This is my favorite Katherine Center book yet!

Sadie has gotten the opportunity of a lifetime as a finalist in a portrait art competition. If she wins, she will be $10,000 richer, and since her side etsy art business isn't thriving, she needs it. But when she wakes up in a hospital bed, she discovers she will need brain surgery to fix a cavernoma. After a successful surgery, she wakes up and realizes she has a big problem. She can’t recognize anyone's faces. This is a big problem for many reasons, but especially the fact she needs to be able to see in order to complete a portrait for the competition.

After she has had time to process her very big problem, she heads to the vet to pick up her dog, peanut. It is there that she meets her future husband, the gorgeous vet. Well, she thinks he is gorgeous. She can’t actually see his face, but she knows there is something there. They end up making plans to go on a date after the competition, but in the meantime meet for coffee. While waiting for him at the coffee shop, she ends up running into a neighbor who she has a very little opinion of. But this neighbor ends up becoming a close friend, and she begins to realize she can’t keep the neighbor and the Vet… and she has to make a decision..

Too bad she doesn’t even know what they look like…

I could go on forever with a synopsis about this book.. But that would give too much away. This book brought real attention to a very real condition, face blindness. I loved Joe, the neighbor, so much. He was so kind, witty and an overall great human being. I also loved Sadie, I just found her to be a little frustrating at times. Her optimism was great, but she was very naive.

I definitely recommend adding this book to your TBR! It was a beautiful story!

I loved this new twist on a romance novel by Katherine Center (pub date July 11!). Hello Stranger is about portrait artist, Sadie, who is diagnosed with face blindness after an unexpected brain surgery. Yes, face blindness… for someone who makes a living painting FACES. The novel unfolds as Sadie copes with her new (hopefully temporary) condition, and attempts to learn how to identify people without using their faces. She develops a crush on her dog’s veterinarian (even though she can’t see his face) and also keeps running into a resident in her building, Joe. Joe is perplexing. Sadie’s first interaction with him is terrible, but then he keeps doing all of these nice things. What is she supposed to think?

This was such a cute novel. I enjoyed Sadie as a main character. She grapples with lots of life issues and challenges, but still manages to have confidence in herself and her decisions. I also appreciated how Center describes Sadie’s face blindness… seeing faces like a Picasso painting gave a great visual.

Hello Stranger was a delightful read, full of anticipation. ;) Make sure you read all the way through to the authors note. It was perfect.

Special thanks to St. Martin’s Press for the digital ARC via NetGalley.

So hard to put this down!

Center does this thing where she takes a medical condition that isn't well-known or glamorized and gives it to a main character, then explores and fleshes out their experience.

The face blindness thing is kind of weird, but once I just accepted it I actually think it made the story really interesting. Yes, of course I as the reader, knew exactly what was happening. And yes, I did have so much second-hand embarrassment. But I cried, I gasped, and I ignored people at my holiday party to read it.

However, at the end, the characters kind of re-explain the face blindness thing to another character and how it led to all the hijinks and mix ups. I didn't love this because it felt a little defensive, as if an editor didn't think anyone would buy this story so this scene was added to just go over everything to explain it. I didn't need this. At this point in the book, you've either bought it or you haven't. No changing that now.

I loved the author's note at the end about romance novels! I think it should be a long-form article, honestly.

Hello Stranger felt more like women's fiction than romance, as we didn't get too much on-page development of the affair itself. I wouldn't say I liked all of the miscommunication but also could understand why Sadie wouldn't want to share her recent health developments. I also hated Sadie's family and found it frustrating we never got an apology from her dad and step-mom for sending her away to boarding school for something her step-sister did. That part just felt brushed over in a bad way. I also wish that she had better and more thoughtful friends since her family sucked so much.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for access to this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

There's nothing better than being a teacher on summer vacation. Especially when I get to snuggle in with the latest Katherine Center romance novel.

Honestly, I don't really care if anyone with a medical degree reads it after publication, sneers "Nope" and tosses it in the trash citing that the whole premise is highly implausible. It was pure literary entertainment and I don't regret one second with Sadie and her Cinderella-esque storyline. Liked all the characters( except the evil stepsister- who was deliciously evil) and when I got to the end I just couldn't keep the smile off my face.

Put this one in your beach bag!





