Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟  Spice: 🌶️🌶️

by Sarah Adler

Mountains of thanks to @berkleyromance for the gifted advanced copy. Considering Mrs. Nash’s Ashes was one of my top books of 2023, to say I was THRILLED to read Adler’s new book is a massive understatement – and it didn’t disappoint!

Gretchen doesn’t believe in ghosts, which is funny since she makes her living conning wealthy ladies out of money as a spirit medium – but her mantra is always to leave her clients better than she found them. When one of Gretchen’s best clients offers an obscene amount of money to cleanse a spirit from her bridge partner’s farm so he can sell it, she agrees because she needs the money. Expecting a septuagenarian farmer when she arrives, Gretchen is shocked to find Charlie – young, handsome, and deeply skeptical of her bull$h!t. 

As Charlie attempts to send her packing, Gretchen encounters Everett (an actual ghost!!), who informs her about the curse that has tied him to the house for decades, which Charlie will fall victim to if he sells the farm. She can’t leave Charlie to that fate, so she makes him a deal – give her a month to convince him that she’s telling the truth, and if she can’t, she’ll return the money. Thus begins Gretchen’s time on the goat farm, and as she tries to convince Charlie that she’s telling the truth, she begins to question the life of lies she has built for herself.

With Adler’s signature whacky charm, I fell in love with Gretchen, Charlie, Everett the ghost, Sleepy Jean the goat, all the knitting, and the whole little world. As much as this book is fun and funny, it is also a thoughtful story about loneliness, trust, honesty, friendship, and three people who each have something they need to learn to start the next chapter. It also is a heartfelt examination of how we fight to live up to (or down to) the expectations of our families.