I LOVED THIS BOOK! Immediately I took to the main character, Sadie, and her hilarious personality. I laughed, I got angry, and I was left feeling light and hopeful at the end. That’s what a good romance story should be.

Sadie is an artist who finds out she needs a surgery prior to her participation in a once-in-a-lifetime portrait contest. After the surgery, she finds that she can no longer see faces and has to learn to live with that (yes, as a portrait artist!)

Sadie meets Dr. Addison while taking her beloved Peanut to the vet after a scare and develops a huge crush- but here’s the kicker: she doesn’t want anyone to know about her side effect from surgery. She tries her hardest to keep it hidden but her “family” doesn’t make it easy. Don’t get me started on Parker…ugh! I could have choked her through the pages.

The end was totally unexpected and I appreciated how it was a slow burn and left me smiling. I love how Katherine Center creates these romantic stories without being overly mushy or cheesy. I will read every book she writes!

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

I absolutely loved this book! For one, I am interested in anything medical related so I really enjoyed learning more about Prosopagnosia (face blindness). The characters in this book are very well written. When I think about the main character, Sadie, the word that comes to mind first is RELATABLE! She is a very "real" character and I found myself laughing out loud when Sadie was going through certain situations and the commentary for each one of them. She is funny, lovable, sensitive, and also bold. I enjoyed watching Sadie grow throughout this book and find out more about herself and what really mattered to her in both her personal life and her career. The supporting characters added a lot to the book and it was entertaining to watch their stories unfold. Without giving too much away this book has an older dog with excellent taste in food, a hot veterinarian, an evil step sister, a supportive BFF, family DRAMA, and very interesting neighbors..

#romcom #onePOV #emeniestolovers #meetcute

Hello, Stranger follows Sadie, an up and coming portrait artist about to land her big break. However, right as she hears about her entry into a prestigious art competition, she is told that she needs brain surgery. After receiving the surgery, she is temporarily unable to recognize faces due to the brain swelling, which obviously becomes an issue as she tries to make a name for herself in the art world. As she deals with trying to navigate the world amidst this, she meets Dr. Addison, the swoon worthy vet that saves her beloved dog, Peanut. Add to this, a pesky neighbor/bad boy, Joe, and Sadie has a lot on her plate all at once.

I’ve only ever read one other book featuring a protagonist with prosopagnosia (Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven), so it was very cool to see it in Hello Stranger. The author wrote about this disease so thoughtfully and organically throughout the book. Her characters felt real and so lived in; I couldn’t help but feel drawn in and emotionally invested in Sadie’s life (and happiness). The dialogue and humor were such a warm complement to the fleshed out characters. I was so wrapped up in the slow burn romance that I could not put this book down! I highly recommend this heartwarming and sweet book!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced reader copy!

I went into this book completely blind, and I absolutely fell in love with it! As someone who is a huge neuroscience geek, I appreciated the author's depiction of facial blindness and the mental and emotional impacts it can have on an individual. I loved Sadie's character and her journey with navigating her world with her diagnosis. Katherine Center did such an amazing job at creating a story that is captivating and makes you want to keep going.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks @netgalley for read number 13 of 2023. I really enjoyed my last @katherinecenter read and was excited to read this book. While I anticipated the twist and there were some overly descriptive parts (with a tad bit of repetition), I really enjoyed the story. I loved the main characters, and I found myself tearing up more than once. A ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read in my books. Definitely recommend, and check out her other books too.

Last summer, I read and enjoyed The Bodyguard by Katherine Center, so I was happy to receive an ARC of her newest book from NetGalley (big thank you to them and to St. Martin's Press). The synopsis of this one didn't draw me in as much as The Bodyguard did, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved this one even more.

Sadie is a struggling portrait artist who has just been accepted into a prestigious contest that could change her life if she wins. And then she has to have brain surgery suddenly and unexpectedly - and when she comes out of surgery, she is shocked to learn that she is now face blind. This leads to so many complications she has to deal with, in her career and just in life, and on top of that, she has not one but two potential love interests that have shown up during this time. I loved Sadie and most of the other characters. They were well developed, if sometimes over the top, and the dialogue and situations were often funny. I was rooting for Sadie all the way. I did see a couple things coming, but that did not disappoint me at all.

Hello Stranger is due to be released in July 2023 and I definitely recommend it.

