Definitely wasn’t what I was expecting going into the story, and how literal the title would be. It was an easy read - sad at times as Sadie navigated the world changed after her accident. Face-blindness led her to some precarious situations, and it was interesting to learn how impactful I could be. I thought the family situation could have been explored more, especially with Lucinda. The biggest message taken away is to live life with an open mind.

Thank you NetGalley for my ARC!

I adored this new book by Katherine Center! After loving The Bodyguard earlier this year, I had high hopes for Hello Stranger and it didn’t disappoint. I thought the main character was relatable to follow, and that the premise with the facial blindness was really interesting. The love interest wasn’t my favorite, but the romance didn’t actually seem like the most important part of the book. It felt more like a self-discovery book, which I thought worked well for the story. Super cute and even funny at times. There was a "twist" at the end and I'm honestly not sure how I didn't see it coming!

𝘔𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘒𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 (𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘢 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵). 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 (𝘶𝘴) 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴.
𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵, 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦. 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘶𝘵, 𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥.
𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯’𝘵 𝘺𝘦𝘵, 𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘱. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘶𝘻𝘻𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦.
𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘒𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘨𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥.

If you're looking for something to just make you feel good - Katherine Center's books are a great place to start. And there's even a lesson to look beyond what you see in front of you to find something good. I'm smiling again just thinking about this book.

An absolute gem of a book by one of my go-to authors! Sadie, a portrait artist, has her life turned upside down when she discovers that she needs brain surgery and wakes up after the surgery to find that she has a condition known as face blindness. This possibly “just temporary” condition makes the portrait competition she is a part of almost impossible and Sadie fumbles along the few weeks after surgery trying to figure out how to navigate this new world she finds herself in.

I can’t believe it took me so long to read this book, I say that because I’ve had an early release copy of it for months, courtesy of NetGalley, and just kept putting it off. I don’t know why as you can literally never go wrong when you read a Katherine Center novel, or at least I haven’t gone wrong yet.

This novel seemed so different to me from the other ones I’ve read, but maybe that’s just because it’s been a while since I’ve read one of her books. There’s romance (of course) but I feel like this book was so much more about Sadie and her interpersonal struggles and her character development than it was about romance, and I’m ok with that. I think a lot of romance novels get so caught up in the finding someone to love and that the characters sometimes forget to love themselves and settle for behaviors that are less than they deserve! So bravo to Katherine Center!

The way the readers are led to understand what Sadie is going through, which is so hard to understand by the way as someone who’s never gone through face blindness (or even heard of it before), was phenomenal. You’re left with an understanding of an actual real medical condition that affects up to 1 in 50 people most who don’t even know they have it!

I did rate 4 stars (closer to 4.5 really) strictly because when I read a romance novel I’m looking for those feel good feelings that the author talks about in her little blurb at the end, with this specific book you get that, you definitely get a lot of moments of laugh out loud feel good parts, but I felt like the romance was cut a little short. That being, there’s a little bit in the middle but it’s mostly the very ending where all the magic happens. I know WHY, as I said, this novel is about Sadie learning to love herself not someone else, I just felt like maybe we could have used another chapter or so of the romance!

adorable story with a positive life lesson — “The more good things you look for, the more you find.”

Honestly the fact that dudes can fall for this judgmental, whiny, delusional, and extremely privileged FMC kind of piss me off lol

Ok in all seriousness, this is a light and fast rom-com but filled with lots of immature, vengeful and petty characters. Would’ve enjoyed the book a lot better if the characters are so unlikable and I’m just a not a fan of miscommunication in adult relationships.

3.5 ⭐️ and I’ll throw it a bit more star because the book mentioned GONG YOO MY GOBLIN LOVE

I really enjoyed Katherine Center’s latest book. This was a topic I had never even heard of before. It took a minute to wrap my head around the idea of not being able to put the pieces of someone’s face together. I personally connected with the main character and having lost a mother. I was rooting for her the entire time. Parker was the perfect villain. I didn’t see the ending coming so I liked that. It was a heartwarming story about self discovery and made you feel good in the end. Loved it.

