🌺 Hello Stranger
by Katherine Center

Release Date: July 11, 2023

Read if you like....

👨‍👩‍👧 Family drama
❤️ Romance
🎨 Art

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sadie Montgomery's big break in her art career is about to happen when she becomes a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition. Only problem is...she wakes up in the hospital with a hopefully temporary condition known as face blindness.

To make matters more confusing, she's falling for two different men.

This was a very unique romance. I thought it was fun and enjoyable. If you're looking for something out of the box and light, give this one a try. 3.5 stars

I absolutely loved this book and could not put it down. The characters were so real and authentic - I laughed, cried, and was angry with Sadie's family on her behalf. I fell in love with "Joe" and I felt hope and fear. I was sad when the story ended because I wanted more of Sadie's journey. Compelling and well-written story Highly recommend!!!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoy Katherine Center's books and this is an engaging read. Sadie is left with a case of face blindness after an accident. This leads to some complicated love interests. The romance felt like a bit of a side plot to me because I found myself very caught up in exploring how someone would live with such a challenging condition (Center writes about these topics very well in her books). I have never read a story dealing with facial blindness and it was so interesting. There are so many emotions caught up in this storyline and I think it will appeal to a wide variety of readers! Thank you to Katherine Center, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. There were moments that made me laugh, rage, and cry. Sadie was really interesting a lead character. This major, potentially life changing thing happens just when she’s about to get her big break in the art world and the story centres on how she navigates through dealing with this event and the faces she ‘meets’ along the way. Sadie was a bit standoffish and determined to manage things on even when she clearly needed help and support.

Throughout the story, KC did a good job of showing that despite the bouts of prickliness Sadie had a good heart, and was just a little lost and trying to find and hold onto something good and real. As her backstory unfolds and you get more of the details of her family life and loss you come to understand her need to rely on herself and cover up the vulnerabilities more. Sadie’s whole situation with her family made me so angry and sad on her behalf, Parker was the devil incarnate and Sadie’s dad was the worst. Personally I did not love the resolution of that part (mostly because her dad’s failure to turn up in the past and present until he was forced to was unforgivable to me) but I can see why it worked for the character.

As for the romance, I usually hate triangles with a fiery vengence but the Joe-Sadie-Dr A one was well handled. I really enjoyed Sadie’s interactions with both her love interests 🤭. There was great chemistry between all sides of the triangle and how it was resolved was unexpected and perfect. Really enjoyable leads and supporting characters and and fully engaging story. 4.5 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an arc of Hello Stranger.

After having brain surgery, Sadie suffers from face blindness. She then has to figure out how to not only creat her portrait for an art contest, but also how to go about life with her new vision.

The concept of this book is appealing and very unique. Makes it stand out from others. There’s something about it I didn’t love and I can’t quite figure out what it is.

The plot twist!! This book was so so good! Make sure you read it when it comes out! Loved every single character and didn’t see the twist coming

Sadie is a struggling artist who just wants to do what she loves and be successful enough to support herself. After years of hard work, it seems like she's on the right track when she places as a top-ten finalist in a portrait competition. On the eve of the celebration of this event, she has a near-death incident, landing her in the hospital and ultimately discovering she has a chronic brain condition that needs operating on soon. After the operation, she succumbs to one of the rare side-effects; face blindness - where she can see parts of a face upon concentration, but not the whole. Now as a portrait artist she must re-learn her art and work without seeing faces, and in her personal life she deals with not knowing on a daily basis who is new or already known to her and having to rediscover that with each person she interacts with. Of course, during this traumatic part of her life, it appears she's presented with two suitors whom are both great in their own ways and she is interested in both. Now she must work through her feelings with these men, on top of acclimating to her life! Ultimately, she makes a decision between the men, but it doesn't go the way she imagined.

This book had me hooked right away. The writing and dialogue is so easy and engaging, I loved the characters, and the weirdness of Sadie (think quirky artist type, and so lovable). I loved Dr. Thomas-Ramparsad and all of her mental health positivity and support - some of her lines were my favorites of the book. I also feel kind of duped - I fell for this book, and I swear I was paying attention, but there were a couple of reveals at the end that I didn't see coming that maybe I should have. Or maybe KC is that good of a writer - I don't know, this is my first KC book, but it won't be my last, and I will definitely recommend this book.

