Thank you Netgalley / Macmillan Audio, for the ALC and St. Martin’s Press, #partner for the advanced e-copy of Hello Stranger in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio
Published: July 11, 2023
Summary:
Love isn’t blind, it’s just 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.
My thoughts:
Katherine Center has been a favorite author of mine for a while. Her books just make me happy – I can count on some laughing, some tenderness and a sweet love story, and I love that. She creates such real, relatable characters and is able to infuse humor into her stories at just the right time while still giving us little moments of truth.
I always find myself completely immersed in these books and this latest one is no exception. I love that this time around, we are given a character that finds herself confronted with a major medical issue that will have a huge impact on her life. She ends up with face blindness and while it’s not the first time I’ve read a story that addresses this issue, I have to say, it was still quite an enjoyable story.
I think what I love most about Katherine Center’s books is the way she tells her stories. You cannot help but find yourself totally immersed in the character’s lives and that is exactly what happened to me with Sadie. As soon as I started this one, I needed to see how she would handle what life threw at her and I quite enjoyed all the little snafus she finds herself entangled in.
While this is at its heart a story that is classified as romance and possibly women’s fiction, I loved that there were still a few twists and turns that I was not expecting. That kept the mystery lover in me quite happy! Katherine Center is most definitely a must-read for me and I highly recommend adding this to your summer reading list.
Audio thoughts:
I find that Katherine Center’s books translate so well onto audio and this one was no exception. Like her last book, it was narrated again by Patti Murin, who does such a fabulous job bringing the story to life. Patti was able to give each character their own voice and personality and I just loved how she infused emotion and tension into her voice as needed.
