

4 Stars

This was a truly enjoyable and cute romance with a paranormal twist. Having a bit more backstory on the female main character would have been nice, but for a quicker read what was included was fine.

I’m so happy that I got an ARC of this book, Sarah Adler has become a favorite author of mine over the last year! This book was so well written, as a Mrs. Nash’s Ashes fan, I loved the Millie and Hollis nod. Also, who knew my favorite character would be a 1920’s ghost with a passion for TV and gossip. What I would give to watch the Real Housewives with Everett! What a wonderful sophomore novel, you knocked it out of the park!

as a newbie to sarah adler, happy medium was the perfect introduction to her writing. this soft at its core, yet wacky tale brought a con woman, a lonely farmer, and the resident ghost together and despite the potential for too many elements, the story soared.

thanks to a plot that was off to the races from the very first chapter, happy medium was incredibly readable. though our lead, gretchen acorn, had some questionable morals at times, her personal development was so satisfying. overcoming some hard lessons and insecurities gave way to the most beautiful love story and friendship with the men that came into her life, charlie and everett.

now, before I get to charlie, I just want to give everett, and the hoot he was, his gold star! left to haunt the farm for nearly a century due to a curse, everett was the very definition of a scene stealer. thanks to his wit and a childlike quality about it, there was never a dull moment when he was present. saved from his loneliness by gretchen's arrival, the pair forced such an endearing bond as they hoped to save charlie.

and finally, as a lover of the romance genre through and through, I get to discuss my favorite part of any book, the love story. our love interest, charlie waybill, is a humble guy, but his dedication to keeping to keeping the family farm in business has come at a cost. feeling isolated and skeptical, he has little patience for gretchen's story, that he'll die if he dares to leave the farm. luckily, true love ultimately prevails. trading truths for intimacy becomes a game of push and pull they play, resulting in a solid foundation to grow from.

happy medium was both wonderfully wholesome and a little unconventional, striking a lovely balance. there's little doubt that this is an author I'll keep my eyes on in the future.

thanks to berkley and sarah adler for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

this was super fun! my first book by sarah adler and im pleasantly surprised by how much i enjoyed it. very unserious and silly, but there are a handful of heartfelt moments that make this book a delight. our main characters, gretchen and charlie, have great tension and banter. starts off as an enemies to lovers situation, but soon blossoms into much more. charlie has this facade as a grumpy and tough goat farmer, but deep down, he's a softy, especially when it comes to gretchen. everett, our resident ghost character, is a hoot and adds so much personality to the story.

overall just a really fun book. i'll definitely be picking up adler's future works!

thank you berkley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

The premise was adorable and I loved the characters. The middle felt a little too fluffy, like some parts should have been cut. It took too long to find out Gretchen’s past. The ghost bestie was my favorite character

This was a moving story. The characters were well drawn. It took me a little while to get into the story. The plot devolved into major drama near the end with repeated chapters where the main character martyred herself which got old. However, the characters and their interactions were enough to get me through the melodrama. The epilogue was emotional and very deftly handled by the author. Library patrons should enjoy this title.

Quirky, fun, wildly funny. I’m a big fan of this author and yet again she hits it out the park. I’m a sucker for compelling mc’s who radiate off the page.

⭐️4.5⭐️

Happy Medium is about Gretchen Acorn who is a medium except the only thing she is reading is her customers internet history and ancestry.com. One day a faithful client comes into her shop and asks Gretchen to exercise a ghost from Gilded Creek Farm where she meets a very skeptical man named Charlie Waybill who immediately sees right through her and asks her to leave, as she turns to go, she runs into the ghost haunting the farm. Turns out she can communicate with at least one dead person. Everett (the farms resident specter) convinces Gretchen to stick around and help Charlie break his family’s curse.

The premise of this book is so unserious and silly but simply adds to the charm of this book for me. I loved the banter between Gretchen and Everett and the slow burn chemistry with Gretchen and Charlie. The writing was so playful, witty, and articulate with a mix of fun pop culture references.

The final conflict of this book was a little nonsensical but the conclusion was well done and I really did like the character development of Gretchen and Charlie.

I’m so grateful to NetGalley and Berkeley for this eARC.

Happy Medium was a surprisingly poignant novel about a fake clairvoyant con-woman (Gretchen) and the struggling goat farmer (Charlie) she’s persuaded to save by the ghost (Everett) who’s been haunting the farm for decades—a ghost whom she's just as surprised to see as he is to be seen.

It was lovely to watch Gretchen's relationship with Everett grow from "begrudging interpreter forced to placate lonely ghost" into a genuine friendship as well as follow the antagonism between Charlie and Gretchen as it slowly boiled into lust. Adler did such a good job introducing what could otherwise be heavy topics—Charles's dementia, Gretchen's childhood—without bogging down the whole story. Both Charlie and Gretchen were able to reckon with their respective pasts while still moving toward the expected HEA, and her emotional connection with Everett was given just as much space as her emotional and physical one with Charlie.

The characters were so adorable in this little rom-com! I loved the tension between the two and the dialog. The growth for all the characters (lovers and third wheel ghostie) were really heartwarming and charming.

This was so cute and fun! I had such a good time with the characters (and the ghosty) that I was sad to see it end. I need to read more Sarah Adler!

