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.

Dear Ms. Adler, 

Last year I adored “Mrs. Nash’s Ashes.” I was hoping for a repeat experience with “Happy Medium.” Let me just rip the review Band-Aid off and say, I didn’t get one. 

Gretchen Acorn is a con artist. She was raised to be a good one by her con artist father who cut her loose when she wouldn’t finish a long con with him. After building a reputation as a spirit medium among the ultra wealthy women of DC, she’s doing alright. Her best client asks a favor which lands her on a goat farm in Maryland with a man who believes she’s a fraud. Then she sees an actual ghost. A ghost with a life or death message for the farm owner. Can she get Charlie to believe her?

Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks. For the most part, Everett the ghost is a pervy asshole. He does have some good moments when he pops up to give Gretchen some words of wisdom but they’re few and far between. Although if I were stuck in the same place for 100 years, unable to talk to anyone, maybe I’d begin to get my entertainment by watching people regardless of whether those people were in the bathroom or bedroom. I think he’s supposed to add most of the “quirk” to the book but I just wanted to punch him. Even Gretchen gets to the point where she tunes out his non-stop chatter. Then at the end, he tells Gretchen something – and proceeds to blow off her valid criticism – that made me want to kick him in his balls if he still had corporeal ones. 

Gretchen, who in order to justify her actions has changed her con-artistry to only work with clients who she feels she can leave better off than when they first came to her, is so hesitant while at the farm. Yeah, she doesn’t want to be there, has never farmed, is unsure of herself but SO many times Charlie would ask her to do something that needed to be done RIGHT NOW and Gretchen would dither for half a page or more trying to work herself up to it. I would mentally yell “Just do it! The baby goat needs you!” at her. She does, I will admit, have great ideas for ways for Charlie to increase the income the farm makes and does something really nice for Charlie’s grandfather. That was sweet. 

Grumpy hero Charlie is barely in the book for the first third. And when he is, he’s simmeringly angry at Gretchen. Like that’s pretty much his only emotion. He does eventually show his good side and after that, I agree with Everett (and it pains me to agree with that asshole about anything) that Charlie is a good egg with a runny yolk. Hmmm, that description sounds better in the book. 

Miscommunication is a big part of this story. We’re told that everyone around Gretchen and Charlie can see that they’re falling for each other (even if I didn’t see much chemistry for a long time) but these two won’t give in because Gretchen won’t allow anyone close to her in her life and Charlie thinks she’s a fraud. Then this progresses to martyrish tendencies from them both. Ugh. 

The worst thing though is the endless telling instead of showing. We never do get any POV from Charlie but do get endless rounds of everything going on in Gretchen’s head. Plus descriptions. Cut those down and the book could have easily lost 75 pages of nothing. There also wasn’t much tension. Honestly, I was more underwhelmed with it than anything else. I did expect one plot point to be expanded on but that never happened, which is a good thing because I was dreading it, so yay for that. Also the baby goats are cute. 

Looking at other reviews, I am definitely an outlier. This book seems to be pleasing a lot of people but most of it just rubbed me the wrong way. Sadly I’ll have to hope that the next book wins me back because this one didn’t do much for me. C-/D

~Jayne      

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A sharply hilarious and ultimately heartfelt novel about a former teen superstar who grudgingly agrees to a reboot of the show that made her (in)famous, from the author of Reasonable Adults.

Twenty years after Ocean Views went off the air, the beloved TV show about teenage romance and angst is back. No one is more surprised than its former star, Agnes “Ness” Larkin, that she’s agreed to step back into the role of Hailey Grant. After her father/manager took off with her earnings, Ness ran away from the spotlight in shame. But maybe it’s time to stare her past, and her castmates, in their discreetly Botoxed faces.

That enthusiasm lasts until the first table read, which, in co-star Coco’s words, is “like a high school reunion without the dim lighting or booze.” Ness assumed her old fling Hayes Beaumont would be too busy doing Big Hollywood Things to take part, but there he is, seated beside her, exuding pheromones and success.

