I just adored this book!

Sadie Montgomery is a portrait artist who is just reveling in the fact she made the top ten finalists for a prestigious art competition for portrait artists. However, quickly after she finds out she needs brain surgery due to some neurological issues.

I will say I spent the last year undergoing testing for my own neurological issues and while she does express fear/anxiety I almost feel it’s underplayed as I can confirm—it’s fucking scary.

Anyway, Sadie’s brain surgery is successful, however, it has left her with facial blindness that her doctor says is “probably temporary.” Which as you can imagine as a portrait artist (and human being) is horrifying.

The plot from there is very easy to see where it’s going with her two romantic interests: her dogs cute (she thinks) veterinarian and Joe from her apartment building but it doesn’t make it any less fun or enjoyable! A really fun and sweet read.

5/5 stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sadie Montgomery's life takes an unexpected turn when she is diagnosed with face blindness, leaving every face she sees as a perplexing puzzle. While navigating this new reality, she grapples with family issues, pursues her artistic aspirations, and finds herself entangled with two very different men. Amidst the chaos, Sadie's search for clarity becomes elusive, yet unexpected connections and alternative perspectives offer a glimmer of hope. In this delightful tale, Center focuses on the most meaningful discoveries — about yourself and your place in humanity — often happen when we least expect them.

Such a heartwarming and charming novel, which feels like a promise from Center at this point, that harkens back to my pre-teen reading days of diving headfirst into the Sweet Dreams series of books.

While there were so many little conveniences that happened during this story, and Sadie was more than a little slow on the uptake at times, I'm willing to put all that aside and acknowledge that Hello Stranger is every bit as adorable as it needs, wants, and tries to be. Sometimes it takes work to set aside the snark and admit that these little conveniences are funny and allow for just the right amount of balance and anticipation that keeps me turning these pages.

I often turn to lighter books like this (I had a long stretch of relying on Kasie West books here) for mental breaks between harder books. The exact right kind of rom-com that Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers would whip up into a movie with a great interior somewhere, and I can't help but picture Sadie's studio as a wonderful amalgamation of a beautiful Ephron-Meyers-esque production.

This was truly a unique storyline and I don't know of anything that comes close to this plot!

Sadie Montgomery finds her life completely turned upside down. She was almost hit by a car when she suffered a brain injury. As if that is not enough, she is a struggling artist who just made it aa finalist to a huge competition that could jumpstart her career. The problem is that after her brain surgery, she ends up having face blindness preventing her from seeing faces.

As she is navigating her new life she meets a vet she is attracted to, and her next door neighbor. Things are challenging for her as she navigates a world without being able to recognize anyone.

This story weaved in a lot of elements including that of dealing with grief, finding one's own path, learning how to lean on others and let people in for support. I enjoyed the comedic elements that Katherine always puts into her books. I also thought the storyline was super creative.

There is a twist and I was patting myself on the back for realizing it very early on!

"Joe" was a true cinnamon roll and he definitely has a huge heart of gold. I enjoyed how much support he had for Sadie and how much pining he really did without her every realizing it. These two really had lives that intertwined and were meant to be with one another!

Thanks you to St. Martin’s Press for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

What a wonderful story! Sadie is a starving artist and gets her first big break….only to suffer a life-altering experience. When Sadie becomes unable to continue her art, she thinks her life may be over, when actually it is just beginning. I love how Katherine Center weaves a story that grabs at your heart! I found myself unable to put this book down!

I requested this book after having read The Bodyguard, but this felt like a completely different genre. Gone was the easy, flirty romance. This book was too slow for me, I really couldn’t get into the story.

I was thrilled to get an ARC of HELLO STRANGER (thank you, @netgalley!) and I really loved it. This book was as sweet and fun and enjoyable as THE BODYGUARD. As always with Katherine’s books, it tackles some hard themes, but as always, with a thread of hope and joy. This one also featured a unique and interesting challenge that the MC was dealing with (and which I couldn’t help but tell my family about). She was a delightful character, and I loved the other characters as well.
✨
One theme in this book that really stuck out to me was the main character trying to find her own way while also trying to live up her beloved mother’s legacy- both of the book explored this in a beautiful way.

