Thank you to St. Martin's Press & NetGalley for the ARC!


The Love Haters follows Katie, a video producer who’s been through a rough few years—engaged to a man who went viral for the wrong reasons, body-shamed by internet trolls, and betrayed by a fiancé who cheated on her. When her job offers her the chance to produce a project profiling the Coast Guard in Key West, Katie, eager for a fresh start, reluctantly agrees. There, she meets Hutch, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer who recently went viral for saving Jennifer Aniston’s dog, and the sparks between them fly instantly.

What follows is a mix of hilarious mishaps, self-discovery, and undeniable chemistry. Katie, still recovering from a failed relationship, steps out of her comfort zone as she navigates her unqualified role in the project and her growing feelings for Hutch. With the help of a quirky, magical woman named Rue, and a few splinters along the way, Katie starts to put her life back together. The Love Haters is a heartwarming, funny, and swoon-worthy story about second chances, self-acceptance, and embracing the unexpected.

I absolutely loved this and could not read it faster. This is only my second Katherine Center book but it was just as good as the first! Katie was such a relatable main character and I saw so much of myself in her and her struggles as she navigated the new and uncomfortable situations she found herself in in Key West. You couldn't help but root for her and Hutch from the jump, and I found that I couldn't put my book down for too long because I needed to know what would happen next with them. Such a great read and I cannot wait to continue discovering more of Center's work going forward!

As with every other Katherine Center book I've read, i absolutely adored this book. As a 'Love Hater' myself, this was such a relatable read. So many of us, women in particular, feel the need to dim our own light and dull our own sparkle for the comfortability of others. This was such a fun and heartwarming story.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!!!
This was a love story that also focused a lot on self love. I enjoyed the story and the characters but I felt like something was missing? The ending fell a little flat for me. I was wanting more between Katie and Hutch, especially in the epilogue

Katherine Center gets me every single time, and this book was not any different. I loved exploring the varying relationships and complicated dynamics. A wonderfully written and thoroughly engaging romance!

The Love Haters by Katherine Center is a laugh-out-loud, feel-good rom-com that blends humor, romance, and personal growth in the most delightful way. Katie Vaughn is a character you can’t help but root for as she fakes her way through a career-making gig profiling Coast Guard rescue swimmer Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson in Key West. The catch? She can’t swim. The other catch? She’s got history with Hutch’s brother, Cole, and they do not get along.

The chemistry between Katie and Hutch is undeniable, especially as their interactions move from awkward to adorable. Hutch is a bit of a love-hater, but watching him soften around Katie, while she tries to keep her lie under wraps, was both funny and heartwarming. Throw in some swim lessons, helicopter flights, hurricanes, and stolen kisses, and you’ve got a perfect mix of romance and adventure.

Katie’s personal journey is just as compelling as the romance, and the tropical setting of Key West adds an extra layer of charm. From her fake swimming lessons to navigating her relationship with Hutch, Katie faces her fears and discovers what it truly means to be brave—and to open up to love.

The Love Haters is a must-read for fans of rom-coms that balance humor with heart. It’s funny, swoon-worthy, and full of twists that keep you turning the pages.

I was thrilled to receive an ARC of this book! As a fan of Katherine Center's work, "The Love Haters" did not disappoint.

Amidst rumors of layoffs at the video production company Katie works for, she agrees to take on a project in Key West making a promotional video for the Coast Guard. The catch? She’ll have to film a rescue swimmer from a helicopter, but she can’t swim. In Key West she meets Hutch, the rescue swimmer and Rue, his aunt, whose vacation rental she’s staying at. After coming out of a very public relationship, Katie is struggling with her body image and much of the book centers around her journey to find self-love.

I found the book to be less about the romance and more about Katie’s journey with her own insecurities with the romance as a smaller subplot. Katie was a wonderfully relatable main character, and both Hutch and Rue were fully developed and added so much depth to the story. I found myself eagerly turning pages not just for Katie’s interactions with Hutch, but also for her connections with Rue and her group of friends. Overall, this was a fantastic read and would make the perfect summer book!