En route to the deluxe Bahamas resort where they’re to start filming, the cast gets stranded by a storm. Stuck on a tiny island with a paltry cache of food and quite possibly the most useless survival group in history, Ness tries to reconcile her youthful dreams with where she’s ended up—figuratively and literally. The producers wanted drama on and off-screen, and they’re going to get it, but where will Ness be when it’s all over?

Dear Ms. Lefler,

Well, this certainly is not how I pictured this book would go. I thought I was getting a rom-com second chance romance. I didn’t. I must also question it being described as “sharply hilarious.” There is some “heartfelt” I will give it that but when all is said and read, even that is in short supply. What I wrote on my reading list is “Bonkers TV show revival with self centered Millennials on a survivor island.”

Agnes “Ness” Larkin is hoping for a second chance at … everything. The blurb lays it all out. She’s a former YA/NA star who lost it all first when her father absconded with all her hard earned money and second when she reacted badly to that, pushed her friends away, and ended up slinking back home to Toronto where she’s spent years as a property manager. I will give her props for actually doing that up to and including unstopping toilets, laying floor tile, and dealing with demanding tenants. She took this job looking for a paycheck to maybe finance buying another property but mainly to make amends for her past behavior.

First let me say there were way too many characters dumped on me at the beginning of the book. With seven cast members and a crew person to keep track of, I was desperately scrambling to keep a mental list of “who’s who” in my head. Eventually I could keep everyone straight in my head but that took a long time.

The setting for this version of “Survivor” was interesting. The castaways find themselves on a now deserted island in the Bahamas which used to be owned by a porn film king. The decor is tacky trashy and as it’s been abandoned for years, it crumbles around them. Without much food, a generator with only 5 containers of gas, no cell service, and questionable water they’re stuck. They do manage to pull off a bit of trying to make the island visible to possible searchers but fail to do something that I would have thought would be “up there” on a list of things to search for. It’s not the first silly or stupid thing they’ll do.

Ness is getting her chance at trying to make things right with those she spurned in the past alright. For some reason, be it spite or the fact that she’s been a hands-on property manager for years, all tasks – icky or otherwise – seem to fall on Ness. She might grumble and huff a bit but darned if Ness doesn’t actually have some know-how and leadership skills. It’s needed because Lawd these are some whiney ass cry babies she has to deal with. Honestly there were times when I wanted to lean into the book and advise Ness to head off on her own and leave these entitled losers behind. At almost every stage they blamed Ness for almost everything.

About 2/3 of the way through the book I finally just decided to go with the flow and see how this mystery (and the book is mainly the mystery behind how they ended up on this island) resolved. I guessed what was actually happening

Being stranded and in close proximity with all these people gives Ness a chance to make some amends and face her own past. She does learn, she does take advantage of the opportunity, she does come out stronger. Yay Ness. If I were her, I would think long and hard about the fact that so many of them were willing to believe the worst of her but then we’re talking about actors who are seemingly willing to do just about anything to climb the ladder in Hollywood. The ending is completely bonkers. I’ll give the book credit for getting enough of my interest to keep on keeping on when I was bewildered by who’s who and for getting me to stick around to the end just to see how the others would apologize to Ness but this is not a book I would be interested in rereading. C

~Jayne

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This book made me swoon IRL. Reading it was a fever dream and not just because of the sex scenes. I was so immersed in it that the real world and its troubles didn’t even occur to me for the duration of the book. (I am anxious by nature, so this is a feat.)

Lorcan St Leger had a rough start in life in St Giles, but through illegal (and now legal) means, he has built himself a little empire. I realise I’m about to describe a classic ‘alpha’, but that is only one small facet of his tremendous appeal. As the blurb says, he’s ‘feared and fearsome, battered and brilliant’, but my favourite part is that he’s endlessly loyal to those who are loyal to him. His presence in the story is so visceral and his sincerely protective* vibe is so sexy. Truly, I swooned. (*In a not-creepy, not-controlling way, I promise)

Lorcan’s ship has just docked and he is walking near the docks, just before ‘the storm of the decade’ promises to strike. The streets are quiet with everyone taking shelter for what promises to be a very intense storm. He’s looking for an inn, but instead he comes across Lady Daphne Worth climbing out of a window using braided bedsheets. He’s fascinated despite the storm pressing ever closer. The two end up seeking shelter at the Grand Palace on the Thames – the base for this entire delightful book series.