I really enjoyed this book. The MC was likable, I felt like she could have been a part of my friend group. There were times that I was laughing out loud while reading this. I did put some things together before they were revealed, but it didn’t take away from my overall reading experience.

I'm at a loss of words. Katherine, how did you write such a beautiful book?!

About 1/4 way in, I wasn't sure where this story was going. It was delving more into her new condition than the love story that I thought it was about.

But wow! Im so happy with how it was so much more than just a love story. It was about self discovery and self love. Accepting the bad and always looking for the good.

I've never read a story with a character having to go through what she goes through, that exact condition. It was amazing to see her adjust and learn to live with it. Incredible the growth of the character. I'm speechless. The description of what it's like to live that way was eye opening. Describing her feelings in regards to her mother and what that loss did to her. Heartbreaking. The family drama was intense and felt so real. Learning about her dad and the pain they all went through. That freaking sister!! 🤬

I think this book is incredibly moving in so many ways. It's reminds us to look pass just the superficial. That it's okay to ask for help. It's okay for humanity to get it wrong sometimes. But we got to keep trying. We have to keep smiling, keep laughing, keep living.

I closed the book and I laid there for several minutes just trying to digest what I read. For how it started to how it ended, please, I recommend this book to everyone.

I'm doing a terrible job in relaying just how I feel about this book. I think im still processing. I'm just so blown away by how beautiful it is, wrapped up in a cute little romance book ❤️

| Rating |
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
😘 very sweet romance

🫶

A cute, feel good story with fun characters. This author never fails when it comes to an uplifting read.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61884987

This book was such a delight to read! I have been a fan of Katherine Center’s books since reading The Bodyguard last year, and she continues impress me.
The main character, Sadie, is a struggling portrait artist who develops a condition in which she cannot see faces after a near fatal accident. Yet, Katherine wrote a perfect balance between the tragic event that Sadie is going through and the sweet romance that blooms between the main characters. Sadie was a really fun viewpoint to read this story through and brought both a quirky personality and social perspective to the book.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a cute romance with no steam! The only reason I did not give this 5 stars was the 3rd act “breakup” felt a bit unconvincing to me.

Thank you to Netgalley for sharing a digital advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Wow, where do I even start with this one?! This is my first chance to read an ARC (advanced reader's copy) and I am immensely grateful I got to start with such a bang!

I feel like most romance books all fall into one of three of four various tropes, but Center manages to put a spin on the miscommunication trope and write not only an amazing story, but an adorable take on "love at first sight".

Sadie's character is downright adorable, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud at some of her antics. Who among us hasn't plotted our wedding in our mind seconds after meeting someone? Or had internal arguments reminding us that what we're doing is NOT what we should be doing, but we do it anyway?

This is part love story, part self discovery, and all around a delight to read!

I love when a novel makes me want to stop and search the web for more information, and I appreciated the links she lists at the end of the book to learn more about face blindness. It's not every day that you learn something from a fictional story - but this book opened my eyes (pun intended) to the vast number of people that experience face blindness in their everyday lives.

I only downgraded from 5 stars to 4 because I reserve 5 star reads for those "unicorn" books that absolutely blow me away. This book was a joy to read and I will recommend it to anyone that listens. I have my fingers crossed it's selected as a Book of the Month pick.

Any Katherine Center book is an automatic read for me, and her newest novel, ‘Hello Stranger’ is a delight.

We are introduced to Sadie Montgomery, a struggling portrait artist who has recently earned a finalist spot in a painting competition that could be life changing for her career.

Sadie undergoes an unexpected surgery weeks before the competition and wakes with prosopagnosia (face blindness.) Not only is her spot in the competition and her career in jeopardy, now she can’t tell the difference between her best friend Sue and her step-sister enemy, Parker. She also can’t see the faces of the two men she falls for- bad boy Joe who lives in her apartment building and the sweet veterinarian who cares for her elderly dog.

As is typical with Center’s work, the characters are likable and have a depth that is often missing in romance writing. I enjoyed this one from start to finish and highly recommend it!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s press for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️

Thoughts:

This was my first time reading anything written by Katherine Center so I really didn’t know what to expect going in. Hello Stranger was a nice, fun, easy read but I didn’t connect with some how.

