4.5 stars. I loved this one! Sadie was a terrific and complex character, although I didn't understand why she didn't want to reveal that she had face blindness, especially to someone she was so close to. This made the conflict feel a tiny bit contrived but it didn't matter that much b/c, as always, Katherine Center's writing was gorgeous and the story very very satisfying. Highly highly recommend!

I love Katherine Center's books and this one had me laughing out loud. As the author mentioned in the author's note at the end of the book, romance books do tend to be a bit predictable but she preferred thinking of it as anticipation. There was definitely a lot of anticipation in this book and I could foresee the ending like a car that was about to crash and I was bracing for impact. Overall, I liked the book but it was not one of my favourites by her.

If you need a wholesome, heartwarming read, this book is for you!

Imagine if you could never recognize someone's face? Sadie, a portrait artist, has just received her big break as a finalist of the North American Portrait Society competition when her life is altered drastically. After an accident she now has prosopagnosia - face blindness - and has to struggle with painting her portraits, two new love interests, and her absolute b of a step-sister.

Would definitely recommend if you love:
- Slow-burn Romance
- A cutie senior dog
- A love triangle with Sadie, a dog-saving veterinarian, and an annoying neighbor with a very distinct bowling jacket.

If you are looking for a book that has great depth but also makes you happy, makes you feel hopeful about life and humanity, then Katherine Center is the author you need to read. I can’t express enough how this author is truly out there delivering hope and joy to the world.

And Hello Stranger is her best yet.

What I love about Katherine Center, in general, and specifically with this book, is her ability to make me truly SEE people and situations in a way that really connects me to humanity. I always come away feeling like I’ve grasped some deep and valuable truth about life – and laughing, crying and swooning my way through it all.

I love you, Katherine Center. Thanks for making me a better human through the magic of your writing.

This is an absolute must read, my friends. Also, don’t skip the author’s note. It’s everything.

My thanks to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book before its publication date.

This is another great book by Katherine Center. Great story line, fun characters and humor. One of my favorite boo k covers ever. Beautiful artwork. Thanks for advanced copy.

I love, love, loved this book! I loved the premise. I loved the characters. I loved the narrative. I loved the author’s note at the end. I loved Mr. and Mrs. Kim. I loved everything about this book. It flowed so well for me and was so easy and exciting to read. Easy 5/5 for me and a book I will pick up when it’s published.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC!

I LOVED this book! Great characters, fun storyline, some humor, romance, tears-it had it all! This is another one of Katherine Center's that I will read over and over!

warm vibes but I thought the love triangle would be stressful but it wasn't too bad. This is my first book by Katherine Center and I have to say that I enjoyed it! The art cover is stunning as well as the character development!

I can’t get enough of Katherine Center’s quirky writing style and playful first-person storyline! This book was an enjoyable easy read and focused on living with a unique condition - prosopagnosia, or facial blindness resulting from a brain injury. Our main character, Sadie, is diagnosed with this newfound condition at a pivotal moment: her acceptance into the esteemed North American art gallery competition of her dreams. There’s just one problem - how can she finish painting her portrait (of her best friend) if she can’t see faces?! All while grappling with her mom’s death, a mysterious male neighbor, a handsome veterinarian (thanks to Sadie’s beloved sidekick pup Peanut’s untimely illness), an absentee father and an evil stepmother and sister.

While reading, It was difficult for me to picture living in a world without recognizable faces, and some of the mishaps and coincidences were a bit hard for me to believe. So much was going wrong that I had a constant pit in my stomach for Sadie, with anxiety over the way she was forced to see the world! There were also a few clues that felt too obvious, bringing me to guess the twist at the end well before it came to light. Overall was an enjoyable read though and educated me about a disability I didn’t know much about!

I enjoyed this book, because it's Katherine Center and she just has a way with characters and dialogue, but it was in many ways similar to her novel How to Walk Away (my favorite novel of hers).

Katherine Center is a new author for me, I read The Bodyguard last fall. I love it when I discover "new" authors who have been around for awhile because I can login to to my library account and request my heart away. I've read probably about four of her novels and I really like her writing style. Each plot is unique, but full of those feelings of sunshine and butterflies when two really nice, likeable people get their HEA. I would say "spoiler alert", but c'mon...it's romance. It's all about the HEA.

I received Hello Stranger as an ARC from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. The book is about Sadie, an artist who paints portraits and finally gets her big shot. She is one of ten finalists for some big painting competition with a $10k prize. Winning will help ease her money woes since she hasn't really "made it" and funds her life by paining portraits from photos (some pets) in her Etsy shop. It's also a chance for her to show her father, a successful surgeon who was against her changing majors from pre-med to art eight years ago, that she made the right choice.

Early in the book Sadie has a medical scare and is told she needs to have brain surgery. She has a super rare side affect from the surgery that causes face blindness. When she sees people, she can't see their faces. It's not that they don't have faces, her brain is just not putting the features together in a way that it used to. Which is a bit of a problem, because she paints...portraits. Yikes.

Thrown into the existential professional crisis is a love triangle. She develops a crush on her dog's new veterinarian who asks her on a date, but she also strikes up an unlikely friendship with her new neighbor whom she thought was a jerk. Again, she catches feelings for both without seeing their faces.

