Gosh do I love Katherine Center books! First off the plot oh Hello Stranger is genius - Sadie, a struggling portrait artist gets her big break only to lose her ability to see faces due to complications from brain surgery. Then add in an endearing love story where Sadie falls for not one but two men. Totally Telenovella vibes and I was 100% here for it.

The love story was cute and the witty banter with both guys sizzled but Sadie was the heart of the story for me.

She followed her dreams of being an artist even though her father didn’t accept it since he had high hopes for her to follow in his footsteps to be a surgeon. She lost her mother at a young age and struggles with that loss as well as feeling accepted. Seeing her journey to healing was so beautiful and I was so happy for her.

Read for:
🧠 Brain Surgery Recovery
❤️‍🩹 Family Trauma
🎨 Following Your Dreams
🔺 Love Triangle

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5
Spice Level: 🌶️/ 5

Sadie Montgomery is a (almost) starving artist. She feels like she's on the verge of a big break when she becomes a finalist in a portrait contest. She thinks she's sure to win the competition and the $10,000 prize with her next portrait. When an undiagnosed medical condition pops up, it leads to face blindness. How can she paint an award-winning portrait when every face she sees looks jumbled? If that weren't enough, she's also head-over-heels in like with her vet while also being drawn into a relationship with her neighbor.

This one was a little too predictable for me, but I still enjoyed it.

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

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an arc!

This book was definitely one of the most unique romance books I’ve read. Our main character, Sadie, lands in a situation that requires a hospital trip, where she learns she needs brain surgery. Post surgery, Sadie discovers a new, different condition- she has face blindness. When Sadie looks at a face, everything is distorted and jumbled, rendering her unable to recognize faces- even her own.

While being unable to recognize people and relying on all of your other senses to help piece together who someone is is stressful enough on it’s own, Sadie is a portrait artist, currently working on a portrait for a prestigious competition that she is one of 10 top finalists in. The competition is very important to Sadie for many reasons, more than just her career. But how is Sadie supposed to paint a portrait of someone if she can’t see their face?

At the same time, Sadie also starts to develop feelings for a new person in her life. Even though Sadie can’t see his face, she is determined not to tell him the whole truth about her condition.

Sadie learns a lot about herself, others, and her family along the way, and it was super interesting to go along on this journey with her as she navigates her face blindness and creating art in an entirely new way. Bonus points for Peanut, a cute dog sidekick with a love for pad-Thai.

I highly recommend you pick up this book! It will definitely entertain and surprise you!

This story follows Sadie who is a portrait artist that has just received an invitation to participate in a charity art auction. After receiving this happy news, she gets into an accident, which leads to her being diagnosed with face blindness. I thought this story line was so creative! A portrait artist with face blindness?! Tell me more! I loved how most of the story played out with Sadie trying to uncover her past and deal with her present self. I did feel the relationship with her step sister, Parker, was a bit dramatic, but I have never known someone to actually behave like that. Overall, the story kept me coming back for more and it makes me want to read more by Katherine Center.

Another super terrific “I love this story so much” book by Katherine Center, who manages to educate me as I am diving into Hello Stranger. There is this great story narrated by Sadie, whose life has taken a major hit. She is an impoverished portrait artist who is literally wallowing in her friend’s parents’ rooftop, kind of ratty, attic hovel. Things aren’t great but they are about to get a whole lot worse when she awakens from life saving surgery to discover that she is unable to recognize faces. They just don’t snap into place and because facial recognition is how we mere mortals recognize everyone this is a very serious uh-oh especially for someone who paints faces. Her best friend Sue calls it her “facepocalypse”.

But there is more - Sadie has met the man who is going to be her husband and the father of her children even if he is totally unaware. Yeah, Sadie is funny and sweet and so screwed. But then there is the “weasel” a/k/a Joe, and once you have heard the conversation I dare you not to tag onto Sadie’s confirmation bias which is adeptly defined by her neuropsychologist, Dr. Nicole. See, more education.

And, there is even more as Sadie is about to be tortured to hell and back by her evil stepsister Parker who might be one of the most vile women ever captured between the pages. You just have to be in Sadie’s corner from start to finish because despite the odds she never gives up. Her late mother is her inspiration and literally her guiding light and you hear Sadie opine that life’s greatest gift if giving you multiple choices to rethink who you want to be, how you want to live and what really matters.