Things I enjoyed:
🖌️ The uniqueness of the story
🖌️ Sadie’s journey of growth and self discovery
🖌️ The plot twist
🖌️ The MMC and the pup

Things I struggled with:
🖌️I wished that there was more development of the other characters.. it’s like I didn’t know enough about them. And it seemed like they didn’t care about Sadie’s condition
🖌️ The dysfunctional family piece seemed a little underwhelming and it wrapped up too neatly
🖌️ The story was slow for a while there but it did pick up towards the end
🖌️ The miscommunication trope frustrated me

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts are my own.

This was a wonderful light read. Sadie is an endearing character that had me rooting for her the entire time. There were some fun twists and turns that kept me engaged. It was also very interesting learning about face blindness, very informative.

Thanks to NetGalley for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

This was my first book by Katherine Center so I wasn't sure what to expect going into it. There were aspects of this book that I really enjoyed and there were some that just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Hello Stranger could sort of be considered a love triangle which is typically one of my least favorite tropes, however this is a love triangle with a twist and I actually really liked the way it was done here. The twist was refreshing and not something I've read about before in a romance novel. And the love interest(s) are super sweet so that was a plus.

My hang-ups with this book are basically everything about Sadie's family. I just thought the whole evil step-sister plot was over the top and unnecessary and then it was wrapped up too nicely at the end.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read and I'll definitely give Katherine Center another shot.

Thank you so much NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for this ARC! Katherine Center was already an auto-read author for me, but I loved this one so much!! I jumped right in without reading the synopsis and I'm glad I did - it made the adventure more exciting. Sadie's journey through her surgery and recovery were so relatable for me. I felt like some of the realizations she had in therapy were things I just really needed to hear. I can't wait to share all my favorite quotes. I think we can all relate to pretending to be okay when things are hard no matter the scenario. The book has a little bit of everything: misunderstanding, medical struggle, family struggle, guilt, and letting go of the past...and also humor, love, and finding happiness in unexpected places. In true Center fashion this story has the perfect ending for the situation. This is going to be a super popular beach read this summer for sure!!!

This was such an unexpectedly surprising romance novel. I love how well the plot was developed, and while I didn't feel like the romance wasn't at the forefront, I didn't mind that! It created fantastic anticipation, and it was structured in a way that I simply could not put the book down. Some of the twists were predictable, but overall I enjoyed the book and appreciated how different this romance novel was. Katherine Center is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC!

CW: death of a loved one (in the past)

I adored this book!! The anticipation in it was so lovely and wonderful (read the author's note and you'll get this reference ;) ).

This love story was so sweet and endearing - Joe was extremely charming and dashing and is the ideal book boyfriend if you're looking for another to add to your collection. Sadie was such a delight as well! She had a rough life early on but I enjoyed how she had to learn things and grow even though she was dealt with a poor hand early on. And even though her family wasn't the best, she still has her found family in the Kims and that warmed my heart for her.

I also especially love seeing underdogs and struggling artists working hard at their goals even when they feel like giving up and that was a great theme in this book.

Sadie, Joe, Sue, and Peanut have found a place in my heart and I am so happy for that because they are absolutely lovely! I definitely recommend this book if you're a romance fan.

Thank you Katherine Center, NetGalley, and St. Martin's Press for the eARC!

Everything is finally coming together for portrait artist Sadie. She has a place in a prestigious art contest which could zoom her art into space. Unfortunately, she suffers a medical emergency, brain surgery, and the loss of the ability to see faces. Her world crashes down as she cannot see the face she is creating a portrait for the contest.
It sounds like she has an imaginary disease but it is real and called prosopagnosia. For Sadie, it is her entire life in upheaval. Her inability to see faces causes situations she had never dreamed.
It is a wonderful story of a life interrupted and of learning to cope after losing one sense and growing, evolving others.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center is yet another incredible book by one of my favorite authors! Sadie is the kind of heroine I love from the very first page- and her dog, Peanut, is just the best!!!!! After a minor surgery, Sadie's career is in danger. Still reeling, she is devastated when Peanut gets sick. But Peanut might just get the best vet ever. So Sophie is torn between the vet, Oliver, and her hunky neighbor, Joe. Katherine Center writes books that I want to linger in, incredibly heartwarming but not saccharine sweet. It's a fine line and KC walks it perfectly!