Thank you NetGalley and publishers for an e-galley audiobook. All opinions are my own.

I absolutely LOVE Katherine Center! She does a great job creating quirky characters and a fun love story. I have always appreciated the research she does and how she incorporates it into her stories. It makes the stories make a lasting impression more than just a sweet story.

This story about Sadie, a portrait artist who finds herself in a conundrum when she recieves some unfortunate news about her health. I laughed out loud multiple times as Sadie isn't one to just let tough times get the best of her.

My absolute favorite Katherine Center book! I loved the descriptions and relationships. The condition of the FMC is unique and gives an extra bit of mystery and curiosity.

We see what we're looking for."

Hello Stranger is a novel about an artist who loses her ability to see faces and the two men she is torn between.

Sadie is a portrait artist who just learned she is a finalist in a prestigious art competition. She is flying high until she experiences a medical issue that requires her to undergo brain surgery. Sadie wakes up from surgery to her worst nightmare--she is face blind. Adding to the drama, she is now torn between two men--neither of whose faces she can see.

This is the perfect summer read and the audiobook narrator is fabulous and would be great for audiobook newbies.

This novel blew my mind!

Sadie is a portrait artist, just like her mom was. She is nominated to take part in a competition but after an unexpected brain surgery, is left with face blindness condition.

I didn't know much about face blindness before reading this book, but it was certainly interesting to learn about it. The story was inspiring and put things under perspective as we follow Sadie trying to cope with her current reality as best she can. It was funny at times, sad at others but certainly not boring. It had quite a few twists I seriously didn't see coming.

I loved following her as she discovered 2 potential love interests, and how she tried her best to get by and recognize people she knew. It makes you wonder how weird it would be to be in her position. It's kinda scary in a way.

I'm so glad I read this book and will for sure be recommending it a lot to other people.

Katherine Center is so delightful. This story is so creative, the characters deep and lovable, and it’s just a wonderful time in these people’s world.

After reading The Bodyguard, my expectations were high for this author. While I enjoyed this book quite a bit, I really did have to set aside my “reality goggles” and go along for the ride. It danced the fine edge of feeling contrived, that absolutely perfect storm of miscommunications, missed communications, and coincidences that allowed the MC to believe what she did. Besides that, it was delightful and I laughed out loud at times. Would recommend.

Thanks for the review edition.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I am still swooning over the love interest in this story. I found the story arc interesting and the characters were well developed.

“Hello Stranger” by Katherine Center is a delightful blend of romance, art, and unexpected challenges. Sadie Montgomery, a portrait artist, faces a life-altering diagnosis of face blindness. As she grapples with her new reality, she finds herself drawn to two very different men. The novel beautifully explores love, lust, and the unexpected ways we perceive the world.

This book was SO wonderful. I have loved Katherine Center's writing for a while now, and it just solidified it more with this one. I thought the characters, the plot, the conflict, all of it was amazing. I enjoyed the descriptiveness of it, and I actually felt like I could picture it in my head. I read the entire thing in one sitting, which just shows my love for it. I highly recommend this one for everyone!

I've read three of her books and am starting to think none of hers will ever come close to Happiness for Beginners. As much as I wanted to love this one, I just didn't enjoy it like I wanted to. The romance seemed forced and way too fast, which made it unbelievable. The story brought more awareness to a disease not many know about, and I learned a lot. I'm glad to hear she did her research on this, because I'm always a little wary of reading books about illnesses the author has no direct experience with. Hopefully there were some sensitivity readers involved.

Cute story about finding your way in life after a major change occurs. Dealing with family issues and how to use her art in a new direction due to her sight awareness issue.

Many thanks to my friends at @stmartinspress and @macmillan.audio for the #gifted copies of this book.

Heartwarming. Adorable. Uplifting.

Sadie’s life is full of “the hard.” A freak accident led to a blood clot, and the surgery to fix it led to face blindness. Difficult for any person. Impossible for a portrait artist. Utterly tragic for a finalist in the life changing North American Portrait Society competition.

Oh, how I rooted for Sadie! I went through the gamut of emotion alongside her as she faced challenge atop of challenge. And when she fell for two guys? I wanted to roll my eyes. Instead, I felt my heartbeat pick up.

This is a refreshingly unique tale brimming with humor and heart. It reminded me to always be on the lookout: “The more good things you look for, the more you find.”

Like every other book I’ve read by Center, this one radiated joy. Her writing is laced with comfort and hope, which allowed a supported exploration of the hard stuff. And in so doing, her books reach into the soul, delivering the warmest of hugs every time.

There’s no doubt in my mind, @katherinecenter wields pure magic. Her author’s note at the end reminded me of this.

