The premise of this story was definitely interesting. My main struggle with this book, however, was Sadie. I think the author did a great job bringing more awareness about face blindness but Sadie was really stubborn for no reason and this honestly took away from the story for me. She was immature and lackluster, and I had no idea why she was so adamant when other characters were just being nice. This also personally made it harder to connect to Sadie. As for the other characters, I honestly didn't really like Sue (in my opinion, she was a terrible best friend) and Sadie's family just confused me because I'm not really sure what purpose they brought to the story (Lucinda's character especially confused me from beginning to end). Their ending felt incredibly random. As for Joe, I would have loved to see more of him. I feel like Sadie and Joe's relationship was extremely one-sided and we never got to see them in a setting where he wasn't helping her. Their relationship progressed so quickly and I was extremely caught off guard when they mentioned they were in love. Despite all this, I did enjoy the humor in this book and the last half of the book was significantly better than the first half!

Another spectacular novel from Katherine Center. Once again she has made me fall in love with her characters and her writing. I loved Sadie. I feel like everything bad that could happen to a person hit her in her 30 years. Yet she was still happy and loving and trying to do her best. And Joe- sweet Joe, almost too sweet and helpful Joe. I felt the little bits and pieces we kept learning about him made me want to keep coming back for more. And honestly, I wrote Parker off within 10 seconds of reading about her. But The Kims, we all need this kind of people in our life.

5 huge stars as usual for my Katherine Center books. Read and enjoy this lovely novel, you will not regret it.

I found this to be an inspiring story. In this story the main character acquires prosopagnosia (face blindness) weeks before she is to present a new portrait for an art contest. She is learning how to live with it not knowing if it will come back. This story was a reminder to be kinder to people and to see past the looks.

The ending wasn't quite what I expected and I can't decide if that is good or bad. It was interesting.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This book was absolutely wonderful. Like, I read it in one sitting. Sadie is basically a starving artist who just wants her big break but then gets facial blindness from an accident. The kicker? Her specialty in painting is faces, like Norman Rockwell. This is clearly devastating for Sadie and thus begins her trying to navigate this new issue that the doctors say may or may not resolve. The only face she can still see is that of her beloved dog, Peanut, who gets sick and ends up seeing a new veterinarian who Sadie falls in love with... but is Dr. Oliver Addison who she really thinks he is?

Gah. This book was seriously adorable.

I loved this book. It was such an interesting premise and lots of angst, heartache, and hope. I hated the evil stepsister Parker to the point I almost hope there is a sequel to this story with her having a change of heart, because man, she was vile. Loved Sadie, Joe, and Sue, especially since she was a different sort of best friend. She was wonderful, but also not perfect! She tries to do her best but gets it wrong sometimes, and that’s ok.

If nothing else, please read or listen to the author's note at the end of this story. It is a beautiful tribute to why we read romance, and it is spot on. The “anticipation” of this story was there and wonderful!

I received a free ARC from Netgalley and it did not influence my opinion in any way.

There is just something about Katherine Center’s writing that I adore! It draws me in and makes me not want to stop reading or listening. My heart broke for Sadie so many times during the course of this book. It seemed like nothing was ever going to go her way. Having a seizure and brain surgery was traumatic enough, but not being able to do what she loved and was passionate about was such a blow. I loved her friendship for Joe that becomes more. Her friendship with her sweet pup was another favorite part for me. This was the second time Center made me a little nervous as we neared the ending, but as expected, it was everything and more. I can’t wait to have this book on my shelf!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ok this review will be short because I refuse to spoil even an ounce of this amazingness. However, I will say this may be my favorite of the @katherincenter books which is saying a lot because I have loved each and everyone one. The way she writes is filled with such love and hope and also heartbreak. It will make you truly feel (and cringe - at one point I was yelling at Sadie) all of the emotions. And you will learn - because Katherine always does her research and I always learn something new from her books. Also, can we just all agree that Lucinda is the best step mother name ever?

I also can’t not mention how much I loved the author’s note. “Light matters just as much as darkness” - I so agree. The knowledge that when I read a romance novel it will end in a happy ending makes it the perfect escape in a busy stressful world. That cocktail of emotions is what I come back for. And I love the challenge to change the framework that romance novels are “predictable” to rather we can “anticipate” the happy ending. @katherinecenter challenge accepted!

Thank you to @katherinecenter @netgalley and @stmartins for the ARC!