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgally and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for honest review!
I have loved every single book I've read by Katherine Center and The Love Haters exceeded my expectations. I loved Beanie and Kate's friendship and how supportive Beanie was about Kate's body image issues. I LOVED Rue from the second she was introduced into the story and I loved her even more when I read her back story and how she came to foster/adopt Cole and Hutch.
The romance checked all the feel good, heartwarming boxes, and the story itself did a wonderful job with a sensitive subject such as body image. I also thought it was super cool how Katherine Center did so much research on the coast guard rescue missions. I just really, really loved this book. I can't wait for her next one 💜

✔️ Workplace but in a Vacation Setting
✔️ Fake Dating Uno Reverse
✔️ One Bed

Hi, please meet my new favorite Katherine Center book, The Love-Haters. I knew I would enjoy this one but it is a whole other level of swoon, laughs, delight and inspirational too.

It starts with an amazing FMC, Katie, who is reeling from a breakup and years of body image issues. I loved everything about her from the start. Sure, she's a situational underdog but she is also so funny! I want to join her friend group asap.

The plot was a little zany - but that's what made it so delightful. The vibe of the plot was similar to last summer's Anyone But You - just fun mayhem, great characters, a terrific location and you walk away having had the best time.

But that's not all. Seeing Katie fall in love with herself and reaching a turning point where she truly loved and was grateful for her perfectly imperfect body? Amazing.

This is a closed door read and yes, usually I prefer spice in my books. However, KC does a terrific job in really making the emotional payoff worthwhile! That and she knows how to write great kisses/makeout scenes.

Highly recommend 5⭐️ and I already preordered my own copy!

Steam 🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕💕💕💕💕

This book had me hooked right from the start! Katherine Center is one of my go-to authors. The humor and witty remarks has me laughing out loud while reading this. The characters were relatable. I would have loved to join "The Gals" poolside. It was a fast paced and I would highly recommend this book for any one that enjoys rom com's!

I want to preface this: I ADORE Katherine Center. Pure adore her.
This was 3.5 /5 stars for me, but without my love of KC I think it would lose at least one. Thank you to St Martins SO much for the opportunity to read it early.
This story follows Katie, a career driven woman in the film industry, as she travels to Florida to interview Hutch, a coast guard rescue swimmer whose gone viral for saving Jennifer Aniston's puppy. They both have deeply traumatic pasts: Katie had a bad breakup with a celebrity and severe body issues, Hutch and his brother were involved in a car crash that left them orphans. As can be imagined, sparks fly between Hutch and Katie (all relatively PG-13 and chaste, per Center's style), but a whirlwind of antics threaten to break them apart in the middle of a hurricane.
I liked Hutch and Katie. They don't hold a candle to some of her other characters but they're both developed pretty well. Katie's body image story does not hit home from me, and in fact is hard to relate to, but if you ever had body dysmorphia, I feel like this might appeal to you.
The antics for me are where this falls apart: I don't love the secrecy, the pretending aspects, the back and forth Katie goes through, the way in which Hutch was played with...none of that felt real. It all felt really gimmicky. Especially in a romance where you know the happy ending is coming, it felt all a bit ludicrous. I love KC's humor...but here it just felt really silly. I hate the employment portion and I just wanted them to either be together or not.
I also feel like for being love haters, the romance timeline just felt insta-love like? Kinda a gigantic hypocracy? It felt off to me.
This gets its stars because I love the author and the fourth wall breaking and overall I enjoy rescue stories (in every aspect that rescue comes into play here) and the romance is sweet...but I would recommend others first.

What a delightful book! I had previously read Katherine Center's the Rom-Commers and totally enjoyed it--zero spice romance, if that's the sort of thing you prefer. She uses the same conversational, short-paragraphed writing style here, which very much suits the genre. Here, videographer Katie gets sent to create a Coast Guard recruitment film centering on her supervisor's too-perfect-to-be-true brother Hutch, in hopes that she can separately profile him for her YouTube channel on day-in-the-life videos. Naturally, Hutch is far less standoffish than he was described, and honestly I'm not sure either of the main characters could accurately be described as a "love hater"? But in any event, this book has its eyes on larger themes than just romance (body image/disordered eating, post-traumatic stress responses, terminal illness to name a few). It is a super fast read with some legitimate edge-of-my-seat moments. Recommend! (ARC provided by NetGalley; opinions herein are my own)

I love Katherine Center's books, so I was really excited when I saw she was coming out with something new. I immediately started reading it once I received the eARC, and it did not disappoint. This book made me feel so many feels. I found myself tearing up at times, laughing at times, and enjoying myself throughout the entire reading experience. The characters feel so real, all of them. Katie is lovable and fallible and she deals with things that many people are familiar with, like body image issues and insecurity. Hutch is a babe doing the most and succeeding, but also trying hard to be strong for everyone around him. The other characters are so fun, I would kill to spend a day with The Gals by the pool. Beanie is the ultimate best friend. Cole sucks but once you learn more about him the suckiness makes sense. Thank you so much St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC! It really is spectacular.