Expected Publication Date 11/07/23
Goodreads Review Published 05/07/23

This was my first book by Katherine Center and I loved it!! Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
 
Hello Stranger follows Sadie- a down on her luck artist. After a series of unfortunate accidents results in her discovering and abnormality on her brain that needs to be removed, Sadie develops “face blindness.” Of course, after this occurs, Sadie meets her dog, Peanut’s, new vet, Dr. Oliver Addison and is immediately attracted to him. She also has an unfortunate encounter with a man in the elevator in her building who wears a bowling shirt with the name Joe on it. When Sadie gets stood up on a date with Dr. Addison and Joe ends up showing up and saving her evening, they begin to see each other. When Joe offers to help Sadie win an art contest where she has to draw a portrait (tricky when you can’t see faces), they truly bond.
 
This book was so easy to read and while it was a little predictable, I really enjoyed the story and have plans to read The Bodyguard soon!

Katherine Center is absolutely a must-read author for me, and this book was another winner. I love her writing style and really enjoyed Sadie's voice. The plot was really unique, and it was interesting to read about how facial blindness works. I never wanted to stop reading this book and couldn't wait to see how it all came together. I loved the ending and was bummed it was over.

Such a great and unique concept for a story. I really enjoyed the writing style and loved the characters. I laughed and cried while reading this book and ended it feeling happy.

I really liked this book. It was light-hearted and fun. It had several laugh out loud moments and a few surprising twists. This is my first Katherine Center book and it won't be my last. Such a fun read. Highly recommend!

The audiobook was well done. The narrator was expressive and easy to listen to. I felt she captured the tone of the book very well.

Book Releases July 11, 2023

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the E-ARC and to Macmillan Audio for the Audiobook ARC.

All thoughts and opinions are honest and my own..

This is the first novel I have read by Center and was pleasantly surprised. The novel is a slow build with a methodically developing plot yet I found the end very touching. Center's writing style is good and kept me reading. I did appreciate the surprising plot twist near the end.

I did not find Sadie, the main character, engaging. She seemed immature and overly defensive. Her initial attitude toward people offering help was appalling. That meant I did not feel so much sympathy when she experienced her brain issue.

I do like to learn something when I read a novel and in this one it was about facial blindness. I liked Center's explanatory note about the condition at the end, and her thoughts on how we know others and, in fact, what knowing someone really means.

I am not a romance novel reader. Give me a good mystery every time. But I really appreciate the Author's Note about romance novels, their lure and why Center wrote them. That was very enlightening and gave me a greater appreciation for a genre I have basically ignored.

This is a good novel for readers who like an informative and entertaining romance that explores how we know others and what it means to be known.

I received a complimentary egally of this book from the publisher. My thoughts are an independent and honest review.

I've really enjoyed the Katherine Center books that I've read, and Hello Stranger was no exception! This story really focused on our main character Sadie's growth and evolution, with a sweet romantic storyline as the cherry on top.

Synopsis: Sadie is a portrait artist who just landed a finalist spot in what could be a life changing competition. Sadie desperately needs the prize money, as she is always a bit down on her luck. She wants to prove to her dad that she has what it takes to make it as an artist and to successfully follow in her mother's footsteps, who was also an artist before she passed away when Sadie was a teenager.

However, Sadie's celebration is short lived. After suffering a seizure in the street and being saved by a Good Samaritan, Sadie finds out she needs brain surgery. After her surgery, she wakes up only to discover she has face blindness - she can't make any sense of faces or recognize anyone and the only thing to do is wait to see if it corrects itself. She throws herself into trying to figure out how she can paint a portrait in time for the competition, while her luck continues to worsen: her evil stepsister delights in torturing her through her face blindness, and her dog Peanut becomes ill.

As Sadie confronts these issues, she has to rely on others, something she has always hated. But through this, she finds Dr. Addison, Peanut's new veterinarian, and Joe, a resident in her building who leaves a bad first impression but then starts to grow on Sadie. Sadie develops feelings for both, despite not being able to see them. She will have to see them for who they are and trust herself to figure out what is in her heart.

Review: I really liked that the book focused on Sadie and how her face blindness forces her to come to terms with some of the baggage she has been carrying since her mother's death, reevaluate her artistic style, and learn to lean on the support of others. She's had a super tough life, between her mother's death, her father's indifference toward her, and her stepsister being completely evil and tormenting her since they were teenagers.

Sadie gets herself into all sorts of trouble with her face blindness, which kept the book upbeat and amusing despite there being some heavier topics. It was fun seeing her growth, and there were some exciting twists thrown in.

What kept this from being a 5 star read for me was that I couldn't believe how evil Sadie's stepsister was, and how her father and stepmother really hadn't noticed it, or had turned a blind eye, for years and years. This woman was straight up EVIL and doing terribly damaging things to Sadie.