This was a well written, great story. Forced to see things, in particular faces, differently due to brain surgery, Sadie Montgomery has normal, panic driven reactions. She is a portrait artist who after brain surgery sees faces as something abstract and not really faces at all. We follow her journey as she copes with this at same time, she is a finalist in an art contest for portrait artists. Also, romance is involved and the way the story unfolds is unexpected, fun and wonderful. I am planning to read more Katherine Center books in the future. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

* Thank you to NetGalley and the author for the ARC of this book!

I really enjoyed The Bodyguard by Katherine Center and I think I enjoyed this book even more! I found myself really intrigued with this story and I hated having to put the story down for any reason. I enjoyed this story for multiple reasons. It's full of humor, stress, emotion, romance and very cute dog that I just absolutely could not get enough of! The little twist at the end just made everything better (even though, for once, I actually figured things out before it was announced!)

I feel like I had a lot in common with the FMC, Sadie. Each time she spoke about her mother, I could feel how close she was to her mother when she was actually alive and I knew she missed her terribly. It really pulled at my heartstrings and made me miss my own mother that I lost 6 years ago. Sadie also had trouble asking for help which I seem to have the same problem with! Katherine Center sure knows how to write a relatable main character! I also enjoyed the other characters in this book, especially Sadie's best friend, Sue!

Another great book from Katherine Center! Can't wait for the next one!

Sadie seems to have everything going for her. She has just been notified that she is a finalist in a prestigious American Portrait Society competition. The only thing she has to do is paint the perfect portrait of someone. And she only has 8 weeks to do it. What could go wrong? Then she is involved in a freak accident and wakes up in the hospital and can't see faces! Doctors aren't sure if it will be a permanent condition or not. How is she going to be able to paint a portrait if she can't see faces. She has to deal with that. There are family issues that come up and she has to deal with that. How many balls can Sadie juggle at one time?

Sadie has been dealt a rough hand in life. Her mother passed away when she was a kid and her dad ended up remarrying. She wants nothing to do with her step mother or her evil step sister. Her father has been mostly absent from her life, leaving her feeling very alone in the world. She tries to put up a facade that she’s successful and happy, so that no one, especially her “family”, knows the truth. The truth is she’s a struggling artist, living in a hovel that belongs to her friends parents. She finds out she was selected to compete in a coveted portrait competition and hopes she finally might get her lucky break! Except another curve ball comes in when she finds out she has a condition that requires brain surgery. She reluctantly agrees to surgery, only to wake up to discover she has facial blindness [prosopagnosia]. How is she supposed to paint a portrait for the competition when she can no longer decipher faces? She vows to keep this a secret and hopes the issue will resolve as soon as possible.

Her dog ends up coming down with something, which lands her in the local vet office, where she meets Dr. Oliver Addison. She’s immediately drawn to him and is so excited when he asks her out on a date. Meanwhile Sadie’s neighbor, Joe, starts showing up for her in ways she didn’t ask for and he begins to grow on her. Maybe more than she wants to admit. Could one of these relationships end in love?

I enjoyed reading this book. It was easy to breeze through and ended with a twist I wasn’t expecting.

Overall good read. Not my favorite by Katherine Center, but still a worthwhile read.

Thank you to NetGalley + St. Martin’s Press for the ARC. Pub date is set for 7/11/2023.

Hello Stranger is the newest release from Katherine Center and while I’ve always really enjoyed this author’s books in the past, this book right here easily took the cake as my new fav! I cried multiple times reading this book and then again with the author’s note at the end about romance books! This book just meant so much and was perfect!

Sadie is a struggling portrait artist but feels like she got a big break when she lands a coveted spot in a portrait competition! She runs out of her apartment to celebrate by buying some (cheap) wine at the local corner store but realizes while checking out that she totally forgot her wallet. A man behind her in line offers to pay but she declines and rushes off to get her wallet, later she runs into him and realizes he bought her wine anyways for her and even added in a bouquet of flowers to her bag. Aww’ing at the thoughtfulness of it all, she ends up getting hit by a car and rushed to a hospital! While at the hospital, the doctor finds a malformed blood vessel in her brain on the scan and informs her she’ll need brain surgery to fix the issue.

After the successful surgery, Sadie realizes that she is unable to see faces and is told she has face blindness (there is a technical term but that is basically what it is). They’re hoping it is just temporary and will last 2-6 weeks, but Sadie is devastated considering her living is painting portraits! Along the way she ends up finding out about her past, struggles to save her career, deals with her complicated relationships with her family (dad, stepmom, and stepsister), and has a really sweet and helpful guy she wants to get to know more!

The romance was just so so precious and I couldn’t get enough of Sadie and her story! I didn’t find the romance to be a twist, I thought it was clear to see what was going on in the story very early on, but I adored the journey of it all anyways and seeing it all play out. This was easily my favorite by this author and the audio narration in particular was amazing!

