The Love Haters is another fantastic story from Katherine Center! Katie and Hutch were fabulous characters that I enjoyed watching fall in love while also seeing them grow individually. Katie struggles with self image and disordered eating while Hutch deals with a huge amount of grief. It’s beautiful to see the effects they have on each other’s individual healing journeys. Add to that the cutest older ladies called “The Gal’s” and the USCG rescue swimmers and you have a charming and exciting story!


*Thank you St. Martin’s press and Netgalley for this ARC!*

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a real winner for me because I sometimes struggle with Katherine Center's books and the way that she portrays her female characters and their insecurities. The relationship between the two main characters here was sweet, however, and the FMC had a great sense of humor. I also loved the relationship between Katie and her cousin. The story went a bit bonkers about 75% of the way through, but it was certainly entertaining!

Perfect Stranger is still my favorite of her works, but this was a super fun read. It will be a great kick off for the start of the beach read season!

I was so excited to get a Katherine Center ARC! Unfortunately this was fell a bit flat for me, I didn’t connect to the characters as much and wasn’t swept up in the romance. It was still an enjoyable read and had the typical Katherine Center charm!

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for my eARC of The Love Haters by Katherine Center.

I love Katherine Center because her romance books are so much more than romances. They include very real, authentic characters who are well rounded. They go through hard times and have challenges they need to overcome. They learn about themselves throughout the book and yes, they do end up having a happily ever after with the male love interest. But they grow so much in that time as well. I think romance books like these are so important because of the authenticity and how much readers can get from the story. Katherine Center shares so many words of wisdom within her books that I always come away from them feeling like I've learned more about myself.
*I love the author's note at the end of the novel and one quote in particular really encapsulates what Katherine Center's books are all about: "Stories take us out of ourselves and deeper into ourselves at the exact same time. They are specific and universal. Big and small. Something and everything."

The Love Haters is no different than other Katherine Center books in this regard:

Our main character Katie is a video producer but is in danger of being laid off from her job. Her coworker Cole asks her to take a job following and documenting a Coast Guard rescue swimmer "Hutch" (who happens to be Cole's brother) in Florida's Key West. This is the perfect job to show the boss that she deserves to keep her job. The only problem is that she will need to undergo specific safety training as she will be filming on a helicopter over the ocean as "Hutch" and his team are sent out on rescue missions. Katie doesn't know how to swim, but she can't let this job opportunity go. So, she pretends. She also has major body issues that she is actively working through throughout the novel. Her best friend sets her a challenge to name 1 thing she loves about her body every day. At first, these are small things and Katie doesn't seem to take it very seriously. But as the story progresses and Katie is faced with different instances where her insecurities are really put to the test, she starts loving bigger parts of herself for very real reasons. Her growth with this was incredibly healing for me as a reader with similar insecurities too. Katie of course starts falling for the handsome Hutch as she gets to know him better and spends most of her time with him while "on location". While flawed, Katie was a really strong character and I was really rooting for her throughout the novel.
Aunt Rue was colourful and vibrant and just so lovely. She and her gal pals were quite the side characters and I would love to read a book just about them and their dynamics honestly.
Hutch is gorgeous and also hates love. I swooned for him. Some of the things he said, the looks that he gives Katie... I was a goner.
"'Because every time I'm around you- and today was the worst of all- I want...' He shook his head. 'I just want...everything.'"
Key West is such a perfect backdrop for this novel. It is picturesque and so atmospheric within the story. At times, the setting felt like a character.

One aspect of the novel that I really didn't love was a lie that Katie went along with even when it felt like there was another way out of the situation. I don't want to spoil anything for other readers, but this part of the book really didn't make sense with who Katie was becoming at the time. I just really didn't understand why she went along with it instead of using her own agency to stand up and say no. That said, I'm glad it was resolved the way it was. The book started one way and then it took a turn with this lie and it went in a direction I wasn't expecting. Katie was put into some wild situations, including a hurricane and it started to feel a bit over the top. However, I think Katherine Center still managed to create a relatively believable love story and one that included a lot of growth for her characters.

