✨🎨Hello Stranger🎨✨

I read this book in May and it came out weeks ago…… and I’m just now posting my review 🙃

✍️: Katherine Center
✨:⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
📱: E-ARC on my Kindle, thanks to @netgalley and @stmartinspress

✨my thoughts✨
As to be expected from Katherine Center, this book was adorable and fun! Center is the queen of feel good closed door romance and I am absolutely here for it every time!

I loved Sadie from the start, her fierce independence, her life as a starving artist, her passion for all things that matter to her. I really enjoyed neighbor Joe as well, he was so fun to figure out and their chemistry was cute and fun!

Have you read Katherine Center? If so, what is your favorite?!

4.5 stars: I really enjoy Katherine Center's writing and Hello Stranger is another great story. Sadie Montogmery is a struggling artist, but continues to paint portraits to keep a roof over her head, such as it is. She had earned a spot in a portrait painting competition, but her efforts get derailed. Sadie had to have brain surgery and it caused an area of her brain to swell. It is the area that assists in facial recognition and Sadie ends up with prosopagnosia, better known as face blindness. Not only is she unable to paint portraits, but she doesn't recognize people she sees on a regular basis. Although she is confused, trying to hide her problems and somewhat depressed, she meets two men that make a big impact on her life. The first is her new veterinarian, who saves her geriatric dog, and the second is Joe, the gigolo in her building that wears a vintage bowling jacket. She is not impressed with Joe initially, but as she gets to know him, she realizes that he is actually a nice guy who is dealing with problems of his own. When Dr. Addison stands her up when they make a date, she realized that she has strong feelings for Joe. Will her sight be restored when the swelling subsides? Which man will she choose?

Sadie was a frustrating character. She wants to stand on her own two feet, but she has a lot of people who care about her and she won't accept help from anyone. She keeps her secret about her face blindness, even when she puts her foot in her mouth more than once. Having said all that, I liked that she was a strong, independent woman. I absolutely loved Joe! He was such a good person, almost too good to be true. He was so kind and helpful to Sadie that she eventually thawed where he was concerned. The secondary characters were well drawn, and as the story progressed, even her father became a better person. The only person that I truly disliked from beginning to end is her step-sister, who made her life miserable from the time she moved in with them to the present. She was a bully and just downright mean! Although the story is a bit over the top, Katherine Center explains about her research into this condition and some of the issues that go with it. I enjoyed this story, the friendship, the condition Sadie was dealing with and especially Joe. Another winner by one of my must read authors.

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center was my favorite read from this author. This book is a very unique read and quick paced. It was predictable, but I still enjoyable. This book was so wonderful and made you think about how we see things and people. This author knows how to write a good book and keep the readers coming back for more!

Rating: 3.5/5⭐️ (rounded up to 4⭐️)

Publication Date: July 11th 2023

Author: Katherine Center

Review: I have yet to find a Katherine center booth that I didn’t truly enjoy. Though this one wasn’t really your typical love story. Having facial blindness is a crazy thing to wrap your head around. Of course they are always very predictable but personally I don’t have an issue with that. I enjoy going into a book like this know I will have a HEA
Katherine center is on my always read list.

Thank you netgalley and St martins Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review #NetGalley #bookstagram #kindle #kindleedition #eread

I’m still fairly new to Katherine Center, but I have absolutely loved every title I’ve read and Hello Stranger is no exception. The book had such an interesting premise and not one I knew anything about. I loved the journey and its resolution. And, quite frankly, her writing is just so freaking good, I never want to put the book down once I’ve picked it up. I read daily, but this book was read in a few hours. I simply couldn’t stop and had to know how it ended. Highly recommend.

LOVED this book! Perfect summer read. Katherine Center is always on my list of authors to read as soon as the books come out. Not your typical romantic book!

This was my first Katherine Center book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Sadie is a portrait artist who has an unfortunate accident that leaves her face blind. Faces now look like mixed up puzzle pieces, so she's faced with a horrible dilemma since she has just over a month to finish a portrait for a huge competition she's in.

Along the way, she falls for not 1 but 2 guys, a neighbor in her building and her dog's new veterinarian. She has to deal with an overbearing stepmother, an evil step sister, and her father who seemingly wants nothing to do with her.

This was a great story about discovering new ways to "see" people and yourself. Sadie learned to watch how people carried themselves and felt their emotions without being able to see their faces.

I enjoyed seeing all the pieces of this story fall into place.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book.

Katherine Center’s books are always a solid bet when you want a smart, well-crafted, accessible, and heartfelt story. Hello Stranger describes a very unique physical phenomenon that I’d never heard of before. I went into this book blind, so I didn’t know what it would be about. I liked being surprised and watching the set-up unfold, so I won’t say the book’s premise here. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary eARC in exchange for my honest opinions. I think if you have enjoyed other books by Center, you will also enjoy this new one.