Thank you so much to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press for an ARC and MacMillan Audio for an audio ARC via NetGalley. All thoughts in this review are my own. Hello Stranger has a pub date of July 11, 2023!

3.75. i thought the story was really interesting and the premise of it caught me but i was admittedly really stressed the whole book because of sadie’s lack of communication with everyone about what was happening. i know it sets up for the twist at the end but miscommunication is one of my least favorite tropes so i admit it got me stressssssed the whole time. i feel like this is more of a women’s fiction story than a romance novel but i still enjoyed it! thank you netgalley for the advance copy of this novel.

Coincidentally this is the second book I've read this year about a character with face blindness. It's so fascinating! But that aside, I really enjoyed this book. It was a tad predictable and I figured out the ending quite early on, but I still loved seeing how it was all going to play out. Kept me up reading way too late on a work night just to finish it!

This was a very fun and unique storyline. I absolutely loved the concept of the MC losing her ability to see faces and learning how to identify people based on other characteristics and body language. The main character was funny, brave, relatable, and likeable. The fact that she powered through life without being to see any faces was charming and entertaining. The family dynamics were brutal at times! I really hated the stepsister! I was hoping for a redemption arc but the way the author closed out their story worked well for me.

I will say that the miscommunication trope is my least favorite, so I found myself having second-hand embarrassment a handful of times throughout the last quarter once I figured out a few of the plot twists - which I felt were pretty predictable.

Overall this was a fun, quick, quirky read. I think a lot of people will enjoy reading this.

I am not a squealer but I always - without fail - squeal with delight when I have a new Katherine Center book to read. Her books are just so full of promise and joy. In the author’s notes for this, her latest book, Hello Stranger, she talks about predictability vs. anticipation. We like our romances to be predictable – in a good way – but she suggests instead we think of it as anticipation. And she is exactly right. All through the book, even though there are serious heavy events with serious unexpected and possibly unfixable consequences, I was anticipating the happy stuff. The looks, the touches, the shrugs, the sighs.

Sadie Montgomery lost her mom when she was fourteen and everything fell apart and never got put back together. Sadie feels like she’s a failure at everything: being an artist, a daughter, being self-supporting and self-sufficient. She is convinced neediness on her part is the reason, so she’s determined to always, always, always be fine and never need anything or anyone lest she drive them away. She has friends, especially her good friend Sue, but is almost estranged from her father and wacky stepmother, her stepsister is beyond cruel, her art hasn’t taken off like she has hoped, and her love life, what love life? So when she gains entry into an important art contest she thinks, “This is it! I’ve done it, I will show everyone and finally be happy.” Until on the night Sue is giving her a celebratory party and Sadie goes off to buy cheap wine and dog treats for her old, spoiled, precious dog Peanut she freezes in the middle of the street and except for the last-minute Good Samaritan pushing her out of the way is almost run down by an approaching car. What could be worse than that? Well, how about face blindness? The condition that caused her to freeze required surgery and – hallelujah – Sadie is alive. But – whatever the opposite of hallelujah is – faces are now jumbled and Sadie can’t recognize anyone, not even herself in the mirror. Peanut is the only face she can see. It may go away, but maybe it won’t. If she felt entirely alone before . . . .

Katherine Center is at her best, again, with Hello Stranger. She has a gift, a mastery, for taking very serious accidents or diseases or conditions or whatever it is that happens to her characters and while treating those things with the somberness they require, also managing to infuse all that anticipation, joy, and deliciousness into every single page. It might not be a typical happily-ever-after but you know good things are going to happen and you just can’t wait to get to them.

Just open the book and immerse yourself in Sadie and Peanut and Sue, and Joe the Weasel from the elevator and Dr. Addison, the faceless-but-sexy vet who saved Peanut, the sister who keeps sabotaging her, the art, the bursts of joy in the middle of some real fear and sorrow.

There are lots of hints to the mind-blowing surprise but you’ll have to read Hello Stranger a second time to recognize all of them. Come on, that’s what you do with a Katherine Center book, isn’t it? It becomes a lifelong companion to be cherished and revisited, checked-in with every once in a while because it just feels so good. When you read this book the next time (and the next and . . . .) those hints will have full meaning and will have transformed into swoony, hand-on-your-heart, sigh, wipe away a tear, moments. Center is such a competent, capable, talented author to put all those little hints in; it’s all there for you but you can’t figure it out until you know the ending, but why would you want to figure it out anyway? It’s not a mystery, it’s a love story and the best part of a love story is the journey – and the anticipation.