Cue two of my absolute favourite tropes: a fake relationship and there’s only one… suite of rooms (it’s a historical after all). Yes, there is only one suite of rooms and if Daphne and Lorcan want to get out of the terrible weather in a city whose inns are already full to bursting, this is their one option. That there is already a flicker of something between them is just a bonus.

Daphne is the only daughter of a feckless man who has gambled away the family fortune. Her brothers are in France avoiding the whole mess, as far as she knows. She’s travelled down to London as a paid companion, but her employer’s husband seems to think additional services should be offered. Hence the reason she was carefully defenestrating herself. Daphne feels obligated to help her family. She’s run the household since her mother’s passing when she was younger. She tries to keep the family afloat financially, but it’s wearing her down. She’s rather desperate by the time she’s climbing out that window.

Daphne and Lorcan – to their tremendous surprise – have personal connections with some of the residents at the Grand Palace on the Thames. This adds a delicious layer of complication to their forced stay. By the next morning, the roads have flooded and no one is going anywhere for the duration. This leaves a lot of time for glorious, squee-making conversations. More on that soon.

This is a book that should not be rushed. I didn’t take my own advice and I devoured it at pace. I’m going to read it again as soon as I’ve finished this review so I can revel in the sheer genius of the emotional growth.

The conversations between Daphne and Lorcan are slower to read because every flicker of emotion is described as the conversation unfolds. Initially, they’re talking about their cover story and how to make it believable, but from there, their conversations start to go into their individual histories and getting to know one another properly. Turns out, they love talking to each other and they want to do it all the time (to the extent that they sneak away from the social time after supper so they can talk to each other instead). Yes, this drops the pace of the book a bit, but the pay-off is huge. You are able to FEEL the connection between them happening. It’s immersive, compelling and so, so real. Layers of the onion are peeled back slowly and it’s a glorious process.

There is a delightful cast of supporting characters, but I would speedread those parts, desperate for more of Lorcan and Daphne’s far-ranging, emotion-laden conversations. Such is the power of this book, that I’m still in a fog of misty-eyed love a couple days later. If you need your heart to be held, loved and adored, then this is the book for you. Truly, I am in love.

Never Cross A Highlander has a one-click cover. Black Highlander stories are rare, and I’m glad this one offered some of the adventure and steam that dreamy cover promised. The book is slow in the middle, but there are swordfights, forced proximity while camping, sex by a waterfall, a hellion heroine, and a hard-headed hero who needed his family to tell him that he was in love.

Here’s the book’s description:

Ailsa Connery has waited three long years to finally escape her enslavement at Stirling Castle and reunite with her clan. But her carefully laid plans are completely destroyed by the arrival of the infamous Highland warrior known as Dubh Mahoun, the Black Devil…who has plans of his own.

Kallum MacNeill’s fearsome reputation has long allowed him to keep hidden his secret double life of freeing enslaved captives across the land. It’s only when he kidnaps a servant lass—quite by accident—that he finds himself facing a wee predicament. He must accompany the lass home or risk her exposing his true identity. It’d be easy enough…if the feisty hellion didn’t fight him at every turn.

As they make their way to the Highlands, the perils the two must face are surpassed only by their constant sparring. Soon, their heated sniping sparks heat of a totally different kind. The kind that ignites a hunger that could consume them both. Yet the difficult journey is no match for the dangerous secrets they’re about to uncover.

