A good romance novel requires unique circumstances: what about this book is going to set it apart from all the other happily ever afters? Well, this book has A+ circumstances. A portrait painter who goes face blind? How can you not be interested in that. Sadie's story is both compelling and informative. Hello Stranger is the first book I've read by Katherine Center, and it won't be the last.

It is no secret that I am a huge Katherine Center fan. I have read *almost* every book she's written, and the bubbly, warm feelings they continue to give me are unmatched. We are talking better than a fresh-out-of-the-oven, perfect & warm chocolate chunk cookie here, readers.

I have been in quite the little slump, coming off of reading 200 books in 2022 so when I got notified that this eARC dropped on my kindle, I was more than happy to dose myself with some happiness.

This follows Sadie Montgomery, who is a portrait artist, trying to prove to her doctor-father that she can be successful AND happy all at once. On the same night she hears she has placed in the top 10 in a prestigious portrait art contest, she suffers from a seizure. This enlightens her to her congenital brain defect, cavernoma, and she is urged to have brain surgery asap for everything to return to normal again. Then she can get right back into painting and everything will be daisies and rainbows! Sound too good to be true? That's because it is.

Sadie wakes up from the surgery with “acquired apperceptive prosopagnosia”-- aka face blindness. Now she's a portrait artist... who can't see faces. Maybe this deficit will allow for Sadie to see things she's been overlooking... like that cutie in her building with a heart of gold...

Listen, I just loved this. I found it to be fun, heartwarming, and overall just another great book by Miss Center!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for sending me an eARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.5/5⭐️

Katherine Center blowing me away once again! This book was so good!

Absolutely loved Sadie’s character and the journey of her medical issues, financial struggles, strained family relationships, working through emotional trauma & the evolving love stories. I laughed out loud so many times while reading & a few moments I was almost crying! The storyline was so unique. From beginning to end I was captivated by the story & the characters & was not ready for it to come to an end!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this advanced copy!

I have been devouring Katherine Center’s work ever since reading The Bodyguard last year, and Hello Stranger did not disappoint!

We follow Sadie Montogmery, a struggling artist looking for her big break. After finding out she’s a finalist in a portrait contest, she unfortunately finds herself in the hospital needing brain surgery. As she moves through recovery, she notices that she can no longer recognize faces. Which is a huge problem for an artist who specializes in portraits. As if things couldn’t get worse, her beloved dog peanut gets sick and in walks Dr. Oliver Addison. He’s always catching Sadie at her worst and helping her through it. We follow Sadie as she tries to save her career, cope with her new reality, and even fall in love.

What I love so much about Center is the way she writes stories about serious issues, but keeps them funny and engaging. I enjoyed learning about face blindness and how it affects those who suffer from it. I also felt like the love story was well done and so was the conflict- I read the whole book in one sitting and really enjoyed all of it! Would recommend to anyone!

I am a big fan of Katherine’s other books, unfortunately this one did not resonate with me. I enjoy a good romance story, however, as she says in the Notes section, there is a lot of “anticipation” (or predictability). I also felt that a few storylines dragged on in the beginning and could have been shortened or removed. The first 70-100 pages is what made me give this 3 stars. Once the story picked up towards the end, I enjoyed it much more. All in all, I liked this book, just not my favorite of hers.

As part of a "readathon" IG group to start the year, the group chat went crazy when someone mentioned seeing this title pop up on NetGalley.

While I'm not a romance fan, my FOMO got the best of me and I had to check it out. In the end, I'm glad I did.

Hello Stranger is a quick, simple read. While it's pretty obvious how everything will turn out, this is a time when I think the author wanted the reader to kind of know it early. There is the hopeless romantic drive that pulls the readers through, waiting for the realization to hit, and then wanting the pay off from it.

The characters were lovely--largely simple, wholly uncomplicated, and doggedly kind. They deserved they endings they got and the plot, while never overly ridiculous, had just enough head-shaking moments to make this feel like an escape from reality and not an over-the-top, never-in-real-life fantasy.

Overall: 4 stars

I'll tell my students about: language, trauma, sex, parental death, bullying/stalking, alochol

**Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the free ARC prior to publication. All opinions expressed are my own.**

I got my first Katherine Center book last year through my BOTM subscription and really enjoyed it and thought I would enjoy this one as well and I wasn't wrong! I absolutely loved Sadie and her journey through this book. My only issues were I figured out what was going to happen pretty early on with her relationship with Joe and her relationship with the vet, and I didn't totally understand a lot of Sadie's decisions after her surgery and her ability to see faces. Overall it's a book I would read again and plan to purchase when it comes out.

This is my second Katherine Center's book that I've read and what a delight this happy love story is!! What if the one thing that you relied on most to do your passion/job was taken away? To see Sadie navigate her life after being diagnosed with facial blindness in a way was healing and therapeutic to read. It wasn't until Sadie's facial blindness that she really started to see people and who they truly are. Taking the time to get to know people and seeing past their looks and into their hearts - being open to seeing people differently. There are so many things I loved about this book, including the reminder that we choose which of our thoughts to focus on and how we perceive things... the mention of someone else with facial blindness who considers her symptom as her superpower - incredibly powerful and moving...and how Sadie feels closer to her mom. The ending couldn't have been more perfect. And I have to say, there's nothing much better than a handsome veterinarian!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital ARC.

This was so good from start to finish! Fast paced, unique plot and great characters. Thank you to St Martin’s Press & NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the digital copy. Our thoughts are our own

Okay, not going to lie here but I didn’t think anything could top Katherine’s 2022 release of The Bodyguard but my gosh Hello Stranger did!!!! It is rare that we both get an ARC and are able to read the book around the same time but we did so you are lucky to get a joint review!!