Understanding the hints makes the funny parts even funnier, which is saying a lot since Center’s novels have a lot of funny stuff in them to begin with. And if you don’t ugly-cry while reading this – and every other Katherine Center book – then you belong in a dark, dull room with Sadie’s father, stepmother and evil stepsister.

Hello Stranger is another wonderful addition to your Katherine Center library. The pace picks up at the end and you aren’t trying to figure anything out; you are consumed with “Will they? “Won’t they?” Just sailing along to the totally satisfying ending without knowing what’s coming gives you the read of a lifetime. And can you have multiple reads of a lifetime? The answer is a resounding YES! Just put Katherine Center on your automatic-buy list.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Publishing Group for providing an advance copy of Hello Stranger via NetGalley for my reading pleasure (joy!) and honest review. I voluntarily leave this review and all opinions are my own. I cannot recommend this book and this author enough.

I always look forward to a new Katherine Center book. This one did not disappoint. I loved this book so much.

Sadie Montgomery is a portrait artist. She ruined her relationship with her father to switch majors from medicine to fine arts. Sadie has spent the last 8 years lying about her success to her father and step-mother. However, Sadie finally got her big break, she is finalist in a art contest. Unfortunately Sadie has a mishap and her life is derailed a bit. After nearly getting hit by a car, Sadie is diagnosed with a cavernoma and must have brain surgery. She wants to put it off until after the contest but her dad won't let her. Seems that a cavernoma is what caused her mother's death 14 years ago.

The surgery is a success and Sadie is a model patient until she is about to be released and realizes that she can't see faces. Seems that some swelling from the surgery is causing the part of her brain that recognizes faces to not work. She is diagnosed with acquired apperceptive prosopagnosia aka face blindness. This makes her painting a portrait for the contest nearly impossible.

Sadie has spent the last 14 years not asking for help or admitting that she is not okay. So in her coping with face blindness, she is going to pretent it doesn't exist. She doesn't want to tell anyone. Imagine not being able to recognize people you have know your whole life. Sadie does her best, but her life is a bit of a mess. Her evil step-sister moves into her apartment building, she falls for not one but two men. And painting a portrait without being able to see faces proves to be a near impossible task.

I loved this story and I have to say I cried both sad and happy tears as this book resolved itself. Sadie is a very likable character. She is easy to love and root for. I kept hoping her dad and step-mother would finally see what a horrible person Parker (evil step-sister) truly is. If finally came about but in one of the saddest ways possible. My heart hurt for Sadie so much. I was glad she was redeemed in the eyes of her father and that he works to earn Sadie's forgiveness.

As for the falling for two different men, the way it resolves itself is absolutely my favorite part of this book.

I loved this book so much. It is heartbreaking and heartwarming. I recommend this book to everyone.


Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book. All opinions expressed are my own.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Hello Stranger was a very pleasant surprise for me. I had been struggling lately with the romcoms I had been reading, not finding one that fit me but this one totally hooked me. As someone who studied prosopagnosia I was curious to see how it would be portrayed in this book. This book really played with my heartstrings and I loved the focus on how romance is about how the other person treats you and not how visually appealing they are. Parts were heartwarming, and others more angsty, but the book kept a good tonal balance and ended on such a hopeful note that it left me feeling warm. It didn't have the craziest plot twists, and I did anticipate how the ending was going to go but I didn't care! Just getting to the end was the fun part and I was looking for a jaw dropping plot twist.
This was a great read for someone looking for books on heavy topics taken on from a gentle, hopeful approach.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the ARC. This book made me laugh, cry and believe in fate. I loved Sadie and Joe. They just had a connection and got one another. This a sweet story of overcoming grief, unexpected illness and a dog named Peanut. A must read.

Katherine Center strikes again with another adorable, laugh-out-loud romance. Sadie is a struggling portrait artist who has finally gotten her big break--the chance to enter a portrait contest with a grand prize of $10,000. But when she suffers a seizure in the middle of traffic, she's left with a rare condition called prosopagnosia....or facial blindness. How is an artist supposed to paint faces when she cannot see them? The main storyline of this novel focuses on Sadie's budding romance with her downstairs neighbor Joe, a man she develops an attraction to without ever seeing. The book has some deeper themes, too, exploring the death of Sadie's mother, the abandonment from her father, and her evil stepsister quite literally from hell (seriously--could Parker have been any worse???) A super cute meet-cute with a twist, Hello Stranger is a nice heartwarming romance that fans of Center will most certainly enjoy .