This novel was a lovely visit to hope and happiness that I really needed after a few darker reads. It was light and happiness wrapped into a cute little book that just brought me joy! The conceit of the entire book was interesting and compelling which was the heroine (a portrait artist) finding herself with prosopagnosia, or face-blindness. That is really the thing that the entire story is centered around. And I think Center handled that one particularly well. And I think that is why this novel was so successful for me. If I hadn't bought that, the entire novel would not have worked. And I think that's the magic of Katherine Center. She can make things that may or may not be fully 'believable' from a logical standpoint, feel true and real. And this is a well-written, engaging book that I read in almost one sitting which isn't typical for me. I really enjoyed the entire reading experience and do recommend it.

I picked up my first Katherine Centre book a few months ago when I read The Bodyguard and absolute LOVED IT. I immediately requested this ARC and was so thrilled to receive an eARC - thank you to St. Martins Press and Netgalley!

Katherine Centre is a great writer of rom coms - I thought so in The Bodyguard and her writing in Hello Stranger is no different. She manages to write comedic light moments and intertwine them with truly traumatic moments for the characters to deal with - in this case dealing with a traumatic brain injury and family drama. Her blend of rom com with dramady is very well done and I can see why everyone has been telling me to read her books.

I was actually a bit taken aback by how low in sex scenes Center’s books are, but her writing and chemistry that she instills in her characters more than makes up for any lack of steam. If there is good romantic tension I dont need a ton of spice! And Katherine Center knows how to write good chemistry and good tension.

I enjoyed Sadie as a character, she’s quirky and well meaning - she comes across so bubbly but you can tell she is hiding some pretty deep issues with her family. Joe, our male lead, was just so gosh darn nice and it was refreshing to see a male lead who wasn’t a complete jerk to the heroine at first.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, I had two major issues with this novel that kept it from being a 4/5 Star read for me:
1. The face blindness concept was cool - I actually have a friend with face blindness and it was fun to ask her about the accuracy of this book. However, the key role that face blindness played in the romantic “twist” of the novel was… pushing the bound of believability. I am sorry but if someone is consistently calling you the wrong name for WEEKS… wouldn’t you eventually correct them? The whole “I thought it was a joke cuz I wore that bowling jacket (IYKYK)” was just a really lame cop-out explanation for why Joe never questioned something that any normal person would’ve done. I understand rom coms have many elements of unbelievability but this was too much for me. Plus the face blindness twist really just relied on the miscommunication trope, which I hate.
2. I appreciated Sadie’s family drama with her dad - I honestly think we could’ve just had her drama with her dad and a step mother she can’t connect to and the trauma with her family would’ve been sufficient. The evil stepsister angle that was thrown in was so over the top it felt like the stepsister character was pulled from a different novel. Her cruelty and manipulation felt out of place and more in place with a soap opera than a rom com.

This book had such a great message! So much more than just a typical romance. Even though I saw the ending coming from very early on it.was such an enjoyable ride getting there. I can't wait to read more from this author.

𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 by Katherine Center
Published: July 11, 2023 by @stmartinspress
Reviewed by: Mel
Format: eBook ARC [thank you @netgalley]

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆
✽ Miscommunication trope
✽ Accidental romance
✽ Katherine Center’s writing (it’s too perfect!)
✽ Overcoming obstacles
✽ Dogs

𝗧𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀
Katherine Center does it again! 2023 is my year of bingeing Center’s backlist — so when I requested the ARC of Hello Stranger, I thought it would be a long shot. It took me far too long to finally pick it up, but I’m so glad when I finally did. This was one of my favorite Katherine Center books!

I absolutely adored Sadie, “Joe,” and Peanut - and absolutely despised Parker. I don’t know if I’ve ever hated a character in a book so incredibly much. The book was so adorable and so well written that it unfolded so perfectly - and I didn’t put all of the puzzle pieces together until approximately 80% which was absolutely perfect timing — in a lot of books similar to this, it’s fairly easy to predict most of the plot points way ahead of time.