I went in blind when I read this and was floored at how good this book was. The plot was unique and addicting, I couldn't stop turning the page. The romance was SO CUTE OMG. I absolutely would say this book is one I will reread and annotate.

I wish I could say more about the plot but this is one you want to go into blind, it makes it so much more enjoyable.

Funny, sad, everything!

Before reading this, I had heard of face blindness, but not in detail. The author has done a great job of explaining the syndrome and also the emotional counterparts, almost felt like she had first hand experience.

Sadie was struggling but excited to be selected as a portrait artist finalist. She lost her Mom young, but she keeps her memories alive by painting and wearing her favorite dress. When she has a freak accident, a problem is discovered and she has brain surgery. Face blindness was a post-surgical condition, hard for a portrait artist.

While living along with Sadie, I couldn’t help but imagine just how difficult it is for people who suffer with this. Sure, this was fictional and for entertainment purposes, so many of the situations Sadie wound up in are treated humorously, keeping the story light-hearted . The moral of the story to me is that although letting people see you, with all your flaws, can actually be a great thing.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book, but my opinions are my own.

4⭐️—Having read a few KC books, her writing style is so familiar and I like that she gives us an escape when we read her books. They’re fun, light-hearted, filled with emotion but I also learn something new every time!

Sadie is diagnosed with face blindness, and for a person who paints portraits for a living, this is not good. To make matters worse, she somehow falls for TWO DIFFERENT MEN 🥲

You have to suspend belief to really immerse yourself and enjoy this one fully!

Read if you like:
👩‍🎨 Funny meet-cutes
👩‍🎨 Dogs
👩‍🎨 Think Cinderella and the evil step sisters
👩‍🎨 The best friendship in Sadie and Sue
👩‍🎨 Love triangles

Overall, I liked but not a fav! It’s definitely a quick and sweet read for your summer TBR ☀️💛

I have just finished another fantastic book by Katherine Center and cannot say enough good things about it. Just when Sadie is on the brink of success in her career as a portrait artist, she undergoes what should have been a minor surgical procedure on her brain. The swelling that follows causes Sadie to suffer from face blindness. How will she ever be able to create a winning portrait now? Simply learning how to cope with daily activities is difficult enough, and Sadie is very reluctant to accept help from anyone. Despite everything that is going wrong in her life, Sadie starts falling for her dog's handsome new veterinarian while also developing romantic feelings for her downstairs neighbor. I enjoyed putting all the pieces together in this story that brought out all the kinds of feelings I seek in my favorite books. Thanks so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance copy to read and review.

This proves why Katherine is an auto-buy for me!

I love how I always end up feeling uplifted and educated after reading a book by Katherine Center. Her characters always have a unique journey to travel, while inspiring the reader with their personal growth throughout the story.

Sadie immediately won over my heart with her rare struggle of facial blindness, especially as a portrait artist who can no longer do what she loves. Her dog Peanut often steals the show, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I devoured the entire book in one day and have NO regrets! Looking forward to reading it again soon.

Last year it was The Bodyguard, this year it's Hello Stranger. I'm calling it now, this is my favorite read of the year!
This book was absolutely fantastic. It was emotional, magical, funny (SO funny), and everything I wanted it to be.
To quote the author: "This love story really created a fantastic feeling of anticipation." The slow burn was SO worth the wait. The characters were amazing and lovable. Honestly, I feel like I could gush about them all day.
1 finished this book days ago, but I needed to take some time to really sink into the feelings (the best ones) and soak in every drop of them that I could.
The author really created something beautiful here, and I'm dying to get through her entire backlog (I've already LOVED The Bodyguard and The Lost Husband...which is also a movie on Netflix 9).
Katherine Center can do no wrong. I now introduce to you my new auto-buy author.

This book had me laughing on page one. I adore Katherine Center's books and will read everything she writes. HELLO STRANGER is wonderful.

