I have yet to meet a Katherine Center book I didn't love and her newest one (out May 20) was great!! The basic premise of The Love Haters follows a video producer named Katie tasked by a supervisor, Cole, with filming a documentary about the US Coast Guard with her job under threat if it doesn't go well. She ends up working closely with Coast Guard employee Hutch, who is Cole's brother, and the brothers are currently not speaking.

As she spends more time in the sunny vacation-like setting (Key West) prepping for the documentary and getting to know a great cast of older women including Cole and Hutch's aunt. There was a lot of humour, some great banter, tons to learn about the coast guard, an absolutely fabulous dog, and some beautiful tender moments. The ending had me glued to my kindle.

This book also features a lot of themes of body positivity as our female main character continues on a journey of loving herself and I loved that aspect. It was well done and made me emotional.

A few tiny things I loved:
- all the time swimming and in the water!
- the flowers 💐
- George Bailey
- the teasing
- the side characters
- the setting

Katherine Center has done it again with this one! I found this one in some ways in the same vein as Things You Save in a Fire and The Bodyguard maybe because they're working closely together. I think it'll make a great summer read for so many of us.

I absolutely loved this book so much! I was so excited to get an ARC and it definitely did not disappoint! I smiled and laughed out loud several times while reading. I love Katherine Center’s storytelling, characters, details and humor. Truly such an extremely talented author and storyteller. Definitely a top 2025 favorite book for me.

BOOK REVIEW: Love Haters by Katherine Center 💋🐾

Oh my HEART—Love Haters is the book equivalent of a sun-drenched margarita on a beach hammock with your toes in the sand and your crush three inches away. It’s fizzy, funny, and FULL of feels!

Katherine Center, you rom-com wizard, you’ve done it again. This book is a total delight from page one, and it might just be her most hilarious (and swoony) novel yet. Imagine The Proposal meets Survivor: Key West Edition—with a generous splash of emotional truth and a ridiculously hot rescue swimmer.

Let’s talk about Katie Vaughn. She’s our messy, brave, swimming-impaired heroine who somehow ends up profiling a literal superhero of the sea, all while pretending she can do the dog paddle. (Spoiler: she cannot.) She’s been burned by love, yes—but watching her try to outswim (and out-snark) her own baggage is heart-melting gold. 💔💦

And Hutch? Sweet, brooding, heroic, "science-perfect" Hutch? Let’s just say if grumpy golden retrievers were people, he’d be it. His banter with Katie? A+ chemistry. His devotion to his Great Dane? 😭. His shirtless swimming scenes? Send. Help.

Add a chaotic sibling rivalry, an eccentric aunt with surprise wisdom, hurricanes, helicopter drama, and a wildly endearing emotional arc—and Love Haters becomes more than a rom-com. It’s a story about facing fears, finding your truth, and discovering that sometimes, love doesn’t hate you—it just needed you to take off the life vest and jump in.

TL;DR: Love Haters is a tropical cocktail of hilarity, heart, and heat—with a Great Dane sidekick and a splash of hurricane drama for good measure. Do yourself a favor: pack it in your beach bag, cancel your plans, and get ready to fall in love with falling in love again. 🌊💘

Video producer Katie is about to lose her job. Until her boss, Cole, convinces her to head to the Florida Keys to film and interview Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Hutch. Hutch, who happens to be classically handsome and nice, is well known for rescuing Jennifer Aniston's dog. His fame and affability could be the key to saving Katie's job.

And, it turns out, he's Cole's estranged brother. When Katie arrives in the Keys, she realizes she's in a hot mess. She lied about being able to swim and the only teacher available is Hutch. She knows nothing about the Coast Guard. She's in the middle of Cole and Hutch's family battles. Hutch is irresistibly kind and attractive. And he comes with Aunt Rue, his lovable yet forceful aunt, who quickly adopts Katie and tries to force her out of her shell.

Center gives us a cute romance with plenty of serious moments. It drags a bit in the middle and gets a little bogged down with all the miscommunication and lies, but overall, this one is enjoyable. Katie is a likable woman and Hutch, well, he's really quite perfect, even if he's deemed a love hater. Rue is a force of life, as are her friends, "the Gals."

Katie has struggled with body image for years, and the book focuses on body positivity and Katie's attempts to embrace her body image. I think it may wrap things up a little easily here (finding love = problem solved), but it's nice to see a romance explore these issues at all.

Easily the best character in this story, though, is George Bailey, Hutch's Great Dane. That lovable oaf is immune from the insanity and lies and half truths swirling around him and truly shines throughout.

If you enjoy your romances with a bit of drama (and a picture perfect dog-loving hero), this one is for you.

I tore through “The Love Haters” by Katherine Center in two days, I was loving the two main characters. Katie is a videographer living in Dallas, Texas and trying to keep her job. An opportunity to make a recruitment video for the Coast Guard is a way for her to do so, and so off she goes to Key West, Florida. She sorta knows that she'll be in the middle of some family drama, but not exactly how much. This storyline was heartwarming. I found the secondary characters a bit annoying but also sweet. There were some unrealistic moments, but overall it was adorable. Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the advanced copy. It was published in May, so out now.