There is so much to this book that is quotable, livable, understandable - the mistakes we make by not owing up and not talking to each other. Amidst the humor, the pain, the confusion and wicked unfairness, the “Help me out here. I have a facial recognition problem” - this book was one slam dunk of just the best of the best.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a copy.

Just thinking about this book brings a smile to my face, it is that good. Heartwarming. Romantic in the best possible way. It also has a lot of surprises.

Sadie Montgomery is barely making it as a dog portraitist when she enters a contest that can change her life for the better - if she wins it. She has a tiny apartment on the roof of the apartment building (one that isn't supposed to be occupied), and an elderly dog, Peanut. She only knows a couple of the people who live in the building, and her dating life is nonexistent. She has a little crush on her veterinarian. She keeps seeing this sloppily dressed guy carrying boxes around on various floors in her building, and keeps an eye on him. Maybe he is a delivery guy?

Her father remarried a few years after her mother died. Sadie isn't a big fan of her step-mother, and the step-sister - well, the less said about the stepsister, the better. She's pretty evil and has a knack for always making Sadie the bad guy in every conflict they have. Sadie moved away from home as soon as she could.

One day Sadie tripped and fell on the sidewalk, and woke up in the hospital to find that she now has a new problem - she can no longer see faces. Suddenly she is surrounded by strangers (even her parents), and unless they speak to her or she recognizes their clothes, she doesn't know who they are. Her condition also means that she has lost her livelihood. Sadie buckled down and kept painting anyway. There is a portrait contest that can change her life for the better - if she can win it.

I adored this book and recommend it for everyone who loves a good romance, and roots for the underdog. The conclusion was wonderfully satisfying. I received an e-arc of this book from publisher St. Martin's Press via NetGalley, and voluntarily read and reviewed it.

3.25⭐️

Hello Stranger was a fun ride!

I've heard a bit about face blindness before, but have never seen the concept in a novel. This book was a fun and easy read, and I enjoyed seeing the developments between Sadie and Joe.

Sadie and Joe were cute together, and Sadie was dealing with so much but still somehow kept it together (with the help of good friends!). The writing did make the twist a bit obvious, and many times I did question the communication going on, but I knew it was for the sake of the plot and it made the reveal fun.

No spice in this book, a pretty clean romance overall if that's what you're looking for. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC!

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and the author for sharing this ARC with me in exchange for my honest feedback!

In the world of romance novels, it's so hard for a book to stand out. There are so many familiar tropes and the stories usually follow the basic formula of meet cute - tension building - get together - fall out - happily ever after. To some readers, this can feel tedious and overdone, but to some, it's comforting to get out of your head and your own life experiences for a few hours to read a love story that you know exactly how it will end.

Here's the thing with Katherine Center - she will follow that formula but gives you SO much more, which is definitely the case with Hello Stranger. I thought this book was so unique and so well done. I was completely invested in the storyline and had no idea how it was going to end!

Our heroine Sadie makes a living as a portrait artist. Painting is her passion and really her whole life, and it makes her feel connected to her mother who was also a portrait artist, but tragically passed when Sadie was a teenager. She is living the starving-artist life right now, doing anything to make ends meet and pushing for her long-awaited big break. Things finally start to look up for Sadie when she finds out that she's been chosen as a finalist for an upcoming art show. Winning this competition could give her amazing exposure in the art world and has some major prize money that she desperately needs.

That's until everything falls apart. Sadie has a near-death experience after having a seizure while walking across the street. Thanks to a Good Samaritan that pushed her out of traffic, she survives the episode and wakes up in a hospital with bad news from her doctor. Sadie has a mass in her brain that has possible fatal consequences and needs emergency surgery to be removed. Sadie's estranged father reveals that this condition is genetic and was actually what killed her mother. That moves her to get the surgery as soon as possible, even when she has this art competition coming up in six weeks to prepare for and create the best portrait of her entire life.

The brain surgery is successful, but after waking up, Sadie soon realizes that something is wrong with her brain. She has a "possibly temporary" condition where she cannot identify faces. Shockingly, this new development is not good for her career.

Sadie retreats back to her home/art studio where she feels safe with her dog Peanut and tries to figure out this new normal. Of course, at the worst possible time, she meets two men who have serious relationship potential. Joe is her neighbor with a bad-boy persona and a heart of gold that she can't get enough of, and Oliver is her veterinarian who takes special care of her dog and is incredibly polite and kind-hearted. The only thing is that she can't see their faces.