This was my second Katherine Center book and I enjoyed it but not as much as The Bodyguard. The writing itself is very good but was predicatable and I did not connect with the characters.

I have become a huge Katherine Center fan!! It started with The Bodyguard, and now I'm reading as many as I can! I have already recommended this one to friends, and I will continue to recommend it. I loved the disability representation in this one. Center is fantastic at writing romance that isn't too spicy (which is my reading preference). Count me in on any future Katherine Center books! I'll be here to cheer her on!

Quote:
- If I ever get run over, it’ll be by an Aston Martin.”
- We’re all struggling with our struggles. Nobody has the answers. And everybody, deep down, is a little bit lost.

Spoiler Free Review:
Sadie is an artist looking for her big break and right when she gets it her life falls apart. She finds out she needs brain surgery and that it has side effects that no one told her about before. The big one being face blindness which as a portrait artist means she can’t draw faces. She is a finalist in a portrait contest for $10k but can’t draw any faces that don’t look like a puzzle. Then she’s meeting all these new people who she actually already knew but did realize it since she can’t see their face. This includes the guys she falling for too. She hopes this resolves its self when the edema from the surgery goes down but until then her whole life feels upside down.

I loved this book so much. I loved the uniqueness of the story — and the overall message about people not really processing the world around them. I thought that I had a lot of the story figured out, but there managed to be a few twists and turns along the way. I will definitely be recommending this book to friends!

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is the first book by Ms. Center that I read and the story caught my attention from the beginning. I would love to make sure that she is ok, because how did she even come up with this story? This was really a story about finding love in a hopeless place, but also a reminder that vulnerability is not a weakness.

Although I really enjoyed this book, I was a bit disappointed at the fact that I could already guess the ending of the book by the mid-way mark. However, this story was so sweet that I couldn't help, but keep reading. I also love the fact that this was a love story with all the feels without including any graphic scenes.

I will be following Katherine's work from now on.

Katherine Center does it again! I have enjoyed her prior novels for their loveable, if not sometimes zany, characters that you will want to root for and this current novel is no exception. The whole book feels like a warm hug. That is not say hard things do not happen in Hello Stranger because they do, but the author keeps the novel on an overall hopeful note.

Sadie is an artist living in Houston and is self-described as tragically failing at life, when she has a seizure in a road and suffers a neurovascular issue. Sadie tries to win a big portrait painting contest while struggling to see people's faces due to her brain injury. There are great secondary characters in Hello Stranger including best friend Sue, an evil step-sister, a difficult step-mother and Sue's delightful parents. This book has competing love interests and a fast moving story line. Hello Stranger is so much than the normal love story, but retains the happy-ever-after feel of a typical romantic plot line.

I received this book in an exchange for an honest review thanks to Net Galley and St. Martin Press. I will post this review on Goodreads, Bookbub and Amazon.

I requested this book because i loved The Bodyguard and was excited for another title by Katherine Center. While I wouldn’t rate this book higher than The Bodyguard, I definitely loved that this book make me slow down. I couldn’t speed through it like most books because the concept was different that anything I’d ever read. I had to work hard to put myself in the place of the main character, but not in a bad way. I definitely called the twist, but I still really enjoyed this book!

Sadie has wanting nothing but to make it big as an artist. Like her mother its been a dream and when she gets hopefully the big break she's been waiting for. She gets into a accident and finds out she needs brain surgery its a simple procedure and afterwards all seems well when she can no longer see faces its a blur literally. The docs say it should go back to normal and don't force it but no time frame. This is the worse time shes to make her painting for the art show and hold the mic she specializes in faces how can she paint someone's face if she can't see it.

This book is for me what brought me out of my months long book funk (there have been a few I thought was going to get me but each book I read after this one was stories I wanted to read)

This is my 3rd book by this author and each book gets better I loved this story of her trying to figure out a way to do things and not judging people by the faces but how they are. Also I'm not going to touch to much of the romance because its important to see it as it unfolds but damn I loved the romance!

Also her standing up to her family for her evil step sister her shallow step-mom and not there father was chiefs kiss.

I wont to read this again! Loved every minute!


Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this E-Arc in exchange for my honest review.- Please give me all the Katherine Center Books

First thank you to net galley and st martins press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sadie Montgomery is an artist that is struggling when she finds out that she is one of the top finalists for a portrait prize. However she has a medical issue right when she needs to be focused on the portrait. Complications from the medical issue really impact her ability to deliver her portrait but a kind stranger helps her discover her abilities while healing.