Katherine Center does it again!
Katie and Hutch might just be my favorite couple of hers yet. They, and their world, feel real. They feel like characters you could be friends with in real life.

Hutch is pretty much the ideal book boyfriend, and teaches Katie that there is so much to love about herself.

Add in Katie's best friend Beanie, Hutch's brother Cole, a great dane that's afraid of storms, and a boss threating to shake up Katie's world, and you have a fun adventure in Key West.

Let's all learn about love together with Katie and Hutch, it's worth it, I promise.

I had mixed feelings about this novel. The pacing felt uneven. While the middle 10-15% flowed well, both the beginning and the latter half felt slow. The section detailing when Katie is shipwrecked, in particular, felt drawn out, and it wasn't until around the 66% mark that I found myself fully engaged.

The plot felt somewhat predictable. Both the reveal of the lie about Katie and Cole's relationship and the subsequent development of a relationship between Cole and Sullivan were plot points I anticipated early on.

The romance felt rushed. Hutch’s apparent rapid shift to romantic feelings, seemingly before any meaningful interaction with Katie, felt unconvincing. While I'm happy to suspend disbelief for the sake of a story, this particular element didn't resonate with me.

I also struggled with the character of Sullivan. Her decision to lay off half her staff due to her personal circumstances following her divorce felt jarring and potentially insensitive, particularly given current public sentiment regarding CEOs and billionaires. The subsequent romantic pairing of Sullivan and Cole further detracted from my enjoyment.

As a fan of Katherine Center, especially after enjoying "Happiness for Beginners," I was eager to read this book. However, like “What You Wish For”, this one left me wanting more. The narrative felt disjointed, lacking a cohesive flow, and ultimately read more like a loosely connected outline than a fully realized story

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the complementary advanced digital copy - all thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is not my favorite by hers I feel the last few books lack the spark her books once how they have become almost formulatuc to the point I don’t know if I will continue to read them
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book

I usually love all of Katherine Center's books, but this one felt quite different from her previous novels. I tried to set aside my feelings to provide an unbiased review, but the book seemed to lack the spark I typically find in her works.

Overall, this book was a cute story with a message that extended beyond the slowly developing romance. The theme of self-love was thoughtfully explored, and I appreciated that Center provided us with a relatable character who experienced real growth. Kate and Hutch's relationship was adorable. I enjoyed how they met, particularly how Hutch had to rescue her during swim class. However, the romance developed slowly, and by the end, I was still hoping for a more epic conclusion to their love story. I was really missing that spark! I also loved Rue as a side character, but I disliked Cole from the start because of his ruthless lies to get what he wanted. If Cole hadn't played such a significant role in the book, I might have enjoyed the story more.

Thank you to NetGallery and to St. Martin Press for giving me a copy.

Katherine Center is one of my favorite authors. I have loved everything she has written and The Love Haters did not disappoint!

I felt so connected with the characters that some parts of the story made my blood boil, because I felt like it was happening to me.

I laughed. I cried. I need more Rue and Hutch in my life.

I loved this book! There are two love stories here, and I think the one the main character has with herself is moving and important. I can't wait for everyone to meet George Bailey, Rue, and Hutch! Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this early.

Katherine Center's The Love Haters is a delightful romantic comedy featuring Coast Guard rescue swimmer Hutch and video producer Katie. Katie's job depends on successfully filming Hutch, but their growing attraction complicates things. Center creates a charming and entertaining story with a vibrant Key West setting, quirky supporting characters, and a dash of heartwarming self-discovery. The plot moves quickly, keeping the reader engaged with humorous situations and genuine emotional connection. I received a copy of this book for review purposes.

I absolutely loved this book. I stayed up until 1 am finishing it, with no regrets. You follow a AST in the Coast Guard and a journalist trying to save her job and their journey if self development and healing. You’ll feel for the main characters and have your heart strings pulled by their stories. Katherine Center thankfully continues to write closed door romances so you can be sure to have a great plot and no spice. But lots of feelings! As a Coast Guard family she definitely did her research. Highly recommend.