Since she can't fully rely on her vision anymore, Sadie has to strengthen her other senses and learn new ways to identify and interact with people. Not only does she experience a new way of life, but Sadie also discovers things about herself that she has never noticed before. Without being able to fully trust what she sees when she looks outward, she relies on what she feels inside and finds a whole life that she's been missing out on because of unresolved issues from her mother's death and the falling out of her family afterward.

Hello Stranger is such an enjoyable, flirty, unexpected, and surprisingly educational read that you will not be able to put down!

This was such a fun, feel good book! I absolutely loved following Sadie throughout this book and I genuinely learned so much. This book sent me down a rabbit hole about facial blindness and I enjoyed how Katherine handled everything that could be such a sensitive topic to someone. The plot felt so realistic while still being hopeful and optimistic.

There is a cute little twist at the end that readers will really enjoy. I'm sure she had so much fun writing that! I even went to see Katherine at an author event at BookPeople in Austin and she was so funny, cool, and smart. I could have listened to her all night and she is now an auto-buy author for me!

I absolutely adored this book!! Katherine Center has outdone herself with Hello Stranger!
Sadie Montgomery is a struggling artist who is desperately trying to make a name for herself in the art world all while trying to get her personal life in order. Sadie finally receives the best news she could ever hope for...she placed as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition. The winner receives ten thousand dollars and boy could she use the money. Things are looking up for Sadie that is until she blacks out only to wake up in a hospital bed to discover she has an issue that may or may not be temporary, face blindless. Faces now look like jumbled up puzzle piece. If she can't see faces, how on earth is she going to be able to paint her piece for the contests?

Stuck with her new reality Sadie goes home and tries to cope. Things become more complicated when her beloved elderly dog Peanut becomes sick. Broke but not broken Sadie rushes Peanut to the emergency vet where the new Veteran is most certainly eye candy, well from the neck down anyway. Sadie proclaims herself in love, or lust, either way it's a momentary distraction from her life. This is until she meets Joe, guy who lives in the same building.

If only her life were a little more focused, she might be able to find her way...

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's press for an ARC copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Sadie is a struggling artist following in her mother's artistic footsteps. When she gets the news that she has been chosen to participate in a competitive exhibit over hundreds of other entrants, Sadie decides to head down to the shop for a few things to celebrate. On her way to celebrate what may be the big break in her career that she's been waiting for, Sadie is in an accident that results in a brain injury and a shock corresponding to a diagnosis of face blindness. How is Sadie supposed to succeed as a portrait artist when her brain can't piece together faces? How is she supposed to succeed personally when she can't even tell someone she's known for years apart from a stranger? And most importantly, will she even be able to see her best friend in the world, her beloved dog, anymore?

Pros:
- Unique perspective
- Relatable characters
- Interesting family dynamic
- Found family
- Loyal "dog mom" storyline
- Sweet romance

Hello Stranger is a romance that features a main character with face blindness thanks to a brain surgery. To make matters worse, Sadie is a portrait artist who is entered in a contest that could jump start her career.

I will say this one had a few sad parts. Sadie has a ton of unresolved grief around her mother’s death in her youth. She also has an elderly dog who has some health issues in the book. There is also a traffic accident and hospital scenes if those bother you.

After all that, the rest of the book is actually lighthearted and a quick read. I did figure out what the third act breakup would revolve around fairly quickly and I think it was supposed to be a twist but I thought it was obvious going in.

It was a ok read, nothing special but also probably a fun beach read.

Really loved this, you can see the author's growth here. Even though you knew how it would end, it was so sweet and lovely that I didn't mind at all.

I enjoyed this book so much. It was such a different romance book but had the perfect romcom feeling.

I swear Katherine Center cannot write a bad book. Honestly it’s true. I’ve read my fair share of her books and each one is just as lovely as the next.

So this one may have just been my favorite. I have a friend who suffers with face blindness so this story was extra special (and I’ll definitely be recommending it to her). I love that Sadie turned something unexpected into a beautiful superpower and learned something along the way. I loved all the twists and turns of Sadie’s story and I think it might be my new favorite Center book.