When it comes to reading slavery-adjacent historical romances, I find myself automatically ranking how central the horror of slavery is to the storyline to help me decide what type of story will fit my mood. I usually categorize books by their similarity to my favorite Alyssa Cole historicals. I call this my Alyssa Cole Anti-Slavery Book scale, which is obviously in no way endorsed by Cole:

A Hope Divided – So we’re basically constantly under threat. If slavery wasn’t bad enough, now there’s a prison
An Extraordinary Union – Shut up and kiss me, we’ve got an institutionalized system of racial oppression to take down
An Unconditional Freedom – Trauma in the past, Healing and Badassery in the present
Agnes Moor’s Wild Knight Scot – This is some bullshit…oh wait we’re in love

I would probably place Never Cross A Highlander somewhere between An Extraordinary Union and An Unconditional Freedom on my ACAB scale. Most of the trauma the main characters experience is obliquely referenced or in the past, and they have several badass moments of fighting for the heroine’s freedom.

I loved the way the book imagines what life would be like for someone who was both of African descent and a Highlander. Ailsa is the granddaughter of escaped slaves who were grudgingly welcomed into the Connery clan. She’s spent her life loving her clan but hurt at never being fully accepted because her mother was unmarried. Kallum’s mother was a Yoruba speaker who arrived at a Highland clan already pregnant. He was raised by her and his loving adoptive family, the lairds of his clan. Kallum and Ailsa weave together pride for both heritages, a shared experience of discrimination against Highlanders and Black people, and a weariness at always being seen differently. This is doubly so for Ailsa, because she doesn’t fit in with the African slaves in the royal household at the beginning of the book, and is later seen as an outsider in Kallum’s clan. Their personalities and experiences are complementary, and I was rooting for them to realize that they were perfect together.

I don’t tend to love alphas, but Kallum was a sweetheart. He’s an honorable grumpypants who is used to women wanting him, which means we get to see Ailsa competently smack his arrogance down. Kallum recognizes her strength early on and openly appreciates it, calling her a “brave Highland lass” and trusting that she can hold her own in a fight. The climax of the book lets both of them shine as they fight to protect their families and their clan.

I appreciated that this book minimizes on-page violence towards women. At the beginning, Ailsa is nearing the end of her enslavement. She’s had a tough time, but it hasn’t broken her spirit as she sneaks out to see the clans perform for the king and plots her escape. We know Ailsa was punished later because Kellum sees her bruised face but we don’t experience it with her. There’s also a brief attempted rape scene, which I could have done without, personally, and another that’s referenced but off the page. On a scale where any book in the Outlander series is a 10, and a fluffy kitten video is a 0, I would give the first scene a trauma rating of 5.

What didn’t always work for me was the book’s pacing. I was sucked into the beginning of the story as Ailsa planned her escape, but once she and Kallum hit the road the story dragged a bit. For example, Kallum kept saying there’s a lot of urgency to meet his anti-slavery compatriots before they’re caught, but he and Ailsa kept stopping to argue, er chat. While bandits were on the way. OH-KAY.

Things picked up briefly once they reunited with Kallum’s family while on the run, slumped again while they waited to decide what to do next, and then finished with an epic ending that made me cheer. I was glad to spend time with Kallum’s matchmaking and meddlesome family in the middle of the book, and I adored his hot-tempered cousin who is just begging for a book two. I only wish the story had moved more quickly towards solidifying Ailsa’s freedom. The adventure parts of the story were exciting and fun and I loved the scenes with Ailsa and Kallum’s families. I just wanted better balance with the quieter parts.

I found myself putting the book down a few times to read something else. Partly this was pacing, partly it was the density of the writing. Never Cross a Highlander is meticulously well-researched, which I felt in everything from the many words used for genitals to the inclusion of a Black trumpeter at court who was inspired by a real 16th century trumpet player. I thought the history added depth to the story, and it never felt superfluous, but readers looking for a breezy superficial read may be surprised.

Ultimately, Never Cross a Highlander gave me what I want from a summertime historical romance read: characters I was curious about, enough adventure to keep me guessing but not so much that I started stressing, solid sexual tension, and some new-to-me history facts without having to break open a nonfiction book. However, the uneven pace kept this meandering story from being a non-stop page turner.