Katherine Center has the ability to write romantic comedy that takes things a step further, meaning her books may be rom-com but they aren’t too fluffy. This one is no different! Reminiscent of How to Walk Away, Hello Stranger confronts a medical emergency and the influence/toll of recovery on our protagonist. This one is full of lovable side characters and interesting family and friendship dynamics, all in addition to our main character’s romantic woes. I particularly love Sadie’s interaction with her best friend’s parents who are also her landlords. Like any book of the genre, were there moments that were unrealistic? Sure. Did it take away from the story’s charm? Not one bit. Katherine Center does it again!

3.5 stars. I know I am in the minority on this one, but this was not my favorite Katherine Center novel. It's taken me a bit to collect my thoughts on why that is. There are so many positives, including the portrayal of a main character with prosopagnosia and tense family dynamics. I think where it falls short for me is the lack of emotional depth. I think that Center did such a great job portraying the MC's difficulties with face blindness and explaining it that I didn't get the same depth of swoony feelings as I read this one. I was not as invested in the relationship coming to fruition. And.....I could see the twist in this one very early on. I was frustrated in some of the choices that Sadie made in terms of communicating about her condition, and that also made the book move more slowly for me. This isn't a bad romance, but it's not my favorite.

This is a refreshing romance novel that I didn't guess the ending of! It was very well-paced and a great story overall! Perfect summer read!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Oh Katherine Center, you’ve done it again. I absolutely adored The Bodyguard when it read it so when I got approved to read Hello Stranger, I was beyond excited. I was not disappointed.

I loved this book! The concept itself was so new and not something I’d ever seen before. It was so interesting to read about and I absolutely adored Sadie’s character. She was relatable, sassy, fun, creative and I really liked reading about her.

**SPOILER AHEAD**
I also really liked Joe/Dr. Oliver Addison/Good Samaritan/Weasel etc… as soon as Sadie wondered why the vet didn’t text to say sorry for standing her up on the date I knew it was him, knew they were one in the same.

What a fun, heart warming, complex, feeling inducing story of a woman finding her way back to herself after life decides to challenge her. The love story was pretty great too.

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center releases on July 11, 2023.

Super cute & happy read. A little slow to get into but once you get to about 40-50% it starts to get interesting. Joe gives off golden retriever vibes. It’s wildly predictable, but still a cute story. It definitely spiked my curiosity about Prosopagnosia (or face blindness which I had no idea was a thing). I wish we got more of why Sadie and Joe fell in love because it doesn’t feel like there was quite enough to be head over heels in love with each other in just a month basically. I think it’s a great story of judging people not off of their looks, but their warmth and personality. I love the woman in the beginning that looked at Prosopagnosia as a gift and how she treats every interaction, even with people she might not know, with warmth and love.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. I really enjoyed this!

Katherine Center does it again with this whimsical yet substance- packing romance. Sadie Montgomery, a struggling portrait artist is left with acquired apperceptive prosopagnosia after brain surgery for an inherited cavernoma. The timing couldn’t be worse, she’s a finalist in a competition that could make her career but now she can’t see, or paint, faces. And she needs this win, to validate her choices and herself to her family.

But as much as Sadie wants to stay home and mourn her before operation life, she can’t. Her beloved fur-sibling Peanut becomes sick, she has a hopeless love at first sight crush on her vet, Dr. Addison even though her neighbour Joe is working his way into her heart, and she’s determined to still submit a portrait for the competition even though she can't paint faces anymore.

It’s a lot for a woman to manage. But yet somehow she does, in her own imperfect way. I don’t want to spoil anything so I won’t go further into the plot but it’s a delightfully sweet romp with moments of heavy, yet tender emotion. The twist was delightful, if somewhat predictable but that's what romance is about.

Katherine Center fans are going to love this one. I certainly did. And as someone who works in Neurology, I greatly appreciated all the research that Katherine Center put into prosopagnosia.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is such a cute story and a very interesting set of complications to get to her current predicament. The family medical history and her discovery that she also has this possible fatal condition. Only to have surgery that results in her not being able to recognize faces, hopefully temporarily. Since she does face portraits and just got selected for a contest. This is literally how cruel timing can be sometimes, so suspend your disbelief if things always go right for you.

