So I have never read a Katherine Center and this was truly delightful. If I'm being honest, I was super skeptical and assumed I knew the twist but there were multiple twists!

I know some people called the protagonist was a little whiny but my god! Her life sucked! I couldn't imagine being in her situation. But I will say, the romance was sweet. The romance was sweet, the family situation was interestingly done, and I did really like her friend.

My GOD her step-sister is a fucking psychopath. Like, every time she showed up, I was like "Girl I need you to stop being so mustache twistingly evil. Like everyone can tell except the people who matter apparently!!!"

But if you want a cute story with truly a bonkers premise, check this out. There's a nice author's note at the end about wanting to escape into a story and tbh, this did just that in such a nice way.

Anyway. Highly recommend!

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a review copy in exchange for a review.

This was the perfect refreshing, feel-good beach read I was seeking, and I read it faster than I expected because I was having so much fun. I am not a big romance reader, so I’m no expert, but this had all the elements of a compelling romance without being cheesy. Sadie is a relatable protagonist, and thankfully not annoying as she grappled with her myriad challenges. I audibly chuckled when the twist was revealed, and that’s about the best review I could give this little gem. So fun!

Sadie is an artist who is finally getting what she hopes is her big break after struggling for so long. She is a finalist in a portrait competition, the same one that her late mother placed in but never got the opportunity to compete in, as she passed away suddenly weeks prior. When Sadie finds out she's made it into the competition, she and her best friend Sue plan a party to celebrate. On her way home from the store to pick up party supplies, Sadie suffers a seizure and is almost run over, but is luckily saved by a kind stranger. It turns out she has something on her brain that caused it and requires surgery. Unfortunately, after the surgery, she develops face blindness, all while she needs to paint the best portrait of her life for the contest. A series of mishaps and frustrations ensue, including her dog getting sick, and she develops a crush on her vet, while at the same time, getting closer with a helpful neighbor - but she can't see either of their faces! Sadie tries to handle it all with grace, but finds this unlucky love triangle to be more than she can handle with all of her other trials and tribulations.

This might be one of the best books I've read so far this year! Katherine Center has such a gift for complex stories with so much heart, and this one was no different. I loved the twists and turns in this story and watching Sadie's determination to paint her portrait and try to make a name for herself. The love triangle was hilarious and had me smiling and kicking my feet the whole time. I just loved this story and how the relationships developed. Two thumbs down for Parker, Sadie's evil stepsister - I hope she got what she deserved. Overall, this was such a unique, un-put-downable story that I'll be thinking about for a long time to come!

TW: Toxic family dynamics, death of a parent

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

This book deserves all the stars! I can't get over how absolutely phenomenal Katherine Center's newest story is. This will easily be in my top five books of 2023. I am not exaggerating. It is amazing.

This is the most beautiful love story I have ever read. It shows that true love can exist blindly and I can't think of anything more romantic.

Sadie's story. She got me. I could not put this book down. I finished it in two sittings. I have never read a book like this. NEVER. This romance is insanely unique.

I have to admit that I am a little bias. I can't help that I personally fall deeply in love with a story when our main character is an artist and it just so happens to be that Sadie is talented at drawing and painting portraits. We love when authors appreciate artists! I have not seen a higher form of respect for art than when an author researches and truly understands the hard work that goes into the creation of poster, drawing, painting, logo. It makes my heart so happy seeing art represented in books.

UGH!! I don't know how Katherine Center does it. She absolutely makes my heart soar after I read one of her books. They are filled with endless amounts of sparkly rainbow studded joy and sprinkled with the angel song of happiness. KC is the queen of writing the best stories. I will never get over it. I am always sucked into her words. I am always in a happier place when I close the back cover.

This is my personal thank you note to Katherine Center for helping all the romantic bookish souls out there believe in love but even more important for giving us a little slice of happiness from your stories.

I don't know why I need to convince you anymore to immediately pre-order this book...

But if you need a little bit more of a push...here is a little snippet of what you will get when you read "Hello Stranger:"

- The sweetest mixed breed fur baby named Peanut
- The best FMC and MMC ever!
- Enemies to lovers
- All the humorous dialogue...I was obsessed with reading Sadie's thoughts
- The most unique plot. Truly, its unlike any story you have ever read.