What I liked: this book provides lots of life nuggets to remind you what is important. I really enjoy that about her books and this one was about hope. This is a characteristic that i know is important. And try to keep holding onto especially during tough times. Sadie was a very difficult person throughout the book. She refuses help and makes assumptions about people. Turns out she has a brain condition that requires surgery. This is the same condition that her mom had and passed away from in her childhood. Signing up for surgery is not top of her list and she tries to avoid it but her dad steps in and makes her have it. Unfortunately she develops face blindness during the recovery. My mom had a brain surgery and continued issues from a tumor. There were parts that were very real in the book about your brain and how it impacts everything. There is so much hope that you have to have when going through brain surgery and recovery. My mom didn’t get a neuropsychologist but what a great idea to have during recovery. There are so many feelings that you have to process and changes that you are not in control of that impact you and your family and friends. I’m glad that she had that support along with Joe. Joe was her neighbor that she had previously made incorrect assumptions about but he totally helped her. He was so selfless for her and others. I struggled a lot with Sadie’s relationship with her family and stepmom and sister. I liked how she wrote the relationship and the progression. She wrote it very realistic and didn’t gloss over the messy parts. I’m glad that she also had Sadie examine her actions too.
My favorite part was the authors note. This was so beautiful and really explained why we need hope and love romance novels. I especially loved how she explained about people saying predictable. Let me just say I am highly anticipating her next book.

I would encourage anyone who needs a little pick me up and a sweet romance. We all need hope.

"I would love to go on a date with you," I told him. And then I added, "In three weeks."

I loved this book so much! It absolutely gripped me from the beginning. Sadie was so excited to be picked in the top 1o for her portrait competition that when she started to have face blindness I felt her anxiety, her fear, her loss of hope. I could never imagine what that would be like, losing the one thing you worked your whole life for and not knowing if it would ever come back. Though I guessed the little twist and I was right I still loved everything about this book! The plot was amazing and the story telling, I really made myself try to see the characters like she did, imagined them faceless with puzzle pieces.

The other thing that amazed me was the amount of research that Katherine had to have put into this book, I feel like I learned so much and just enough to interest me into doing some of my own research. I definitely recommend this book to all!

Tropes/Content: M/F, single POV, forced proximity (same building), death of a parent (in the past), evil stepmom and stepsister, love triangle, miscommunication, mistaken identity

Thank you Katherine Center and NetGalley for this ARC!

Lots of readers seem to be loving this one (and that’s great!), but I would’ve abandoned ship pretty quickly had I not received an early copy. It was clear from the start that this simply wasn’t going to be a good fit for me. Our heroine is pretty self-involved and there’s a LOT of medical details at the start, so it felt more like women’s fiction than romance to me, and not particularly enjoyable women’s fiction at that. Add in the love triangle and the continued emphasis on the face blindness, and I just wasn’t into it. I solidly read/listened to the first third, then found myself doing a lot of skimming after that.

The story follows Sadie, a portrait artist on a deadline. She’s in the running to win a major competition, and that means she needs to complete a masterpiece as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a fluke accident revealed that Sadie needs brain surgery, and that was definitely not part of the plan. When the surgery leaves Sadie with (hopefully temporary) face blindness, it complicates things even further. Not only does her job revolve around literally painting every detail of faces, but interacting with people just became a whole lot more complicated. As Sadie navigates the situation, she spends time with two very different men, and she’s forced to re-evaluate parts of her life.

Conceptually, this was very interesting. Face blindness is not something I’ve read about before, especially in romance. I liked the tension and drama that added to the story, for sure. Unfortunately, I did not really like Sadie as a character, and the whole book revolves around her. She was needlessly stubborn and refused to acknowledge her situation with others, which made things a lot messier than they needed to be. Sadie also didn’t take the time to get to know her guys, which made her feel selfish and made the romance feel super shallow. I’m not a fan of love triangles to begin with, and having one be so surface level was not great. I also found the medical stuff at the beginning to be too much – too detailed and too long. So, I can’t say that it was a quality issue, necessarily, but there were several things that drove me kinda crazy. I can see why this is appealing to so many readers, but it was a miss for me.

I have not met a book by Katherine Center that I haven’t loved and hasn’t made me cry. She has a way of writing that just pulls you in! I got this book as an advanced reader copy though NetGalley and was so pleased to have been approved for it. It came out on July 11th.

The main character, Sadie, has been down on her luck and it keeps getting worse. She is a portrait artist who has a medical emergency and finds out she needs brain surgery. She ends up with prosopagnosia aka face blindness as a side effect of the surgery. So as a portrait artist, this could have devastating effects. I really liked how the face blindness was written into the story and described. I got a real feeling for what it must be like. I have read another book that featured a character with face blindness and it was not as well done as this one.

Like every good romance, there is a love story, a misunderstanding, and a happy ending. I was really rooting for Sadie the whole time and really glad for how it all turned out. It is such a great read!