One quote I loved:
"I won't say that one kiss fixed every broken thing in my life. But I will say this: having someone stand up for you and then kiss you senseless by the water at sunset is a hell of a thing. Something quiet and forgotten and neglected in my soul got an undeniable dose of healing.

The Love Haters
Katherine Center
Pub: 5/20/25
4.5☆

#gifted @smpromance

It’s a thin line between love and love-hating.

Reading a KC book always feels like the perfect, much needed hug and the Love Haters was no different. I adored the heck out of it.

Katie and Hutch’s story was grumpy x sunshine perfection. They had me laughing, swooning, and rooting for that sweet KC HEA we all know and love. I loved George, the Gals, and every single other side character but the ways in which I was fond of Rue… OMG she had my whole heart.

It was part romance, part adventure, and an abundance of beautiful growth. Absolutely would recommend.

What I loved;
💖 Grumpy x Sunshine
💖 Forced Proximity
💖 LOL Humor
💖 The Gals
💖 Body Positivity Message
💖 George Bailey
💖 That KC HEA!

“I just love all of my… everything… because it’s mine’”

A huge thank you to SMP Romance for the gifted copy and allowing me to be an early reader.

This is Katherine Center back at the top of her game in a moving, heartfelt love story about learning to love yourself, body positivity, grief, healing and forgiveness as documentary filmmaker Katie gets sent to the Florida Keys to do a feature on her colleague's estranged brother, Hutch, a coast guard air rescue swimmer.

Full of laugh out loud moments, a great cast of side characters, a super swoony male lead, a neurotic great dane, an epic survival/rescue moment and so much more. I loved it soo much and especially fell for Katie and her journey of self-love. The audiobook narration by Patti Murin was fantastic and you don't want to skip the author's note at the end either!!

10/10 recommend!! Interestingly enough it's also the second stranded on a houseboat love story this year so if you want another, check out Swept away by Beth O'Leary too. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review!!

TW: death of parents off page from a car accident, loved one with terminal illness diagnosis

FAVE QUOTE (from the author's note):
"The best love stories are never just about romantic love. They're always about so much more than that: kindness, and joy, and belonging, and safety - not to mention growing, and changing, and healing from the past. They are always master classes on how we find the best in each other - and, by extension, ourselves."

I was actually really excited to read this, based on the premise, but I have so SO many problems with this book.

First off, we are thrown straight into a situation between Katie and Cole, and at no point in time is Cole, as a person, ever described. Not his physical appearance, not his personality, just that he's a boss/manager that Katie spent a drunken evening with on a drive home. So when he suddenly becomes a bigger part of the story, he falls very flat as a character. As does Sully to an extent, but at least we have her motivations.

Katie's mental tangents are also a problem, and I feel like they could have been incorporated into the story better. Instead, we go on and on about Lucas and her eating disorder (which, thats 100% needs a trigger warning), and then suddenly circle back to the story, at which point I forgot what was actually going on with the story proper. We spend too much time in her head going on various mental tangents, when those words would be better off being used for the rest of the story.

On that note, Beanie is not a good friend if she keeps randomly bringing up Lucas updates when clearly Katie doesn't want to hear about him? Like, girl who is obsessed with self-help book can't seem to understand the boundaries her own best friend seems to have and keeps going "oh did you see that latest Lucas news?" No, for the umpteenth time, she blocked him and removed all traces of him from her life. You are not helping. What Katie really needs, after Lucas and her step mother, is THERAPY.

We also have no age reference for these characters until you learn Mrs Hutchenson was born in 1965, which is the same year my own mother was born. So, at the oldest, these boys are early 30s, but they certainly act more like they just graduated college - which doesn't make sense for Cole to be a manager of any sort, and I'm sure swim school and all the training required for being part of the Coast Guard isn't some quick thing, especially knowing its part of the military (thanks to Rebecca Yarros' books). Clearly Katie is younger than Cole but I have no idea where she fits along with the boys, age wise. And then Sully is only "10 years older than us" as the owner of the company.

