Book Summary and Reviews of The Love Haters by Katherine Center

The Love Haters by Katherine Center

The Love Haters

A Novel

by Katherine Center

  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • Published:
  • May 2025, 320 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

It's a thin line between love and love-hating in the newest laugh out loud, all the feels rom-com by New York Times bestselling author Katherine Center.

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past―now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole's request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom "Hutch" Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West. The catch? Katie's not exactly qualified. She can't swim―but pretends that she can.

Plus, Cole and Hutch are brothers. And they don't get along. Next stop: paradise! But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good-looking man she has ever seen ... but maybe a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two.

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.

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What are you reading this week? (5/22/2025)
I have had a lot of windshield time this week so have been primarily listening to one of three audiobooks - Madame Fourcade's Secret War (Lynne Olson, non-fiction), The Love Haters (Katherine Center, rom-com), and Network Effect (Martha Wells, sci-fi). Also, carrying around the 900+ page tome of ...
-Gabi_J

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Center's latest is a charming romp full of all the elements readers have come to expect from her: endearingly guarded characters thrust into a situation that opens up their worlds in the best way." ―Booklist

"Striking a perfect balance of comedic moments and emotional authenticity, this may be Center's best yet." ―Publishers Weekly

This information about The Love Haters was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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More Information

BookPage calls Katherine Center "the reigning queen of comfort reads." She's the New York Times bestselling author of over half a dozen books, including How to Walk Away, Things You Save in a Fire, and What You Wish For. Katherine writes laugh-and-cry books about how life knocks us down―and how we get back up. She's been compared to both Jane Austen and Nora Ephron, and the Dallas Morning News calls her stories, "satisfying in the most soul-nourishing way." Her books have made countless Best-Of lists, including RealSimple's Best Books of 2020, Amazon's Top 100 Books of 2019, Goodreads' Best Books of the Year, and many more. Bestselling author Emily Henry calls her summer 2022 book, The Bodyguard, "a shot of pure joy." The movie adaptation of Katherine's novel The Lost Husband (starring Josh Duhamel) hit #1 on Netflix, and her novel Happiness for Beginners is now a Netflix original starring Ellie Kemper. Katherine lives in her hometown of Houston, Texas, with her husband, two kids, and their fluffy-but-fierce dog.

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