The Love Haters

Author: Katherine Center Title:  The Love Haters Publisher: St. Martin's Press Date Published: 05/20/2025

Read Dates: 04/18/2025- 04/19/2025
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 📖 I received a gifted e-book ARC. The following is my honest review✍🏻

The Love Haters is a single POV found family romance. Katie’s career is a sinking ship, and in a last-ditch effort to salvage her job, she agrees to film a promotional video for the Coast Guard, omitting the *tiny* fact that she can’t swim! Hutch, the reluctant subject of the film, agrees to help Katie in return for Katie’s help repairing his relationship with his brother. But things get complicated with weeks of being in close quarters, and Katie and Hutch have a lot to work through, together and apart!

I love Katherine Center’s books. I’m not always a closed-door romance fan, but she always gets it right. This book is a romance, but also a book about Katie’s relationship with herself and Hutch’s relationship with his brother. It’s found family and personal growth, and humor all rolled into one. Plus, everything involving George Bailey, the frog-loving Great Dane, is perfect!

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 fakes it that she can.

Plus: Cole is Hutch’s brother. 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 also 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.