Sadie Montgomery is a struggling artist looking for one lucky break. Life has been finally starting to go her way when she lands one of the coveted spots in a portrait competition. It happens to coincide with a surgery she needs to have. Her Doctors tell her it will be easy, less than a week in the hospital and nothing will change. Upon recovery, Sadie realizes that she can see everything around her, except she can no longer see faces. She keeps being told it is only temporary and lots of people deal with it. As she struggles to deal with it and hang onto her artistic dreams, she finds peace in her 14 year old dog peanut. Unfortunately, Peanut falls ill and Sadie has to take him to the vet. Where she meets and falls in love with the Veterinarian, Dr. Montgomery. Now she is dealing with her diagnosis of not being able to see faces, she is also trying to navigate new love.

LOVED LOVED LOVED!!! I am not going to lie, I DM’ed Katherine on Instagram on multiple occasions asking when it would be on Netgalley and as soon as I saw it there. I JUMPED on it.
I didn’t know how much I needed this book in my life until I started reading it. I couldn’t put it down. I was so invested in Sadie’s story and her diagnosis. It is so hard now to write a million things more about this book without giving it away. There was a big twist at the end that I legit did not see coming and I was so pleasantly surprised. This book was emotional, inspirational and a highly enjoyable read. It deserves every single one of the 5 stars we gave it!

I love everything this author writes and this book was no exception. I did figure out the "story" but it was still a cute, fun and quick read.

I loved this book! I went in blind and I'm so grateful I did! Definitely avoid spoilers as there are so many layers to this book that made it work out even better than I imagined.

Sadie is a portrait artist with an opportunity to participate in a contest that she's dreamed of... when she has to have brain surgery and begins to suffer from face blindness.

This book included romance, humor, growth and so many different layers that I loved how it played out. Such a great read!

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC <3

I absolutely love Katherine Center’s characters. They are so rich and visceral. I also love that she doesn’t shy away from deeper plot lines and tragedy. This book is no different and I loved every minute of it. Sadie is a flawed person who learns a lot. And I don’t want to say anything else! No spoilers!

ℍ𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕣: 𝕂𝕒𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕖 ℂ𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣

I have yet to be disappointed by a Katherine Center read. I haven’t stayed up to finish a book in a long time, but last night I was up until midnight finishing this one because I just could not put it down.

Katherine Center creates such lovable main characters that I easily get lost and forget the world I’m reading about isn’t reality. One thing I love about her novels is that while we don’t get unrealistic happy ever afters, we do get realistic happy ever afters that still leave me more than satisfied in the end. Which, this ending? Woah. It makes me want to reread the entire book with the knowledge of how it ended… and I very well might do just that.

I loved the creativity and uniqueness of this
Sadie, the main character, having to deal with face-blindness as an artist is a struggle I’ve never come across or even thought about. This made me not only interested in the love story (because duh) but also in the whole idea of face-blindness and having to alter your idea of art when your life is turned upside down.

Another relationship, or lack of one, I loved throughout this book was Sadie and her father. Again, a conflict that didn’t end in a cookie cutter happily ever after, but in a realistic and satisfying way that I related to on a very personal level.

All that is to say, this was an (unsurprising) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 read for me.

Thank you #netgalley for the sneak peak!

Whenever I get my hands on a Katherine Center book I read it as soon as I can. Without giving too much away, this was a solid Center book. Was it my favorite? No. “Things you Save in a Fire” still has that top spot. I did enjoy the plot but found the main heroine, Sadie to be pretty annoying at times. I did really fall for both the main love interests. They were both incredibly sweet with Sadie.

Overall this was another enjoyable read by Center. Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for giving me this ARC.

It's hard not to love Katherine Center - I recommend listening to her Virtual Book Tour podcast episode. Her books are fun and spicy but with an added depth that can be rare in this genre.

I loved this book! It is so much more than a romance book. Katherine Center writes about characters that are so alive and detailed, they feel real. I was so intrigued and invested in Sadie's life. This book has so much character development, hope, healing, connection, love, and laughter. Hello Stranger also has a unique plot with the main character developing face blindness, it was interesting and new. I already want to read this again! Katherine Center is amazing. Her Author's Note at the end also made me love this book even more. Just amazing!!

I loved The Bodyguard before, and I loved Hello Stranger! Sadie is an interesting character follow. I love our hero as well - his kindness, generosity, attention.

Watching Sadie deal with face blindness and her family made for an emotional and interesting story. Honestly, I don’t think we needed Parker.

I think the book did a great job explaining face blindness to the reader. It really painted a picture of what this could look like for those who have not had to deal with it.

This novel is so sweet and an amazing read. It's uplifting but also covers heavy topics that happen in people's lives, but it's balanced well with laughter and love. The book centers on Sadie's growth as a character and how she's dealing with her grief, but it's also a closed door romance. Not everything was wrapped up in the end, but it left me thinking about Sadie and the other characters well after reading the last page. I'd recommend this book if you're looking for a meaningful romcom.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Are you kidding me?? This book was just dumb good, like it had no business being this delightful. Oh my gosh, I loved it and will be telling everyone to read it. It was fascinating and entertaining and hopeful. I even caught myself thinking about it when I was away from my book! And I loved the author’s note on the anticipation of romance novels; I felt so seen. Thank you for this ARC! Katherine Center’s whole backlist is officially on my TBR.