Happy Medium was a lot of fun! How could I not enjoy the story of a fake medium who ends up with a ghost sidekick with a TV addiction? And when you add on top of that a city girl who ends up on a goat farm and has to turn an enemy into a lover? Adorable.

I will recommend this widely to anyone who enjoys romance with just a touch of the supernatural -- and/or fans of the TV series "Ghosts."

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read a digital ARC in advance of publication.

This book was a little difficult for me to get into, but once I did, I was eating it up. A fake medium ends up seeing a real ghost and now has to convince a goat farmer that she really isn't lying this time, sounds like a fun time! And it was! Emotional and fun and overall fun time!!

I was so hoping that Gretchen Acorn would at least do a tarot card reading or two - even if she did profess NOT to be psychic!

That title lured me in: I was expecting visionary insights. Instead, we get a real ghost with attitude, dire warnings, and ghostly expectations! (The late Everett Waybill's TV addictions cracked me up and saved the day for me time and again. His was my favourite character in this rambling jaunt in the country.)

Sarah Adler is a great, even witty, writer, but very often I felt that many of the scenes did not advance the plot. (I want to add the words "filler" and "word count" to the list of my observations as to why this story seemed to drag on for me.). Yes, the episode where Gretchen helps deliver a breach baby goat is heart-warming, as is her napping with the little cuties into the wee hours of the morning to keep them safe and warm. The steamy scenes between Gretchen and Charlie were well described and plentiful, as were the standard misunderstandings and miscommunications. The dialogue was sharp and witty and the cracks about the dog were hilarious: guard dog indeed! In his dreams! Too cute! But....

I'm going to rate this one a 3.5 rounded down to a 3 because NetGalley and GoodReads do not allow half points, and <u>The Happy Medium</U> did not hold my interest the way her first novel did. This book has all the elements of a great romance, but that ending was a bit of stretch for me: Everett becomes the scapegoat as well as the hero of the day. Still a great, often hilarious read and I still highly recommend it but it took me so much longer to read this one in comparison to her first novel.
My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This was an odd book. I got halfway through and just couldn’t finish. I felt like I was switching between first person and third person, between past tense and present tense. The idea is good, The scene with the Sleepy Jean was adorable. I loved Everett. None of that was enough to keep me reading. It was just awkward.

I don’t normally enjoy a book with paranormal activity, but I loved this one by Sarah Adler. Gretchen Acorn is a fake medium, just trying to do the best she can to succeed without hurting anyone. She receives a lucrative offer she can’t refuse from one of her favorite clients. All she has to do is banish a ghost from an old goat farmer’s property so he can sell it. Turns out the old goat farmer is really a young, handsome, if cranky, hunk who is onto her scam right away.

This is a gorgeous slow-burn romance that left me in happy tears. The characters were believable and delightful. Their journey to trust in each other was heartwarming. 4⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley, Shelf Awareness and Berkley Publishing Group, Berkley for this complimentary ARC. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I feel like I've written this in dozens of reviews by now, but I LOVE the tiniest bit of magic with my romances. Not quite fantasy (though I enjoy those, too) but a hint of magic. Maybe some time travel, maybe some seemingly crazy old lady who claims to be a fortune teller and actually is a fortune teller (yes, I just finished Melissa Wiesner's The Second Chance Year, so this is on my mind), but what I REALLY love is a ghost. It's partially why Ashley Poston's The Dead Romantics was my favorite book of 2022. So, all of this is to say that it seems like Sarah Adler wrote this book specifically for me.

Gretchen Acorn is a fake medium with morals. She pretends to talk to people's dead loved ones, but she has a rule -- she'll only do it if she thinks she's somehow helping the client or improving their life in some way -- like an older woman consumed with grief after her daughter's death, and hearing from her daughter makes moving through that grief a little bit easier. When that same older woman gives her $10,000 to remove a ghost from a farm that her friend is trying to sell, Gretchen shows up and is met with more than she bargained for: an *actual* ghost, yes, but also the extremely handsome and extremely cranky owner of Gilded Creek goat farm. What follows is a love story full of heart (and heartbreak), a lot of really cute goats, the most lovable and hilarious ghost character I've ever read, and an emotional journey for both main characters.

This book has the best of both worlds for me -- a believable romance and a slow burn that had me absolutely kicking my feet when the payoff finally arrived, and emotional depth that addressed the messiness of both characters. I liked that we got a morally gray FMC and that the reader gets to go on a journey with her and experience the push-and-pull of her attempts to be a good person despite being a con artist.

Five days into 2024 and I already know this is going to be one of my favorites of the year.

This book would have been perfect to read during spooky season! It's a cozy story and I loved it so much. The whole premise of this book is based around the fact that Gretchen Acorn is a fraud. She pretends to be a medium to provide for herself but has a rule that she will leave people better off. One day she's hired by a returning client to exorcise a farm for the client's friend, but the catch is, the client is a skeptic. And to make things even more complicated, when she gets to the farm she actually sees a ghost. The ghost tells her that in order to save the farmer she has to convince him to stay on the property. So this whole book is basically Gretchen trying to prove to the farmer that she is not a fraud (anymore) in order to save his life.

I really loved the story and the characters. Everett, the ghost, was such a cutie and the friendship he forges with Gretchen is so sweet.

5/5 read