Katherine Center is known for delivering heartfelt stories that often tackle characters' fears or traumas. Hello Stranger has a unique premise -- an artist who is about to embark on a personally and professionally fulfilling contest discovers she needs brain surgery and, after the surgery, develops facial blindness.

While the premise of this is unique, and I was interested to see where the story would go, a number of things fell a bit flat for me. First, the main character feels very out of touch and failed to grasp the seriousness of her condition and then subsequently hides the condition out of fear that people will see her differently. A lot of her views around the condition felt ableist and I didn't love her narration. Second, the resolution felt simultaneously too neatly tied up and unrealistic. As a result, this story was a three-star read for me because I did enjoy the writing and felt invested enough to keep reading, but the execution of the interesting plot didn't wholly work for me.

Hello Stranger was a an interesting perspective of a character challenged with acquired face blindness coping with life and her career as a portrait artist.

I think this may be my third Katherine Center novel and I'm gonna rank it in the middle. I though The Bodygaurd was much stronger. There were just a bunch of holes in Hello Stranger that I just had to ignore as a reader.

I didn't really understand the wicked stepsister plotline. It felt contrived and didn't mesh well in my opinion. Just dumb things like why does she want to ruin Sadie's life, why now after so many years has she popped up again, what even is her job. Could. Have been fleshed out more or reworked somehow.

I loved the twist. I mean, it was obvious from the beginning due to the face blindness thing what was happening but I still enjoyed the build up and reveal.

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

I went in with high hopes for this book since I read last year's The Bodyguard by Katherine Center and loved it. This book didn't really disappoint (I read it in one evening/ couldn't put it down), however, it wasn't without its issues.

I found it ironic that the book as an author's note in which the author pontificates on the element of predictability in romance novels. I agree with the points she makes in this note, but it still doesn't excuse when predictability becomes trite or cliche which I do feel this book does. I have no problem admitting that I can and often do enjoy a book that is fully cringe (this book veers into cringe more than once). The author's note makes sense to me, what I'm looking for in a romance is a good dynamic between the romantic leads, a believable progression of feeling and a happy ending that feels earned. if you give me those three things, I'm going to like your story! This book gave me those three things! But I must say that it also has a ton of over-the-top-ness and truly asinine logic that it tries REALLY hard to explain away.

But I can excuse all that, the reasons I took a star away are 1. that we spend so much of the third act explaining the "twist" as if the reader didn't figure out the twist from page 5!! We thought you knew we knew, book!! why are you explaining this to me like I'm 3? and 2. the way that the sister was portrayed irked me a bit. She was a cartoon villain with absolutely zero nuance. I want my characters to feel real.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this. I liked the set up, the premise and the romance, but I didn't super enjoy the implausibility of some of the aspects
((and btw, I'm NOT talking about the face blindness issues when I talk about implausibilities. I'm talking about lack of communication and reader/author trust and/or dynamics. ))

My ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This was the first book I’ve read by this author but had anticipated great things based on the reviews I’ve seen and I was not disappointed. The story was fast paced, kept my interest and had a cute angle. I’ll definitely read more by this author.

“Hello Stranger” was an absolute TREAT!!💙 This is my fourth Katherine Center book, and it left me with all the same warm feelings that I’ve come to love about Katherine’s writing🥰

Sadie, the FMC in “Hello Stranger” dealt with a very unique condition known as “prosopagnosia” otherwise referred to as “face blindness.” This was an especially challenging diagnosis for Sadie because she was a portrait artist and a finalist in a prestigious art competition. I had never heard of this condition before, but was fascinated to get an in-depth look at what life would be like if we weren’t able to see people’s faces!! You could totally tell Katherine spent HOURS doing tons of research to do this condition justice👏🏼

Although I can’t talk much about the romance without giving away major spoilers, I will say it was SWOONY!!!! And FUNNY!!! And HEART-WARMING!! And don’t even get me started on the ENDING🤯🤐🤭 That’s all🤫😍

I also wanted to say that I’ve never fallen in love with a character’s pet before, but Peanut changed that🥹🐶 I absolutely ADORED this doggo and his refined taste palate😂❤️ Best book pet EVER🥰

Overall, I REALLY enjoyed this story!! It left me with a sense of hope, deep satisfaction, and restored faith in humanity❤️

🚨TW: death of a parent & bullying
🚨CW: closed door romance with swoony kisses & infrequent strong/mild language