Katie/Hutch meeting is fine, and I think finally the story has settled and now its going to get good.... but then we again lose track of time when she's trying to convince him to do the Day in the Life video, and it reads as though she spends weeks on this... and then we find out its only been a single week? Also, why does Hutch keep letting George Bailey jump on Katie? He knows what he did the first time.... and the second time. You'd think maybe after that this guy would keep a handle on his dog when he knows Katie will be around, since thats what a proper responsible dog owner does. I don't care how big your dog is, you make sure you have a way to keep them under control when necessary, or else that is not a dog you can handle having.

Also, who decides to shoot a promo video for the US Coast Guard, in Florida, during the height of hurricane season???? Seems like they might be a bit busy and that the winter/early spring would be a better time frame for something like that, during a quiet season... And also, why was no one warning Katie sooner about the shifted hurricane? Rue says Katie is close enough to family but then just leaves her behind when she and The Gals evacuate, with no notice until they are already gone?

And when she sees Hutch as the storm is hitting, and she says that he's a little preoccupied with an actual emergency, but then keeps going on about how she still wants a proper goodbye/closure. She seems to be very fixated on closure at this point in the story, when the bigger issue is the massive hurricane. You can't plan a natural disaster, and you need to FOCUS girl on getting to safety.

We then get trapped on the houseboat trying to save George Bailey, and we don't bother to alert anyone to this fact aside from 911... Not Rue, not Cole, not Beanie. I could not empathize with this girl during the hurricane ordeal, because so much of what went wrong was her fault from lack of thinking. There's all this safety and first-aid equipment on the boat, an entire box of flashlights and a closet of life preservers... but no emergency liferaft? or rope? Did we even think to look? And how was she able to keep George Bailey afloat in the water when he's 170lbs, just by him "sitting on her thigh"?

"I get that the circumstances were extreme. I get that Hutch was on duty doing his professional job in the wake of a natural disaster. I get he'd been on duty many house, and his dog was bleeding, and his helicopter was out of fuel.
but he just really didn't seem all that excited to see me. You know?"

Its lines like this that drive me nuts. When she knows better but still says the stupid selfish thing.

And the ending was just bad. The romance fell so flat at the end, that I was honestly disappointed.

My mind was so unmoored from this entire story, and I just could not properly enjoy it. I really enjoyed The Bodyguard, and Hello Stranger was also an enjoyable read, but maybe Katherine Center's more recent books just are no longer for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early read of The Love Haters by Katherine Center. Any Katherine Center book is an automatic read for me. This one is in competition with Happiness for Beginners as my favorite Katherine Center book. The Lover Hates is about Katie, a video producer, who gets thrown in to a project to follow a Coast Guard swimmer, Hutch, for a promotional video. I had to suspend my judgement a bit on the ridiculousness of the premise and the situations that Katie got in to but ultimately I thought they were hilarious. She can't swim, Hutch's dog keeps plowing her over, she gets stuck in a storm, she has to pretend to be her colleague's girlfriend, etc. Katie's character is so funny and I really enjoyed the way that she was allowed to break the 4th wall and talk to the reader occasionally. This helped normalize the craziness in which she often found herself. I love that this was a rom-com, so it did have the rom piece but was really heavy on the com. That said, Center also tackles a lot of body image insecurity with Katie's character and it is nice to see her coming around to herself in the end. Really enjoyed this read, would absolutely recommend to friends!

I thoroughly enjoyed The Love Haters, particularly the main character, Kate, who I found relatable. Her all-black wardrobe and struggles with self-image felt very real and personal. I could easily connect with her journey of finding herself.
While Hutch was a loveable character, I didn't quite feel the chemistry between Kate and Hutch from his perspective. While their relationship had its moments, I couldn't fully grasp what made them connect beyond surface level, which left me a little disconnected from their romance.
The title, The Love Haters, also felt a bit misleading. I couldn't quite understand why they were considered "love haters" by the end of the book—this aspect didn't seem to come to fruition in the story, leaving me a bit puzzled about its significance.
Overall, it was an engaging read, with a strong main character and emotional depth, but certain aspects—like the chemistry and title—left me wanting more.

This was my forst Katherine Center book and I totally get the hype! Definitely a good beach read or general interest read for women.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an e-arc of The Love Haters by Katherine Center.
I love anything that Katherine Center writes, and this book was no exception. The Love Haters is a story of a videographer trying to get a story and save her job. In true rom com fashion, the reader knows the story will end with love, but Center knows how to weave a story to make it an enjoyable journey. This is a book that will be easy to recommend to readers!