"Hello Stanger" comes out Tuesday, July 11. You need this book. It's one of the best books I have ever read. Have I told you guys that I can't get over the magic and sparkling joy that Katherine Center's stories are? I will forever sing to the skies that her books are everything. If you need a shot of joy, go straight to those famous floral and bright covers.

Thank you St. Martin's Press for the advanced reader copy of this book!

I loved this book so much!

It has everything from love, loss, friendship, and finding family.

Sadie is an artist that has been going through a tough time when suddenly she ends up in the hospital needing immediate brain surgery. This is all happening during one of the most important career moments of her life.

She is a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition. She has to have her portrait done a few weeks before the competition. She wakes up from the surgery not being able to see faces. They come up jumbled for her. She can see everything just fine, only faces.

This forces her to rely on her other senses to feel people’s emotions and realize who they are. It really makes you look at life differently.

During this time you see her fall madly in love with her dog’s vet as well as Joe in the building.

She has been through so much and she is such a good person that it made you want to give her a hug.

All of the characters were fantastic. Well except for her evil step-sister Parker but everyone else were great supporting characters. My favorite had to be Mr. And Mrs. Kim. I loved how they became a found family for Sadie.

Also; the twist at the end was perfection! Such a great story.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I could not put this book down. The plot felt so unique and it took me until the Hazel One and Hazel Two incident to figure out the twist. I just loved the MMC and MFC so much.

After really enjoying Katherine’s last book the bodyguard, I had high expectations for this one. I was a tad bit disappointed, I felt that Sadie was a bit immature for her age and felt it odd she didn’t want to tell people about her disability. However there were truly some very sweet moments in the book that had me smiling that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I read this book in one sitting because I could not put it down. The whole premise of face blindness was so fascinating to me - it's something that I have heard of before but I've never come across it in a fiction book before! That aspect of the book alone was interesting to read about, and the romance was an added bonus. I guessed the "twist," if you want to call it that, but I'm not sure it was meant to be super hard to guess. It felt kind of like Katherine Center wanted the reader to know and was just building anticipating throughout the book.

I truly enjoyed this book, as I have all of Katherine Center's novels, and need to work my way through the rest of her novels. I would definitely recommend this one!

I was fortunate to receive a ARC of this book. It is Classic Katherine Center and a delightful escape into romance and character development. Though I figured out the big plot twist early on it was an enjoyable ending for me and I was rooting for the “good guys”. This title should be on your summer beach read list.

Struggling to keep herself afloat, Sadie desperately needs to win this art competition. With only several weeks before the show, Sadie experiences a seizure and is diagnosed with a rare congenital brain condition called a cavernoma. After proceeding with brain surgery, Sadie wakes up to find that she cannot recognize faces. Even her family and best friend look like complete strangers. She knows her chances of winning the competition are now totally shot.

While she recovers and learns to live with her own new normal, she meets (and falls for) two different men with two radically different personalities. The rest... well you have to read it for yourself.

So much of this book resonated with me personally right from the start, so my opinion here may be a little skewed based on my experiences. Just like Sadie, I too had a rare brain issue and subsequent surgery that resulted in some bizarre side effects. Though not nearly as extreme as face blindness, I felt like I had so much in common with her right from the start so I knew I would love this book. I also really appreciate how Katherine Center is drawing attention to rare disorders like Prosopagnosia. So many people live with invisible disabilities, and I absolutely love that this super cute story is highlighting issues like this, so bravo!

Such a unique, refreshing take on the same-old cutesy love story. I think you'll love it.

"Love isn't blind, it's just a little blurry,"

Oh boy, does this book take you on a wild ride! From the get-go, you're hooked on Sadie Montgomery's rollercoaster of a life. One minute she's on top of the world, a finalist in a prestigious art competition, and the next she's dealing with a face blindness diagnosis that turns every face into a jumbled mess.

But hold on tight, because Sadie's story isn't just about her vision problems. Nope, there's family drama, artistic dreams, and a couple of hunky dudes vying for her attention. Talk about bad timing! As Sadie tries to find her way through it all, you can't help but root for her.

Hello Stranger is an emotional whirlwind that keeps you on the edge of your seat. You'll laugh (possibly out loud in front of your coworkers like I did), you'll cry, and you'll discover that sometimes the things we're searching for are right in front of us. So grab a cozy blanket, settle in, and let this book whisk you away into a world where love and perception collide in the most beautifully blurry way. You won't regret it, my friend!