“Romance novels all run on a blissful sense that we’re moving towards something better.”

I vividly remember the overwhelming JOY that reverberated in my soul after reading my first novel by Center. Happiness. Bliss. Delight. I found myself completely surprised by the mood lifting power she wielded with her writing.

It was like crack. I needed more.

And that feeling of BLISS is why I keep returning to her novels year after year. Each book is like a warm hug. Always uplifting. Exactly what I need.

🎧 Patti Murin excelled in depicting Sadie and her wide range of emotions. But it was her portrayal of Joe’s snarkiness that made me swoon.

I’ve been wanting to read a Katherine Center book for a while now, and I finally had time to sit down with my Netgalley audio review copy and do it! Hello Stranger brought out a lot of conflicting opinions and emotions in me. At times I wanted to DNF, and at other times I couldn’t stop reading. I loved Sadie and I hated her. I went back and forth between being so invested and being so irritated at these characters. lol. Let’s see if I can make this review make sense!

Probably my biggest issue with this book was how self-absorbed and self-centered Sadie was. Face blindness is not something I’d heard of before I read this book, and it sounds scary and frustrating especially for someone who was not born with this condition. It sounds heartbreaking to go your entire life loving and appreciating faces, only to wake up from surgery and not be able to see them or recognize anyone anymore. And the author did a really good job of explaining what this is like. I empathized with Sadie and felt so bad for her, but then I quickly grew tired of the constant complaining and whining. This girl didn’t care about anyone or anything other than herself, and I can’t fathom that. I would feel so lonely going through something like this, and I would crave closeness with people. She refuses to tell anyone she’s face blind, which is her prerogative and not something she owes anyone, yet she also refuses to make adjustments to her social skills to try to compensate for this. She memorizes hairstyles, gaits, and clothing styles but she never asks anyone about themselves or shows genuine concern or interest in anyone she interacts with. It’s all about her. She goes through a bit of a love crisis, not knowing which man in her love triangle to commit to, and if she had showed either of them any real interest or gotten to know them on any sort of deep level it would have been so much easier for her. But instead, she focused only on herself and didn’t get to know either one of them well enough to actually know them.

This brings me to my next issue: communication. Nobody in this book can effectively communicate with one another. Assumptions are continually made. Judgments are made without knowing all the facts. Life is very confusing for multiple people in this book because they won’t ask questions and they won’t think critically about their interactions and use a little common sense to decipher them. Feelings are hurt, lives are ruined, and things happen that shouldn’t because there’s not one character, main or secondary, who can communicate. I stayed up past 5AM yesterday morning because I figured out something important very early on and got so irritated that these people couldn’t figure it out on their own that I couldn’t sleep until things were resolved. So I guess that’s a point in the author’s favor, but when a book is compulsively readable because the reader is furious is that still a good thing? LOL.

Another issue I had was this author’s writing style. It’s very repetitive, which I believe was made worse by how the narrator chose to read it. For example, and this is not a direct quote, let’s say that Sadie is thinking to herself and about her newfound hop. It would go something like this: “I have hope again. Hope that I can X. Hope that I can X. Hope that I will X. Hope that life will X.” And when the narrator reads these kinds of passages, she sounds like a robot. I would have much preferred “I have hope again, that I can X and X, that I will X, and that life will X.” The repetitive “Hope that..” over and over again really annoyed me and I found myself rolling my eyes. This same thing happens multiple times in the book, including the author’s note at the end, and I feel like it’s done in an effort to sound profound or sweeping, but I got very bogged down in all the extra words.

So… why did I continue if I had several really big issues with this story? Well, good question. I did almost DNF, but I really wanted to know how things were going to work out. I really loved Joe. He’s sweet and helpful and selfless, and I found him to be so endearing and patient. I loved Mr. and Mrs. Kim, who own the apartment building Sadie and Joe live in. I hated Sadie’s evil stepsister, Parker, who might be the worst villain I’ve ever read about who was not either a monster in fantasy novel or a serial killer in a thriller. Parker made me so mad, and the narrator made her voice so grating, that I wanted to throw things. At the same time, I really wanted to know how that relationship turned out. I wanted to know who Sadie ended up with, if she ever killed Parker, and if her dad ever grew a heart. Since this is a romance (although, there was no actual romance until about 40% and the bulk of the story felt like women’s fiction), we have to assume there will be a happy ending. So I wanted to know what that looked like for Sadie. Did her face blindness go away? I had many questions. This is such a unique storyline, and I was so intrigued (and ok, infuriated) that I couldn’t stop reading.