I loved the relationship with Joe but there might be some miscommunication just cause she can't see him. And loved all the talk about the brain and the senses. Cause it's true that your brain can have you believing certain things to be true based on certain metrics. I would be so upset if faces were all mixed up.

This was so cute and def shows that people have different sides they show with work and personal. And dang evil stepsister hope she to rots in.. h3l1

Thank you stmartinspress for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

I fell in love with Katherine Center when she wrote “The Bodyguard”. I am not a big Romance reader but I love and enjoy her books so much.
This book is such a unique premise. I loved the love story. I want to be friends with Sadie the main character.
This book was such a great read. Highly recommend reading it!

I’m not fully sure how I feel about this story. Overall, I really enjoyed it. I found Sadie’s story really interesting and found her desire to not ask for help and to not let anyone know she’s not okay completely relatable. Sadie and “Joe”s budding relationship was absolutely precious and so much fun to watch unfold.

I always appreciate how much research goes into each of Katherine Center’s books. Every book is so well-informed and this one was no exception. It was extremely interesting to read about Sadie’s condition and I learned a lot but it never felt like a textbook.

While I did enjoy the story, I will say that I found parts of a to be a little silly, a little too much. Katherine Center tends to write at least one side character in each book who is just absolutely AWFUL to the MC. Usually it’s an ex, but in this book it was Sadie’s stepsister. I didn’t feel like Parker’s antics added anything to the story and generally didn’t see the need for her and her horribleness at all.

I was given an ARC by NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press. All opinions are my own.

Ohhhh Katherine Center 🥰 Can we be friends? I lovvve Katherine’s writing so so so much. The way she incorporates depth, but also a lightness to her characters is something I just adore in her novels. I adored this book and loved the plot of this one too. I was also completely fascinated by the face blindness and I felt all of Sadie’s struggles that came with it. The romance storyline was predictable for me, but I totally enjoyed the ride still. I laughed, I swooned, I loved and I recommend it to you!

4.5 stars for me.

Another cute Katherine Center read. I was looking forward to reading this after The Bodyguard!

Sadie is working toward her dream and suddenly everything becomes blurry. This book was predictable but SO cute and light hearted. Definitely a little slow to get started but I did love the stubbornness of the main character.

*I received a digital copy for review from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley & St. Martins Press for the opportunity to read this new release!

4 ⭐️

Katherine Center has never let me down. She’s been on my “auto buy” list before I even knew I had such a list. I finished it in about 12 hours - the cast of characters were super lovable! The little twist was somewhat predictable (even if it was something I’ve never encountered in a story before!), but with contemporary romance, I rarely ever care about that. It was still a fun read!

Sadie is an artist who specializes in portraits, & one day has a nonconvulsive seizure resulting in her needing brain surgery. Once recovered, she discovers that she has acute prosopagnosis or “face blindness”. Scared of what this means for her dream career - she has to re-learn how to live in a world where we only recognize people by their faces.

This is a story about life, self discovery, love & persevering in the face of a lot of obstacles. Sadie’s growth throughout the book was SO inspiring & I absolutely loved the relationship that formed with a man named Joe, who lives in her apartment building. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a story about overcoming obstacles & stumbling your way through life doing the best you can.

Hello, Stranger releases July 11, 2023!

This was a delightful romcom from Katherine Center. I loved the cast of characters and I absolutely loved Sadie! After suffering from face blindness after brain surgery, she finds herself struggling with painting and falling for two different men. This had me laughing out loud and crying at the same time. A great romance that I'll be recommending to anyone needing a happy and hopeful book!

I have been anxiously awaiting the release of this book (as I do with all of Katherine Center's books) for months and was so excited when I was approved by NetGalley to read an ARC. Hello Stranger did not disappoint - I loved everything about it, down to the Author's Note, which I admittedly often don't read. The characters were lovable, the relationships heartwarming and it was completely unputdownable. I may have neglected my daily tasks in favor of reading for the two days it took me to read start to finish. Another 5 stars for Katherine Center! Can't wait for her next book.