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Hello Stranger by Katherine Center

Romance

Hello Stranger

4peat author

This is Katherine Center's 4th book with BOTM — an impressive feat!

by Katherine Center

Excellent choice

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Quick take

After an accident, a struggling artist realizes it’s hard to face your issues when you literally can’t recognize faces.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Happy

    Happy

  • Illustrated icon, LOL

    LOL

  • Illustrated icon, Love_Triangle

    Love triangle

  • Illustrated icon, Underdog

    Underdog

Synopsis

Love isn’t blind, it’s just a little blurry.

Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she’s celebrating the biggest achievement of her life―placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition―the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary” condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie’s new reality with every face she sees.

But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into―love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life?―with not one man but two very different ones. The timing couldn’t be worse.

If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible. Even though there are things we can only find when we aren’t looking. And there are people who show up when we least expect them. And there are always, always other ways of seeing.

Content warning

This book contains mentions of suicide.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Hello Stranger.

Hello Stranger

One

The first person I called after I found out I’d placed in the North American Portrait Society’s huge career-making yearly contest was my dad.

Which is weird. Because I never called my dad.

Not voluntarily, anyway.

Sure, I called on birthdays or Father’s Day or New Year’s—hoping to get lucky and miss him so I could leave a singsongy message like “So sorry to miss you,” get the credit, and be done.

But I called only out of obligation. Never for fun. Never, ever just to talk. And never—god forbid—to share things.

My goal was always not to share things with my father. How broke I was. How I was still—endlessly—failing in my chosen career. How I’d given up on yet another relationship and moved into my not-fit-for-human-habitation art studio because I couldn’t afford a place of my own.

That was all need-to-know information.

And he definitely didn’t need to know.

It gave me some structure, in a way—crafting ongoing fake success stories about myself for him and my evil stepmother, Lucinda. I was always “doing great.” Or “crazy busy.” Or “thriving so much.”

I didn’t actively make things up. I just worked devotedly to obscure the truth.

The truth was, I’d defied all my dad’s instructions eight years before, dropping out of premed and switching my college major to Fine Arts.

“Fine Arts?” my father had said, like he’d never heard the term before. “How exactly are you supposed to make a living with that?”

I gave him a little shrug. “I’m just going to . . . be an artist.”

Wow, those words did not land well.

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Why I love it

Some writers simply have a Midas touch—everything they write becomes the finest of literary gold. For me, Katherine Center is one of those writers. She writes some of the most winning and emotionally nuanced rom-coms I’ve ever read. Hello Stranger, her latest novel, is no exception.

This story belongs to Sadie Montgomery, a struggling artist and beautiful mess of a human. When we first meet, Sadie has just experienced a potential career breakthrough, qualifying as a finalist in the prestigious North American Portrait Society competition. But just as quickly as she receives this exciting news, she finds herself unexpectedly in the hospital diagnosed with face blindness. This might present challenges in the best of circumstances, but for an artist who needs to make some masterful portraiture . . . well that’s a whole other can of worms. As Sadie acclimates to her new hopefully temporary condition, art isn’t the only thing on her mind either. She has a rocky relationship with her family, who are less than supportive of her artistic aspirations, and slowly finds herself embroiled in a love triangle that may just force her to face her true desires.

Hello Stranger has something for everyone, including a charming dog named Peanut, and it is the kind of book you will find yourself consuming in delightful, rushed gulps. If you are looking for a hopeful read to put some pep in your step this summer, look no further. Swooning guaranteed!

Other books by Katherine Center

Member ratings (19,373)

Repeat authors
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Repeat authors
View all
The Bodyguard
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
House of Glass
Like Mother, Like Daughter
The Lost Story
The Night Swim
The Pairing
Beach Read
Hera
The God of the Woods
One-Star Romance
The Paradise Problem
We Are the Brennans
Daisy Jones & The Six
This Tender Land
The Silent Patient
The Four Winds
You Are Not Alone
One by One
Yours Truly
Invisible Girl
The Rules of Magic
Survive the Night
Troubles in Paradise
Home Before Dark
The Lost Apothecary
Things You Save in a Fire
Real Americans
The Wishing Game
One Day in December
The Great Alone
People We Meet on Vacation
The Reckless Oath We Made
Lock Every Door
The Family Upstairs
Long Bright River
Infinite Country
Part of Your World
Recursion
The Half Moon
A Ladder to the Sky
The Sun Down Motel
The Mothers
The Vanishing Half
Memorial
The Shadows
Immortal Longings
Just for the Summer
The Connellys of County Down
The Knockout Queen
Happy & You Know It
Ask Again, Yes
Practical Magic
Lot
The Woman in Cabin 10
Dark Matter
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Final Girls
Hello Stranger
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Wife Between Us
The Broken Girls
In a Holidaze
The Kiss Quotient
The Last Time I Lied
Gods of Jade and Shadow
A Million Junes
The Bride Test
Darling Girls
The Turn of the Key
The Last Word
Dark Corners
Foul Lady Fortune
Evil Eye
The Soulmate