If you haven’t picked this one up yet, I definitely recommend it — it was a wonderfully enjoyable read!

Sadie Montgomery is diagnosed with face blindness after an unexpected brain surgery. She can still see, but she’s seeing faces as jumbled puzzle pieces. While she’s been told the condition is probably temporary, Sadie has to figure out her new normal. As a portrait artist, Sadie makes her living from being able to see and paint faces. While she’s learning to cope with this, she meets two men and begins to fall hard for one of them.

Hello Stranger is such a cute romance. The twist was a little predictable, and I felt like it dragged a little bit getting to that point, but overall I really enjoyed the characters and storyline.

This is true Katherine Center! I love everything about her writing style, the characters, the plot lines, and how she weaves everything together. This one did not disappoint!

Yet another amazing story from Katherine Center. I absolutely loved this book. She has mastered the art of story telling & crafted so perfectly the lanes of loss & love. When I'm in the market for a book that will rip my heart out, yet make me feel pure bliss at the same time, I know to reach for Katherine Center. I am already in anticipation for her 2024 release!

HELLO STRANGER by Katherine Center is a captivating read that solidifies her position as one of my favorite authors in this genre. This novel offers a thoughtful and touching romance that goes beyond the surface.

The book introduces us to Sadie Montgomery, a portrait artist newly diagnosed with facial blindness following neurosurgery, which adds a unique and intriguing twist to the story. Sadie's condition naturally complicates her livelihood and relationships, making her journey even more challenging.

Sadie's struggle and growth throughout the novel make her a truly likable and relatable main character. Family drama enriches the narrative, adding conflict and personal growth, complementing the central romance with depth and substance.

Katherine Center's writing shines through once again, weaving a heartfelt and engaging story. If you're looking for a romance novel that goes beyond the usual clichés and leaves you with a sense of understanding and appreciation for the characters' journey, HELLO STRANGER is a refreshing read.

Be sure to read the author's note!

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book has such an interesting premise involving a main character who acquires prosopagnosia also known as face blindness. Katherine Center really outdid herself with this one. I loved it even more than The Bodyguard. I appreciate and commend her for the amount of effort she must have put into researching prosopagnosia. I highly recommend that you read the author's note at the end because there is some good information given on prosopagnosia as well as Katherine's thoughts on the romance genre and what inspired her to get into the romance writing.

More about the story itself, I found myself laughing so much while reading this book! The comedy was excellent. The only reason why this book is not getting a 5-star rating from me is because I wish there was more romance. I absolutely adored both of the main characters and I enjoyed their chemistry, but the actual romance and courtship was lacking. They seemed more like two friends with crushes on each other. I would nearly almost want to categorize this book as women's fiction with just a hint of romance.

While I am used to and often predict twists due to reading a lot of thriller novels, I am always caught off guard when a romance novel has a twist, and man, did this book have a twist that pleasantly surprised me. I absolutely loved it!

I definitely look forward to reading more of Katherine Centers books in the future!

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

Hello Stranger is out now!

Honestly, one of my fave things about reading Center’s books is reading them with @angiearoundwonderland and @daniiireads. It’s always more fun to read with friends, am I right?!
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In this one Sadie finally has her life headed in the direction she wants as she competes in an art competition that can change her life, but when she gets in an accident her life really is forever changed. She develops face blindness which is obviously not ideal but even more so for a portrait artist. Of course, there’s romance, a journey of finding oneself and humor.
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Thank you #StMartinsPress and #NetGalley for and advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a charming book! Most of the characters were likable especially the main protagonist, whom due to a sad twist of fate develops a condition known in layman's terms as "Face Blindness" This book is the epitome of "love is blind" I didn't see the twist near the end coming which made this book even more enjoyable. A real comfort read! My third read from this wonderful Author and I have lots of her other books in my TBR pile.
P.S. Is it weird that I kept singing the song "Hello Stranger in my head every time I thought about this book?
Thank you to Netgalley, St.Martins Press and the Author Katherine Center for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.