Hello Stranger is out July 11th!

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hooray for another Katherine Center summer release! Here are five reasons to pick HELLO STRANGER for your July BOTM pick:

1. It’s perfect for your beach reading. Funny, sweet, swoony … It will keep a smile on your face all vacation.
2. Peanut the dog.
3. You’ll become an armchair expert in acquired prosopagnosia and it’s always good to have something new to add to your resume. 😉
4. If you like romance at all, it’s hard to go wrong with Katherine Center.
5. The author’s note at the end about why romance books matter was just the best.

Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for a free review copy of HELLO STRANGER. I hope you enjoy it too!

3.5 stars

Katherine Center’s Hello Stranger is a unique tale that might be polarizing for some.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this book. I think it’s because I had an issue with most of the female protagonist’s decisions throughout the novel. They just didn’t make sense to me narratively, and didn’t really endear me to her as a character. That’s not to say that all characters have to be “perfect” or “likeable,” but I want to feel like I at least understand where they’re coming from. Ironically, I felt like I was told more than I was shown, if that makes sense. But I like that Center takes a risk here… I just don’t know that it quite worked for me.

That doesn’t mean it won’t work for another reader, though. And if you’re someone who appreciates minimal steam in your romances, this is going to be a great option for you.

Thanks to St. Martin’s and NetGalley for the ARC.

Sadie, is a struggling portrait artist who finds herself stricken with face-blindness just as she is poised for professional success. While struggling to paint faces she can't see, she meets two intriguing men: a confident and well-coiffed veterinarian and a kind, shaggy-haired stranger. Her struggle to choose between them without seeing either of their faces casts new light on other things in her life she might be able to look at a different way.

I found the first third or so of Hello Stranger a bit difficult to get through. Sadie has a bunch of serious setbacks in rapid succession, which isn't much fun to read about so early on in the book. And most of her interactions are with people she doesn't like - her stepmother and stepsister, her father, the cute but annoying guy who saves her life when she stumbles into the street.

Even the romantic storyline is triggered by Sadie's dog having a major health crisis. Fortunately, once that thread kicks into gear, the story becomes more upbeat and absorbing, and Sadie's emotional life becomes more interesting.

There is, actually, quite a lot going on in this novel once it gets going. There's Sadie's face-blindness, the consequent professional doubts and evolution, and the romance. There are also significant subplots about Sadie's ongoing grief over her deceased mother and her relationship with her father, stepmother, and stepsister. And there are themes of perception vs reality; real vs. false faces.

It's all woven together nicely, very much the way a person's real life might be. But because the romantic and professional dramas are so strong, the family threads seem like background - we don't know those characters, or the feelings they inspire in Sadie, very well, and I was surprised to see how important they were to the story's ending. But that ending, and the emotional change it wrought in the main character, felt like it belonged to a totally different book, and my enjoyment of Hello Stranger was a bit undermined by the fact that even its author seemed to think it needed to be about more than it was.

A huge thank you goes out to St. Martin's and NetGalley for the opportunity to read, listen to, and review this wonderful book.

Sadie is a (slightly-struggle-bussing) portrait artist who just found out she's a top-ten finalist in the same art contest her mother was in before she died. This contest means everything to Sadie... but then, she faces a medical emergency that requires brain surgery. A crisis that causes her to lose her ability to recognize faces (AKA face blindness). A PORTRAIT ARTIST who cannot recognize FACES. Yeah, that'll go well. On top of that, Sadie finds herself falling for not one, but TWO guys (without being able to see their faces). She also has to figure out how she's going to complete her portrait piece for the art contest without any sense of facial recognition. Did we mention that she also has an evil stepsister trying to ruin everything? At least she has her dog bestie, Peanut, and her human bestie, Sue, by her side.

THIS BEAUTIFUL, WONDERFUL BOOK. I loved it. I loved Sadie so much. Her voice, her character, her sense of humor, were all so well-written and relatable. I think we've all been at that point in our lives where we're failing at adulting, and Center nailed that in her main character. We love a great dog character, we love a great rom-com bestie, and we LOVE a hot veterinarian. This book checks off all three of those boxes. I enjoyed getting to learn about a medical condition that I really didn't know anything about at all. I'm a huge fan of psychology so reading and listening to Sadie battle her face blindness was fascinating to me. I loved the entire Kim family as side characters - they're adorable. The love triangle in this book is actually one that I loved (I'm not a huge fan of that trope usually, but this one is unique... read and you'll see why).

