Hello Stranger

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for the copy of this book!

"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."

Katherine Center has such a way of immersing her readers in her stories, making her characters relatable and every emotion tangible. In Hello Stranger, we feel through, Sadie a struggling portrait artist on her way to a lucky break in a competition when she's hit by a car, has brain surgery, and is diagnosed with prosopagnosia (face blindness). Yep - a portrait artist who can't see faces. In the midst of this, her family is completely unhelpful (and she has the most EVIL stepsister), but she also meets a very handsome vet she thinks could be her future husband and starts having feelings for the hipster guy living in her apartment building. The suspense was built up in this book with the looming portait competition deadline and the love triangle, and I simply couldn't put it down! While feeling the ups and downs in Sadie's life, I was also laughing out loud at all of the hysterical moments in this book and really just having a pleasant time with this warm hug of a book.

Sadie Montgomery is in the brink of getting her big break as a portrait artist when an ill timed surgery leaves her with facial blindness. Will she be able to pull through and find success after all? This book explores this and so much more!

I loved this!!!!!!!! Katherine Center is one of my absolute favorite authors and this book only continued to prove that fact. This was a great combination of romance and women’s fiction. The characters were extremely well rounded. Such a fun read!!

Katherine Center left me swooning with this one! Love, love, loved this book. Sadie may be one of my favorite characters yet.

Sadie is a portrait artist living in a rooftop hovel, barely scraping by when she receives news that she has been selected to participate in an important exhibition. On her way back from the store with wine to celebrate her success, she loses consciousness. When she wakes up in the hospital, she learns she has facial blindness from a brain bleed. How can she complete a portrait with facial blindness?

What follows is an amazing love story where, through an awful step sister, a distant father, a helpful neurotherapist, her best friend and a new love interest, Sadie learns who she really is. She learns to rely on her other senses and opens herself up to becoming the best her.

Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC.

This book was phenomenal. Katherine Center has this incredible way of creating stories that entrap you into a imaginary world. The twists and turns this book took were so unexpected and yet so beautiful and wild. This book will still with me forever. I don’t know how she does it but WOW.

I recommend going into this book blind. Don’t read too much into, don’t look at spoilers and just enjoy the ride Katherine Center takes you on.

Thank you SO much NetGalley & St. Martin’s Press for the ARC

This book was delight! Another great romcom by Katherine Center.

This book was full of funny, heartwarming, and sweet moments. But the best parts were the twists and turns the story took, all leading to the ending we crave in a romance.

Sadie is an artist that got the opportunity to show her work in a contest that could change her professional career for the better, her big break. The problem is that right when this happens she has to have a surgery that let's her temporarily impaired: she can no longer see faces, which is a big problem since she's a portrait artist. Her journey to dealing with this challenge and also confronting the problems she has with her family leads her to Dr. Addison, a kind, thoughtful and sweet stranger that has been involved in her life in more ways than she knows.

I loved the development of the characters, Sadie's relationship wit her best friend and her tenants, even her dad. I despised her sister and was really annoyed by her stepmom. This is a story about resilience, following your dreams, and not judging people based on your assumptions. It was so entertaining, I read it in one sitting!

Katherine Center is one of those authors who brings us hope when all seems lost and she’s done it again with HELLO STRANGER.

We start the story off with struggling artist Sadie Montgomery finally getting a break. She’s a finalist in a prestigious portrait contest (yay), but then she has an accident, and stuff happens that gets in the way (no spoilers). Most people would just give up and quit at this point, but not Sadie. Sure, she has her moments (who wouldn’t), but she hasn’t given up hope. Along the way, she meets a new neighbor and a hot vet who saves her precious dog, and even though it looks like her career might be tanking before it even gets to take off, her love life is flourishing. Maybe…again no spoilers.

What I loved about this book was the layers. Sadie’s medical issue and her journey learning to deal with everything happening because of said issues. Sadie’s budding relationship with her neighbor. Sadie’s relationship with her best friend Sue and her family. The complex family drama going on. And then on top of all of that, there’s the humor that the author wove into the story that gives us hope as we read about what is a very serious topic.

Katherine Center is a master at delivering stories filled with interesting characters facing difficult situations with courage and strength and lifting her readers up.

I went into this book blindly but excited since The Bodyguard by Katherine Center was one of my favorite reads from 2022. I was not disappointed! I read this book in one sitting and finished it with a feeling of joy and warmth.

I laughed, teared up, and swooned all throughout this story. It was heartwarming and relatable. The plot was unique, at least I personally have not read a book like it before.

Five Stars! Definitely recommend!

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers, for this free review copy.

I am a huge Katherine Center fan and this one was fantastic! It’s about something I have never read about before, prosopagnosia, or in other words, face blindness. I thought this was so interesting to learn about, and it would be heart breaking to have to learn how to live with this. I always love when books teach me something new.

Once again, the characters were great. I love that Center makes these characters so relatable. Sadie was one that you instantly fell in love with and cheered for. And Joe was the perfect gentleman and the perfect character to help Sadie through some of her struggles.

This book had the perfect amount of romance, family drama, quirks and parts that just made you laugh out loud. I can’t recommend Center’s books enough, and I hope you enjoy it as much as me. Hello Stranger is on sale July 11th, 2023. Yes, it’s a few months away, and I couldn’t hold off any longer to read it! Make sure you pre order it, or ask your library to. It’s worth the read! 🥰

Thanks again to NetGalley and the publisher, for this free review copy. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Katherine Center, Netgalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC!

Wow. Just wow. This book is SO endearing and interesting. The main character, Sadie, experiences an accident in which doctors discover she is in need of brain surgery. The surgery leaves her with face blindness. Every time she meets someone it’s like the first time, and she must rely on her other senses and details to keep people straight. This, as you can guess, makes dating difficult.

All of the characters, save an evil stepsister, are SO wholesome and wonderful. I smiled, I cried, and I laughed so many times while reading this book!

This is my second by Katherine Center, and I am official a huge fan.