This book is so good! The subject matter is so unique and it's handled in such an interesting way. I always love a great cast of characters and this one is filled with friends and family that add so much to the story. There's a fun twist that I didn't anticipate which was fun to watch unfold. I love that all of Katherine Center's books are mostly rated PG and have such touching and heartfelt stories. This is a sweet summertime read.

Another gem from Katherine Center! I loved this book even more than The Bodyguard. This story has so much heart, but also it achieved one of the highest goals of fiction: it helped me walked in another person's shoes. I didn't know anything about face-blindness before this book, and she did soo good explaining it! I was so pleasantly surprised by every twist! The side characters were excellent, and I liked how she showed an imperfect friendship with the main character and her best friend.

I listened to the audiobook thanks to NetGalley and @macmillan.audio. The narration is excellent! Patti Murin was a great Sadie and so easy to listen to.

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center is a novel about Sadie, a portrait artist on the verge of her big break when she unexpectedly experiences face blindness after a surgery. As she tries to navigate her new condition, she must figure out how to paint in a new way while also working through her new friendships with a handsome vet that saved her beloved dog and a guy in her building that she keeps bumping into named Joe. Reading this novel is like catching up with an old friend where the stories flow easily with laughter and tears and before you know it—hours have gone by without you even realizing it. Hello Stranger by Katherine Center is a beautifully written must-read romance that readers will not be able to put down.

The audiobook was well done with a great narration by Patti Murin.

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center is a perfect summer read. While I could practically predict where the book was going from the first few chapters, I still absolutely loved getting there. The plot also felt fresh and new. With so many rom coms now, sometimes it is easy for the plots to start to become all the same after awhile but this is one that will always stand out in my memory. It was hilarious at times with some serious family issues being worked out in the process. Our main character saw a lot of growth. It strikes the perfect balance between being a cute love story while also tackling some serious topics.

4.5 stars. It was definitely predictable, but I loved it so much. There were lots of laughs with just as many tears, and I loved seeing Sadie’s journey with her face blindness and how it effected her art.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. So many complicated layers upon layers of heartache and emotion, mixed with some really sweet and sometimes silly moments. Clever and witty writing. I’m not big on miscommunication trope & at points it did get a little frustrating that they wouldn’t just SAY IT, but since there was a medical reason, it made it mostly believable. Also, while this was a romance, it also really was a personal journey for the FMC. She had to sort through so much baggage to get to her HEA. I am so glad she did.

If you enjoyed The Bodyguard, I think you'll like this delightful upcoming release from Katherine Center!

This book deals with some heavy topics, but it's still more rom-com than drama. A few fun plot twists combined with a couple of perfectly pivotal emotional scenes made it a pageturner for me, and I really liked the ending.

I did feel that some of the characters (Parker and Sue, particularly) came off as one-dimensional, but I appreciated the main character's growth throughout the story.

🎧 I loved this one on audio! Patti Murin has become one of my favorite rom-com narrators. Make sure to listen to the author's note at the end, too.

I loved this latest from Katherine Center!! Everything she writes is just so positive and makes you feel better after reading it. This story is one of the most complicated to describe but here goes. Sadie is a struggling artist that is given an amazing opportunity to showcase her art when she is selected as a finalist in a completion. This could be her big break. An accident leads to a surgery that leaves Sadie with a condition of face blindness. This is a huge problem because Sadie is a portrait artist. Coping with her problem Sadie finds herself dealing with family problems, an evil stepmom and sister. Her dog Peanut get sick and she is pretty sure she is in love with the vet. She gets stuck dealing with the horrible neighbor in her building that she is pretty sure sleeps around but is incredibly nice to her. Sadie learns to see people differently as she navigates through her complicated situation.

Katherine Center is an automatic buy for me. I love everything she writes, this was no exception. This has a great twist and was an absolute joy to read!! The characters were relatable and complex. The plot was well thought out and written perfectly!! Well done!!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. The audiobook was performed so well, a perfect complement to a great story!!

5 ⭐️

I absolutely loved this story! It was wonderful on audio. Katherine Center is now an auto buy author for me. The way she weaves a story together is beautiful. It kept me interested the entire time, but also had some twists in the end that I was not expecting. I love when a romance has a bit of mystery throughout. This novel was exceptionally entertaining. The characters were well developed. The plot was different than anything else I've read before. I didn't want to do anything else but focus on this story. Thank you for this ARC. I will be recommending this to everyone this summer! I will also leave my reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and Instagram closer to the pub date. Thanks again!!!

MFC suffers an odd medical disaster that gives her a temporary and potentially permanent disability that changes her perspective AND the way she sees things.

This story was captivating in the fact that it was a unique situation not often seen in the romance genre. It didn’t feel like something I had heard before, and I appreciated that. It also had me finishing the audiobook in less than 2 days!

I love how the FMC shows strength and vulnerability in different ways and at different points in the story, and we walk through it with her. I love how relatable her best friend is, and the support in unlikely places that she receives.

It was great to listen and learn about the very real condition the FMC is dealing with, bringing attention to something I had merely heard of in passing. Huge fan of learning disguised as reading for enjoyment!

I also enjoyed how there are different points and parts of conflict that the FMC has to work through and that it’s a process. All of it feeling very humanizing and true to life.

And lastly, the narrator did a great job bringing the tone of the character to life!

Ugh Sadie is terrible
Most of the characters are terrible
Very annoying
Being in her head is exhausting
I don't get why people like her?