I also liked, but didn't love, Sadie and her friend Sue and their relationship. Sue would sometimes seem like a good friend, but a lot of the time she was flighty and would even forget about Sadie's face blindness. She didn't seem like a great friend even though she was really the only one that Sadie had.

Overall though I enjoyed this read! Thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Add Hello Stranger to my favorites list! Katherine Center has a knack for creating and exposing beautiful growth in her characters. There is not a main character she has written that I am not rooting for and love so much! This book explores prosopagnosia and the impacts it has on daily life. I knew very little about it but loved learning more! Sadie beautifully represented this diagnosis and how so many of us take for granted that we just automatically recognize people! I had a physical and early listening copy and enjoyed transitioning back and forth and was completely swept away into this story.

There were so many amazing and thoughtful takeaways, so many times that I laughed out loud, and so many times where I clutched my heart in understanding of these characters. I loved this story and Katherine Center you are a QUEEN!

Below are two of my favorite quotes from the book. I will think about Sadie for some time to come. Thank you so much @netgalley and @stmartinspress for the early physical copy and @macmillianaudio for the early listening copy! You HAVE to grab your copy out 7/11!

“Seeing the world differently helps you see things not just that other people can’t- but that you yourself never could if you weren’t so lucky. It lets you make your own rules. Color outside your own lines. Allow yourself another way of seeing.”

“We’re all so limited and disappointing and so, so wrong. Much of the time. Maybe even most of the time. We’re all so steeped in our own confirmation bias. We’re all so busy seeing what we expect to see. But we have our moments, too. Moments when we see that tire blowout and stop to help. Moments when we pay for the person behind us in the drive through. Or offer up our seat to a stranger. Or compliment someone’s earrings. Or apologize. Sometimes we really are the best versions of ourselves. I see that about us. And I’m determined to keep seeing that about us. Because that might be the truest thing I know. The more good things you look for, the more you find.”

4.75 stars!

I loved this story! I do not want to spoil any of it for anyone who may read it so I will not even attempt to describe the story!

I learned so much about something I had never heard of! I was delighted! I was surprised! I was cheering for the main character and was very invested in her story!

What an adorably fun read! Sadie Montgomery is a struggling portrait artist on the brink of her first big break. But after an unfortunate incident that ended with her needing brain surgery, she loses the ability to see actual faces.

How can a portrait artist do a portrait if she can’t see a face?!

What follows is a beautiful story of growth and finding your true self. Of managing expectations and allowing people to help you when you need it most. Friendship and love, and believing in yourself most of all.

Thank you @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the digital copy for my review

This was my first Katherine Center but definitely not my last!

5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hello Stranger is going to be another win for Katherine Center. It is an "easy read" and would make a great book to read on vacation. Closed door romance and a creative story that makes you want to keep reading. It's a hopeful story filled with anticipation. Pick this one up and add it to your summer TBR when it publishes July 11.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the electronic advanced copy.

Sadie is a portrait artist who was just selected as a top-10 finalist in an elite art competition. But she has an accident which results in her needing to get brain surgery. When she comes out of surgery, she has Prosopagnosia (aka face blindness) which makes it incredibly hard to do her job.

This felt like a retelling of Cinderella with a bad twist. Sadie is the FMC. Her father is absent after her mother died and he re-married, bringing around an evil stepmother and stepsister. (Cue a ridiculous bullying back-story throughout Sadie's childhood with her stepsister). Additionally, her one-dimensional BFF is tremendously inconsiderate until the last 15% of the book. The only redeeming characters are Joe and Mr. & Mrs. Kim.

I so wanted to love this book, but I found myself annoyed with Sadie's woe-was-me attitude. I can't begin to understand dealing with face-blindness after not having it, but I found myself unable to be empathetic to her situation. Had she just TOLD people what was going on, everything would have been 100% easier. I also thought it was a totally predictable ending, which is fine in a rom-com, but I saw this one coming from miles away.

Overall, the middle 25% and the last 15% of the book were my favorite. Once she got out of her own way and asked for help, things got a little better. But it was a bit of a roller coaster throughout.

As always, thank you so much to St. Martins Press and Netgalley for the advanced copy of Hello Stranger in exchange for an honest review!

Every time I pick up a new book by Katherine Center, I’ve come to expect joy. In 2020, when we interviewed her for the Unabridged Podcast upon the release of What You Wish For (shameless shoutout—you can listen here: https://www.unabridgedpod.com/post/134-whatyouwishfor-katherinecenter), Center talked explicitly about working toward joy, both in her life and her writing. She said, “[O]ne of the things that I really wanted to write about in this book in particular, like the kind of the place where I started with the story, was I wanted to write about joy. . . . [W]hen you find the right story for you, whatever that story is that you need at that particular moment in your life, it's so satisfying that it feels like joy.”