All in all, the audio was amazing. The story was amazing. The characters were amazing. Please read and/or listen to this fantastic book if you have the chance. I can't wait to read more of Center's novels.

cw: death of a parent, medical content
what you’ll read:
👋 an emotional storyline that comes with a romance
👋 a main character dealing with sudden face blindness
👋 katherine center’s typical romance alongside hard life situations and sprinkled with her humour
👋 closed door romance

overall I enjoyed the story but not so much the romance and didn’t find this one compared to the bodyguard which I adored.

👍🏼
- I love how this is a romance but it also really follows our FMC and how she is navigating a new diagnosis and her resulting new life
- there were a lot of humorous moments that I enjoyed
- her dog was so sweet and I was just so in love with peanut
- I loved that Sadie is an artist! It was fun to see her painting and work with Joe to make her portrait perfect for a competition she was entering
- the ending was perfect. I got everything I wanted from the end
👎🏼
- I wasn’t super invested in the romance. i’m not exactly sure why, I think it was a bit slow, not slow burn but just slow to realize their feelings
- there is a twist that I guessed and that ended up leaving me unsatisfied with the way it was done
- kind of related to the above point, a lot of the story I found very unbelievable and I just couldn’t get past that

similar book recs:
🎨 evvie drake starts over by linda holmes
🎨 float plan by trish doller
🎨 life’s too short by abbey jimenez (I have not read this one but it gives similar vibes)

rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I knew by seeing the cover of Hello Stranger that it would be uplifting and fun, an easy rom-com, and I was right! I truly enjoyed the light reading, and the down to Earth and relatable characters. What I was not expecting, other than the big twist at the end, was the thoroughly interesting part of the novel about facial blindness and the intriguing and deep emotional parts that went with it. This is what really pulled me in, kept me utterly engaged and interested, and made the book even more memorable to me. I had never heard of it before and it was interesting to read and learn about. I welcomed and appreciated the note about prosopagnosia at the end of the book, it was fascinating to me. It made me appreciate how the author took the topic that clearly was well researched and weave it into this delightful love story.

I couldn’t put this one down! I loved the heartwarming story and the characters and somehow fell even more in love with it after reading the author’s note about why she writes romance. Her focus on hope and healing is so special and very much needed and appreciated.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Katherine Center ranks up there as one of my favorite authors and I have enjoyed the majority of her novels, but I feel like this one fell short. Everything started off strong with Sadie - a portrait artist who has a seizure, gets brain surgery, and then develops prosopagnosia (face blindness), but then I felt like parts of the plot just got confusing. I found myself going back a few times and rereading paragraphs, because some of the actions just did not add up. Katherine does an amazing job of detailing what Sadie was experiencing, but there was something missing. About 75% of the way through, I started to pick up on the "twist", but honestly by then, I was ready for it to be over. I know I won't love every book from my favorites authors, so I'll put this one behind me and look forward to Katherine's next release.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is my second novel that I have devoured from this author, and I am officially a fan. What I love about her stories is that they are so unpredictable, and you get a nice surprise in the storytelling.

Sadie is a portrait artist who just learned she is a finalist in a contest for her art. She is so excited and confident that she can win the first prize. She wants to celebrate with her friends, but that is thwarted as she is injured in an accident that changes her life.

She learns that she has "face blindness" and is devasted as she has to submit her portrait soon to the judges and the rules require a live subject. She is able to see everything except for faces, and now she must depend on her other senses to recognize the people around her. This is where the story got more interesting, funny and at times uncomfortable.

Sadie is determined to complete the portrait because her late mother was an artist and had also wanted to win this contest. She misses her mom and is still grieving. She is estranged from her father who appears cold in the beginning, and she has a challenging stepmother and an evil stepsister to deal with.

Sadie also meets Oliver and Joe and in spite of her inability to see their faces, she feels she has a connection with both and the distraction of the attraction keeps her optimistic. Their stories are very sweet, and you are just hoping that Sadie will get her happiness soon.

Sadie evolves in the storytelling from a young woman with limits to a woman who went through a life change and found her courage and love herself. I wanted to give Sadie a high five by the end of the story, she was a great character.