Can I start by saying I love Rue? Because she’s just the sweetest ever. And Katie’s relationship with Beanie was so sweet having Beanie lead her to loving herself.

This was my first novel by Katherine Center and I truly enjoyed it. The drama, the love, the silly parts. This was a fun rom-com that I’m so happy I picked it up. Go ahead and give it a try!

After loving Katherine Center's Rom-Commers, I had high hopes for this one. MC Katie goes to the Key West to profile a popular Coast Guard rescue swimmer. This has all the makings of a great summer romance- beautiful setting, fun characters, a cute homongous dog. But the characters drove me crazy- many questionable decisions were made, and I still feel that the major life-threatening moment at the end was completely avoidable. So if you're looking for a lighthearted summer escape and ready to suspend a bit of reality, then this should be your next read.

Was definitely excited to read this one I am a big lover of Katherine center’s books so I was excited to try out this one as my first novel. The cover is lovey and the description looked fun and like we were definitely in for some good laughs! I was obviously hooked! However, I found myself DNF-ING this one. I think it was just a little too slow. I started skipping pages until eventually I stopped reading all together.. I do like the premise of the plot so I may return to this book as an audiobook later on! Thank you for the arc!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC. Read this in one day, it was very readable and cute! I do wish it focused a bit more on the romance, I feel like we barely got anything. But all in all, an entertaining read.

Another good novel by Katherine Center. While not as great as some of the others she has written This book was still an enjoyable read. Colorful characters with some crazy antics, and the usual twists. The book was a quick read and held my attention. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and could see them through the words of the story. Highly recommend.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Only did I think it was great I think it was one of her best works yet. I really enjoyed the fact that it was a thorough story. I personally don’t like a lot of male characters in romances because I feel like they don’t have a lot of depth or dimension but in this case, I really like to sense of humor or his willingness to be patient and I just love the story overall.

• Slow Burn
• Forced proximity
• Opposites attract
• Emotional healing
• Light and playful banter
• Body positivity
• Coast Guard
• FMC rediscovering herself
• Protective MMC
• Summer vibes
• Single POV
• Fade to black

🎧Audiobook review🎧
Narrated by Patti Murin
Single POV/Narration

This was such a fun summer read. I’ve been so eager to get to this book ever since it came out. Katherine Center has been a longtime favorite of mine. There’s just something so beautiful about the way she writes single POV stories that always pulls me in.

I had so much fun listening to this one. Patti Murin did such a great job as always. I can always count on her to bring Katherine’s books to life in the best way.

If you're looking for a fun summer read with a sweet slow burn, funny banter, and emotional moments, this one is for you.

I went into this mainly knowing I’m a sucker for a KC book and that is it. What I didn’t expect was to feel so connected to an FMC and her struggles with her body and feeling like she has to fit in a perfect box.

Also, swim lessons?! Precious! And the community of characters that surround these too definitely had me so invested.

This was problematic and felt like it should probably have gotten a stronger sensitivity read. I’m not sure I can recommend this to my students as it is promoting harm.

I really enjoy Katherine Center books. This one was light hearted and sweet while still dealing with heavier topics. I did find it to be predictable at times.

I always enjoy Katherine Center's books and especially enjoyed this one with the background and information about coastguard rescue swimmers.


Positives:
More informative than her normal plotlines and I really enjoyed learning about the career of CRSs
The male lead was a very likeable character
Humerous
Overall and enjoyable summer read


Negatives:
The last part of the plot was a little tricky to untangle but we got there eventually.

This was a good romance read. I don’t think either main character was necessarily a love hater, so I didn’t get the title, but I thought they had okay chemistry. I was internally yelling for Katie to get a therapist to help with all her issues but I was glad she at least had one support person and was able to grow. I enjoyed the idea of the body positivity arc, but it didn’t really land well in my opinion. It was mostly a lot of discussing with the one support person and then just changing her mindset like a light switch. (I get that obviously it was a journey to get to said moment, but I didn’t really feel like that was the case) We also kind of got some other romance tropes smushed in towards the end which threw me for a bit of a loop. All in all, it wasn’t a bad book. A fairly quick read, and a good beach read with summer coming up!

I received a copy of the book from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for my honest review.

I love Katherine Center and everything she writes, so picking up The Love Haters was a no-brainer for me. I loved the setting she used here and the interesting jobs the main characters had. I feel like that is something Center does well, it's not just another small town baker and big city business person! The only issue I had with the book is that I wish it had come with a bit of a trigger warning to start about the main character's eating disorder. I felt like the graphic descriptions of calorie counting and negative self-talk was a bit overwhelming, and while it was not a reason for me to immediately put the book down, I could see where it could affect some readers significantly. Aside from this, I truly loved the book and look forward to her next release!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for access to the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5⭐️

I needed a cutie romcom like this. I loveddddd the banter between Hutch and Katie🥹 Definitely a fun summer read!

I don't know why I waited so long to read this book. I loved it so much! It made me giddy but was also an emotional read. Hutch was the perfect Book Boyfriend. Hutch and Katies relationship was just too good. This felt like a true Rom-Com like it was the late 90's or early 00's movie.
Katherine Center is one of my top 5 Authors and I will continue to pick up her books.
I highly recommend this book.