What an interesting plot with a little twist at the end. Easy, enjoyable, and engaging! I loved the main characters and following along on the MFC's journey while navigating a faceless world.

I love KC. I love her stories of struggle and accomplishment and happiness. I love the messages that she weaves in her books. Her books will always hold a special place in my heart. Sadie's story is just as heartfelt and meaningful.

I tell people when I recommend these books that KC writes stories of personal growth with some romance in them. The romance isn't always first, but it's always there. This fits that bill. I flew through it. I loved how the story came together and adored seeing Sadie finally come into her own. I just wish that I felt more for her along the way. It was a smidge slower of a start than I wanted, but it fit what I needed exactly.

I absolutely adored this book. Did not want to put it down, I had to know what happened!!!

Sadie an artist gets face blindness, that one aspect just made this whole book so unique and so interesting! I loved her journey through this and how she coped.

I don’t feel like I can say much more because I don’t want to spoil it, but it was cute and also emotional, I got angry, but then swooned and felt so happy. It was seriously just an amazing ride with some great life lessons thrown in.

Also the narrator was just brilliant.

Hello Stranger is another lovely summer read from Katherine Center. Sadie Montgomery is struggling but has hope on the horizon - she’s a top 10 finalist in a portrait competition. Unexpectedly, she needs emergency brain surgery which results in a diagnosis of temporary face blindness. Through the recovery process, Sadie works on coping strategies and accidentally starts to fall for two separate men - Joe from her apartment building and Oliver the veterinarian. As the deadline for the portrait competition gets closer and her entry is no closer to getting done, Sadie tries new strategies while trying to sort out her heart and deal with her absent and sometimes cruel family. I found this story a heartwarming story of love, growth, and finding happiness. Patti Murin did a fantastic job with the narration, too.

I loved the audio to this book this was a rom-com with the perfect narration ever. Her voice was super fun and it told the jokes in such a good way that I was laughing out loud so many times. I listened to the narration at 1.5x and it was perfect. I enjoyed the different voices she was able to do. I thought it was a full narration and it turns out it was not. WOW!!! great narrator.

The book itself was quirky, fun, cute and had turns I did not expect. This was my first read by Katherine center and know I want to read all her books.

Hello Stranger features Sadie Montgomery in one of her most defining moments of her life as she places in the Top 10 of a nationwide portriature contest. Winning could mean fame, which could mean she could finally afford a place to live, among others of life's necessities. After collapsing in the road and being rescued by a good samaritan, discovers she has a malformed blood vessel in her brain. She wants to wait to get the treatment as the contest is in 6 weeks, but after a stern conversation with her father, is convinced to get it corrected ASAP. After the surgery, some swelling in her brain causes her to have the unfortunate side-effect of being unable to recognize human faces, a death sentence if there ever was one for a portrait artist. On her journey of recovery and acceptance, she comes to develop romantic feelings with not just one, but two men, both of whom she does not know what they look like! On her journey, Sadie might discover that she has actually been blind to a certain far longer than she could have imagined.

This novel is a delightful mix of romance and women's fiction, similar to Emily Henry's adult romances, and Hello Stranger is an improvement on last year's The Bodyguard. The heroes in this novel are quirky, intelligent, unflinchingly helpful, and hurt from past relationships, and you can't help but root for them. Sadie herself is deeply flawed, something other reviewers have called out as a negative, but one I find honest as she learns how to navigate relationships better and resolve conflict in healthier ways. If there was one character that was a detriment to the novel, it was her "evil stepsister" who very much acts like a palms-rubbing villian to Sadie. Center attempts to give reasons as to why the stepsister behaves as deplorably as she does, but it falls just short of feeling realistic.

Even with the negatives, Hello Stranger was a novel I tore through in less than 24 hours and was worth the sleep Iost trying to finish it! The narrator is also fantastic and does a great job alternating her voice for the different characters, in particular she was sensitive to changing it just right for the heroes.

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and St. Martin's Press for providing an eAuidiobook for an honest review.

I am a big fan of Katherine Center and her writing. Hello Stranger was different than I have read before, having a face blindness medical condition keeping Sadie from recognizing those around her without help from their body language and clothes.

I went into this book blind (ha-ha) not knowing what it was about other than it was written by Katherine Center.

I loved the connection of this title to the story. I always try to figure out how the title is connected while I’m reading and I wasn’t expecting it for this book.

Hello Stranger was harder for me to get into than the other novels I have read by Katherine Center. Sadie didn’t seem like a mature adult at times and it was hard for me to connect with her!

The second half was much better than the first for me, but I would recommend this book to people who love books with dogs and hot doctors.

Can face blindness help you see? A portrait artist struggles with face blindness after brain surgery. But it actually helps her to see what was right in front of her all along. Interesting story with the romantic happy ending.

Thank you Netgalley, Katherine Center, and publisher for allowing me an early audiobook for an honest review! I have become a big fan of this author. This is a heartwarming story with an interesting, rarely done topic and I very much appreciated that. A downside to the rom-com genre is its predictability and sometimes it's done in a way that can keep me at 5 stars (because it's pretty much a given to have), but I felt like all the "twists" were just so expected and long drawn out in a way that was slightly irritating. I wish there had been more close calls with their conversations, at the very least, but not even that. Having said all that, it is still a pretty unique story with a wholesome message. Nice job!