With Center’s new book Hello Stranger, that feeling of joy was in full effect for me. At times, I was giddy as I read about Sadie Montgomery’s fierce attempts to wrestle back control over her life, her relationships, and her career—to find joy in the face of adversity.

Sadie is a portrait artist on the cusp of finding the success she’s dreamed of ever since the tragic death of her mother—also a portrait artist—when she was a child. Her relationship with her father has never been what she wanted, and her relationships with her stepmother and stepsister are downright confrontational. But she has a good friend, Sue, and a sweet, aging dog she loves and a place to live and work (thanks to some gracious rule breaking from Sue’s parents, her unofficial landlords).

And then she falls one day, merely walking across the street, and everything changes.

Sadie finds out that she needs immediate brain surgery, and while the surgery is successful, it results in prosopagnosia. Face blindness. She can’t recognize anyone’s face, even her own, and she certainly can’t paint portraits, which means that the art competition on which she was counting is going to be a real challenge.

The situation unfurls from there, of course, complicated by a potential romance with her dog’s veterinarian and a burgeoning friendship with the superficially-jerky-but-maybe-not neighbor who turns out to be pretty helpful when she needs it.

In retrospect, there were a few elements of the plot that stretched my credulity just a bit, but they didn’t impact my reading experience at all. The story here is gorgeous and sometimes heart wrenching but ultimately joyful. Center considers the impact of Sadie’s face blindness on her life and her career and her relationships with great sensitivity, making excellent use of the need for Sadie to see things differently both literally and figuratively.

I loved Hello Stranger.

Y’all…I’ve been agonizing over how to write this review because I really don’t want to be a Debbie Downer. I love Katherine Center and I’ve enjoyed all her other books that I’ve read…

But I really didn’t like this one 🫣 Yes, there were some good moments, like the sweet ending with a fun little twist, but overall it just frustrated me. I know I’ll be in the minority not liking this one, and I’m so bummed!

Some of my biggest issues were:

1. There was hardly any romance. Sadie learning how to adjust to her new normal after having acquired Prosopagnosia (face blindness) dominated the plot. It did, however, make for an interesting story since she is a portrait artist that can no longer see faces. It was just too much of Sadie in her head, and it got repetitive.
2. I didn’t care for Sadie as our MC. She annoyed me 😬 With Sadie fearing the unknown, she was often negative towards everything. She was quick to jump to conclusions and assume the worst of people which really irritated me. I think it was meant to be funny once she found out the truth, but it didn’t come off that way to me 🤷🏻‍♀️
3. Her evil stepsister was a bit over the top. It was really just depressing reading what all she did.
4. Her so called BFF, Sue. She forgets several times that Sadie can’t see faces…seriously?!! What a terrible friend.

Sadie did eventually have some growth as she discovers more about herself and her family. And thanks to her therapy and a stranger in a face blindness forum, she finds a way to have a more positive outlook on life.

I just want to hug Sadie. Getting the chance at a career achievement of a lifetime, finally proving to her father she chose the right path is in her grasp, until she wakes up in a hospital bed. After having a seizure in a crosswalk, with a brain bleed that needs surgery, Sadie realizes she can no longer see anyone’s face. The worst diagnosis possible for a portrait artist.
During these 6 weeks Sadie meets two different love interest, and attempts to reconcile her family, her friends and choose between 2 men she cannot see.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. Katherine Center, your writing captures me everytime.

Release Date: July 11, 2023

There are so many reasons I shouldn't have enjoyed this book as much as I did.

😕It has:
- �a frustrating main character
- �a predictable and implausible plot
- �a couple of secondary characters that are one dimensional

❤️But, It also had:
- �a very lovable male MC
- �incredible audio narration
- �a satisfying ending

Turns out that I was just in the right mood for Katherine Center, and, as she says in her author's note at the end, anticipation plays a huge role in our enjoyment of stories.

Waiting for the MCs to figure out their misunderstanding kept me listening even when I had other books I was supposed to be reading! To me, that’s the sign of an enjoyable read! ☺️

🎧And I can’t neglect to mention the stellar audio narration by @pattimurin, who, IMHO,
should be narrating way more audiobooks!

Thank you to the @stmartinspress and @netgalley for my ARC of this book.
Thank you also to @macmillan.audio for my ALC.