Sadie is an artist struggling to make her way. She finds out she is a finalist in an important art competition that could change her life. But as usual, the world has other plans and she suddenly has to have brain surgery. The surgery leaves her with acquired face blindness which is a real threat to her career as a portrait artist. She is forced to reevaluate everything as she finds a way to cope with her new reality.

This one packs all of the emotional punch of a Katherine Center novel but it’s equally fun. I don’t read a lot of books I would classify as ‘fun’ but that made this one hard to put down. I feel like I don’t experience that feeling often with women’s fiction / romance novels. But I really enjoyed the reader knowing what was going on well before the protagonists, it was tongue in cheek fun. I also liked the life event and face blindness forcing Sadie to rethink her relationships with her friends, family and love.

Thanks to St Martin’s Press for gifted access via Netgalley. All opinions above are my own.

Hello Stranger starts with Sadie Montgomery, a struggling artist on the verge of her big break, who learns that she’s a finalist in a prestigious portrait contest. On the night she is to celebrate with her friends, she has a seizure that later requires brain surgery, which leads to her postoperative diagnosis of face blindness, which may or may not be temporary.

Sadie has to deal with what this condition means for her art career and the contest while also dealing with family drama, her dog’s health issues and a potential romance with two guys - her vet and her neighbor. I enjoyed this story this story of Sadie navigating her life with her new condition. And how the change she made in the process led her to her happy ending.

Katherine Center has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Hello Stranger was a unique story line that incorporated face blindness, romance and personal growth. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for sweet, fun and feel good story to add to reading list.

This is only my second Katherine Center book, but I really enjoyed it as much as the last one! This book was so wholesome and heartwarming. Sadie was going through so much already with her financial struggles, add to that her terrible stepsister and tension-filled relationship with her family, and then experiences this medical issue that leaves her with a condition known as face-blindness. As you can imagine, for a portrait artist, not being able to see people's faces throws her entire life off-kilter. In this book, we follow her struggle to adapt to this condition, while dealing with a sick pet, family drama, AND the fact that she is supposed to have a piece ready for a very important art competition. Along the way she has to try other ways to create her art, leans on other people she wasn't expecting, and finds love. This story was really cute and I think it teaches us about perseverance, growth, adapting, and not judging a book by its cover. There's a bit of a plot twist involving miscommunication that I think was done really well and while I mostly figured it out early on, it was fun to read as it unraveled. Thank you to St. Martin's Press, NetGalley, and Katherine for this ARC.

This was just an adorable romance. It is very unique, I've never read anything like it before. Sadie learning how to draw portraits again was interesting. Joe is such a sweetheart and I loved how he was always there to help her out. I want a bonus chapter so we can have more of the two of them together.

I received an arc through netgalley.

I have been a big fan of Katherine Center for a while - so imagine my pure giddiness when her team reached out with an ARC!!! Big thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC that allowed me to DEVOUR this gem before it comes out on Tuesday!!

Katherine Center books are very much my happy place - I tear through them so quickly, I fall in love with the characters, there are plenty of twists that keep me guessing, and I can't put them down. There is also just such a sense of joy and hope threaded throughout. In her Author's Note at the end of the book Katherine touches on why she writes romance and why it is such an incredible (and too often misunderstood and dismissed) genre. Y'all will not be shocked to hear that I clapped and fist pumped while reading it.

Hello Stranger hit all the right notes for me. Our leading gal is Sadie, a struggling artist who is on the cusp of her big break when she makes it to the final round of a very prestigious portrait competition. She doesn't have much of a relationship with her Dad and Step Mother, and isn't able to cover rent for her less-than-ideal living situation. But she feels like it is all shifting when she makes it into that final round - and while she's on her way to pick up some celebratory wine (relatable!) she is in an accident.

While she survives, she soon is diagnosed with a temporary condition of face blindness. She can see everything but faces. This would be awful for everyone - but particularly for an artist who specializes in portraits.

What follows is a hysterical, sweet and deeply enjoyable story of a woman stumbling through life trying to make sense of her career, the hot vet, the neighbor who isn't what he seems, and her family situation.

For all of my Book of the Month friends, this is a July option!!! Otherwise make sure to add it to your TBR pile when it drops on Monday!! A goddamn delight of a read!

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