Hello Stranger

4.25

This book was SO GOOD. I love a strong woman who takes no shit and a man determined to protect her and dying to get on his knees for her.
Garrett was a great character, I liked her since her introduction in Marrying Winterborne. Ethan was great too, though tbh I was more interested in his connections to Ravenels. Also, I really wanted to know if he actually took this house his father left him or did he sell it to West like he said. I assume he sold it, but still, I'd rather know for sure.

I liked their relationship and how early they confessed their feelings to one another. There was no stupid misunderstanding, only circumstances preventing them from being together. I'm glad that Ethan didn't lie that she means nothing to him or shit like that; he was very honest (and poetic!) about his feelings to Garrett and he didn't mislead her or deceive her. I appreciated it.

West!! Oh how I missed thee! And who was the red haired beauty he mentioned?? The one that hated him?? She wasn't mentioned in the first book, was she. Anyway, I missed West and I'm glad to spend time with him now. He was as delightful as I remembered. I love him. I can't wait to read his book soon!

And there was mention of Sebastian and Evie which is always amazing!!

I liked this! Nice to have a Kleypas novel not focused on the "upper class," and lots of fun historical doctoring details in here. This suffers a bit from being several years old, because I think a current re-write could have leaned more into British colonial violence against the Irish, which was an interested subplot. Good mix of suspense and romance.

Skipping over Boring Twin, Hello Stranger instead focuses on Lady Doctor and Illigitimate Ravenel Detective/Spy/whatever. Garrett is a feminist and highly educated, so there's period appropriate birth control methods, plus we get to skip the usual “so that's what a penis looks like” moment. This book does feel like a totally different genre from the previous ones. Devil in Spring touched on it but Hello Stranger dives right into the political/criminal pool.

Warning: Contains icky medical stuff. No worse than an episode of House or ER but still icky.

3.5 stars. An improvement over the earlier novels of the series but the hero was seriously creepy in the beginning, following her around like that.