I was lucky enough to get this ARC from Netgalley. I could not put it down. I literally stayed up half the night to finish it. I love that these characters are flawed and not perfect. It made them seem so relatable. The journeys you take with yourself and your family in your adult life and grow. It was a great read!

Katie Vaughn needs her job and to do that she needs to lie to keep it. She's given a chance to save her job by doing a video on a coast guard rescue swimmer in Key West. The catch? The problem ... She can’t swim— and the rescue swimmer, Hutch, does not want her to do the video. He is hoping to reconnect with his brother Cole who is the one who assigns Katie the job so as to avoid his brother.

But the lie works and nextstop for Kaite is Key West. Where she stays with Aunt Rue (Cole and Hutch's aunt) and her fellow residents at Rue's resort. A resort special for life time friends who are now widow.s. Of course they get involved and help out Katie.

Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last.

A fun beach read. Enough suspense and unknowns to keep you reading and light enough that if you fall asleep on the beach you'll be able to jump right back into the story.

This is the perfect summertime/vacation read. It’s cute and cozy and I would expect nothing less from Katherine Center. Witty dialogue, fun colorful setting, and important themes grabbed me from the beginning. Hutch is a dream and the supporting characters are also lovable. Could have done without the third act drama since I don’t think it would have really affected the climax, which was swoony enough as is. Overall it was adorable and I will recommend it to anyone who needs a beach read.

Katherine Center has done it again! The Love Haters is a heartwarming, witty, and deeply emotional story that pulls you in from the very first page. With her signature blend of humor and heartfelt moments, Center crafts relatable characters you can’t help but root for. The romance feels authentic, the dialogue sparkles, and the themes of resilience and self-discovery leave a lasting impression. This book is a perfect reminder that love — in all its messy, imperfect glory — is always worth fighting for!!!

Didn’t enjoy this one as much as her other books but I still liked it. When starting the book, I felt like I missed something. Like I was dropped 25% into the book. But Hutch is my dream man that’s for sure!

I love Katherine Center! I've read 3 of her books so far. I thought this book was funny and emotional. I think it hit the spot for me. It had a great amount of build up in tension and resolution. Center tends to follow a formula to set up all her books: girl in the south, girl travels for a guy due to her job, and girl has a tragic familial backstory. It's just an observation, not a criticism. The rest of the book is anything but a formula. I think she does a good job of not relying on any overdone tropes to further the plot and I truly appreciate that. There was a lot of self reflection throughout the book and I thought it was a smidge too much for me but I do understand what it's like to be insecure and to work through that so the so it didn't bother me that much, I do feel like that internal dialogue was needed. It's a lovely book, and I do recommend it for anyone looking for a lighthearted romance!

The FMC was really hard on herself after a breakup. Kody’s of self discouragement which was very relatable. But bridging that gap between how the FMC and her love interest became so in love was done pretty elementary like. Could’ve done some more character development. Other than that the story was pretty decent. I liked Katie and Beanie’s sister/cousin/ bff relationship A LOT.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Katherine Center for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Love Haters is more than just a romance—it’s a story about self-acceptance, self-love, and finding a safe space to grow. While the chemistry between Katie and Hutch is absolutely swoon-worthy, the most powerful love story here is the one between Katie and herself.

Sent on a work trip to film a promotional video for the U.S. Coast Guard, Katie meets Hutch—a real-life hero with a quiet strength that allows her to be fully herself. With the support of her hilarious best friend Beanie, meddling Great Dane George Bailey, and the ever-wise Rue, Katie embarks on a journey of healing, confidence, and love.

This book is both an easy read and an emotional powerhouse, and I adored seeing Katie’s transformation. Her story resonated deeply, proving that self-love and romantic love don’t have to be linear—you can find both at the same time. 💕

📢 Highly recommend for fans of heartfelt, character-driven romance! And don’t skip the author’s note—Katherine Center’s passion for love stories shines through!

3 stars

This love story that takes place in Key West, FL is as chaotic as you’d assume the state of Florida is.

Trigger Warnings:
- body dysmorphia
- natural disaster