This book, like many of the author's books is just so warm and comforting. A chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven. I'm giving it five stars because I really enjoyed it, but also because of the author's note at the end about romance stories. Let's stop giving romances novels a bad rap already!

Thanks again to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

It has been a long time since I have read a book from start to finish in one day. This book had me sucked in and I could not put it down until I was done. Sadie is a struggling artist that just got her big break by being selected to the list of finalists in a portrait competition. Everything appears to be on an uphill trend when she finds herself in the hospital needing brain surgery. When she comes out with a condition called facial blindness, her world falls apart. How can she get her portrait finished for the show when she can't see faces anymore? To boot she has somehow fallen in love with two different men amidst all this mess. This was such a fun ride with twists and turns, a great love story, and a great message. Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC. I loved it! 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for making this book available for early readers. I am a fan of Katherine Center. Her books feel fresh, not like you’re rehashing old tropes. Hello Stranger is no exception.

Sadie’s hilarious internal dialogue kept me hooked. She is relatable and funny, if a little angsty. Joe the bowler is the perfect book boyfriend. I want to cuddle with him forever.

Though I guessed the ‘plot twist’ from the back cover, I’m using the phrase loosely. This book doesn’t aim for a gotcha moment. Guessing correctly did not impact my enjoyment of the book.

The only aspect of the book that wasn’t my favorite was Sadie’s borderline rudeness, at times. More than once I asked Joe why he liked her. But she won me over in the end, in no small part due to her running internal dialogue.

Special kudos to Katherine Center for taking care in the portrayal of someone experiencing face blindness. I do not know anyone with the condition and can’t comment on accuracy, but I felt how much she wanted to get it right. Not just in describing what a person with face blindness sees and experiences, but also the emotional rollercoaster. She also made sure to answer questions running through my head, like “how can Sadie not know her step-sister’s voice?”

Overall, a fun read. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

I’m a huge fan of Center’s books. She’s a fantastic storyteller and I am so thankful to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC for the purpose of this review. I’m giving it four stars.

The plot is truly unique and I found myself looking up words and terms because of the storyline. I enjoyed the medical aspect! The other part I loved was the MC and her pet!

The cover is beautiful and the book has some spice and love triangles so if you like that then you will enjoy Center’s latest!

Sadie Montgomery is a young painter who is trying to make a living as an artist. She is a finalist in a portrait art competition when she has a medical emergency and has to have emergency brain surgery. As a result of the surgery she develops face blindness. Needless to say this hampers her ability to paint a picture for the competition. She doesn't want to tell anyone except her closest friend Sue about her condition. This sounds like this would be a depressing book but quite the opposite. Sadie is such a joy of a character. I loved her and all the supporting characters as well. This book just makes you feel good at the end. I loved it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for a copy of this book for review.

This book was SO CUTE! Sadie was a wonderful main character. I thought that she was charming, was true to herself, was willing to self-examine herself, had growth, and stood her ground with her HORRIBLE stepsister! I was immediately drawn into the storyline. The initial meet-cute between Sadie and the mystery man at the convenience store had me excited about the book, and her major life change had me empathizing with her struggles. I thought Dr. Addison was cute but Joe was the real winner. He was a little mysterious, a lot charming, and was really there for Sadie. The whole book was really funny and well written and I loved loved loved the ending. Admittedly, I did not see it coming....! I highly recommend this book!

A very well written book by Katherine Center. I had never heard of facial blindness and feel like I learned a lot by reading this book.
Sadie, a struggling artist, is waiting for her big break but when she finally gets a chance, she has an episode and has to have brain surgery but suffers consequences from it. Full of a little drama, and an excellent story of falling in love. Wonderful book. Highly recommend! Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy!

I loved Katherine Center's book The Bodyguard and was super excited to read Hello Stranger! Hello Stranger was a great read, slow burn and somewhat predictable (in the romance sort of way). Definitely a good build to give some anticipation. Overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend it!


Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley and the author for providing a copy to review!

As a major Katherine Center fan, this was one of my more anticipated releases of the year. This book stayed true to the author with really like-able characters, a unique storyline, and a continuous pace throughout the story. The lead characters had obvious chemistry and you rooted for them from the beginning. While there was a twist at the end, you kind of saw it coming from the very beginning but the ride to get there was fun. The story fell short for me in two ways: there is an evil stepsister arch that does not contribute to the story in a meaningful way and is just a distraction from everything else going on; and there is a point in the story when someone from the FMC’s past just coincidentally shows up out of the blue when they were discussing her, says her peace, then disappears. It was like Center didn’t know how to wrap up this piece of the story so she just threw it in there. Regardless, I did really like the book and would certainly recommend it if you are a fan of Center’s work.

I really enjoyed this one!

I last read about the concept of face blindness in Alice Feeney’s Rock Paper Scissors, and that was totally creepy, so I was wondering how I would feel about the concept in a romantic comedy. Well, it worked for me — I thought Katherine Center approached the topic well and Sadie’s condition — and resulting frustration — felt believable to me, particularly because she was a portrait artist. Sadie felt like a very well-rounded character to me — from her relationship with her father, her nostalgia for her mother, her want to succeed, her attachment to her dog, and her reactions to Dr. Addison and Joe. I sped through this one quickly and wished there was more.

Thanks to Katherine Center, St Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the ARC.