In the end, I’m glad I read this. The ending was really sweet, even though I knew exactly how it was going to go and we could have gotten there so much easier… but that clearly wasn’t the point. lol. This was not supposed to be an easy journey for me as the reader, just like it wasn’t supposed to be an easy journey for any of these characters. Nearly all of them are suffering in some way, and they all go through it. Some aspects of the story didn’t feel realistic at times, and some felt impossibly confusing just for the sake of making the story work, but it got me to read it. lol. I have only myself to blame for the emotional tsunami this author put me through because I could have quit! BUT. I didn’t. When I finished the story I was smiling. I was basking in the swoons and the sweetness and the pure relief that things were resolved and I’d be able to finally sleep. So there was good and there was bad, but one thing’s for sure: I will never forget this story.

"Hello, Stranger" by Katherine Center is a contemporary novel with a heartwarming premise. The author skillfully captures the complexities of relationships and personal growth. However, at times, the plot might follow familiar romantic tropes, and the pacing can feel uneven. Despite these aspects, Center's writing style and character development contribute to a pleasant reading experience, earning "Hello, Stranger" a respectable three stars.

This was more fun than I expected. It's not the first book I've read about face-blindness, but I liked the way it was worked in to this story. I found the main character to be a little bit stubborn, but also surprisingly forgiving. There was a bit of family drama, a bit of finding yourself, and (of course) a romance. I enjoyed both the print and the audio versions - great narrator! This was my first Katherine Center novel, but probably won't be my last.

Every face, including that of her own, is unrecognizable. Like a pile of mixed-up puzzle pieces. Or like pickup sticks. Sadie has "acquired apperceptive prosopagnosia...face blindness." How did this happen? One day Sadie experienced what was called a nonconvulsive seizure. Because of this event, Emma underwent several tests and it was determined that she had a malformed blood vessel in her brain. And this required brain surgery.

When Sadie awoke, she was in turmoil. She was utterly confused. Her friend Sue came to visit. At least it sounded like Sue. But Sadie could only recognize one feature at a time, like the eyes, nose, etc., but she could not put the composite of those features together to form a recognizable face. This does not bode well for someone who has a career as a portrait artist.

Meanwhile, Sadie has a double crush - that of her veterinarian and that of her neighbor Joe. She decides to put those feelings for her vet aside and spends time with Joe, working on a portrait without actually being able to see his face. Sadie's face problems continues to cause issues, but she holds out the hope that once she fully heals, her ability to recognize faces will return.

Sadie has other issues - one being her evil stepsister. It seems she just cannot get away from her. Dealing with Parker, all while slowly falling for Joe gives this story plenty of form. Katherine Center is a fabulous writer. and she did a great job with Hello Stranger.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Hello Stranger was an overly predictable romantic comedy with some life lessons thrown in. It was cute, but definitely did not meet the expectations I had built after reading Center’s “The Bodyguard”.

The book follows Sadie, a portrait artist that, after an accident and resulting brain surgery, wakes to find she is face blind. Comedy ensues, a step-sibling villain emerges, and Sadie finds herself torn between two very different men.

What really disappointed me was the inconsistencies in the plot. I never expect romantic comedies to be literary masterpieces and often they do have parts that I just have to pretend make sense. But, Hello Stranger just had so many? I ended up being really frustrated with the characters, particularly Sadie, and that made the whole book kind of a drag for me.

I won’t let my reading experience of this book sway me from reading more of Center’s books in the future. I’m hoping this was just a fluke.

This was such an incredible book! It has everything that you want in a romcom. It hits all the troupes. It's not too spicy, I would say that it's rather cozy. But, it's really good and has really great family dynamics that are fun and interesting. AND of course you've got a hot guy in the mix.
This book is absolutely a hot summer read.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8bjLDe5/

DEVOURED. EVERY. SINGLE. WORD.

I have to admit the first K. Center book I read I wasn’t impressed, but YEAR AFTER YEAR I AM SHOOK with the stories we are given and this one did not disappoint. LOVED IT. BEYOND LOVED IT!! I did not guess anything coming and I really found the premise unique, and also educational. I had no idea an affliction such as our MC suffered from even existed- which yes, I will admit that makes me lucky and blessed. I about DIED at some of the situations in this because they were PERFECT and so relatable! I was rooting for our vet, I was rooting for our MC to tell family members where to shove it, I was rooting for all. the. goods!


Do I have this book in every single format? Sure do. The audio of this was brilliant and even though there were some very serious situations and topics throughout, the writing and plot was phenomenally done to continue to engage the reader and have them wanting more of love, of retribution, of achievement and of healing (in all forms).

192272626262 percent will and do recommend this to everyone!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for and advance copy in exchange for an honest review!