This book was so good. I could totally take or leave the brother but it wouldn’t be a brothers best friend book without him. The relationships the fmc builds with the children is so sweet.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for sending me a widget of the story of Maren and Joe. I had previously read Built to Last and Friend's Don't Fall in Love. Maren and Joe's story was just chef's Kiss. The Single Dad is always a trope I'm down for but Mr. Cole was definitely a Zaddy. He was so attentive and good with his kids. Maren did not give herself enough grace and it was great seeing how the story developed and seeing her the way Joe saw her. It is 2 POV and it definitely did not disappoint.
Have tissues ready because you will cry at random moments.

I absolutely adore the way Erin Hahn tells a story. 😍 She makes me care about the characters she creates like they are members of my own extended family. She also has a real gift for pacing and building tension, and eschewing pointless thrid-act breakups. This is the 3rd book of interconnected standalones and I loved being able to check in on the previous stories' protagonists. And hallelujah for older MCs as well ... we got a 34 and 38 year-old who are living grown folk lives? Sensational. ❤️‍🔥

⭐️ 5/5
🌶️ 3/5

This book ticked all of my boxes and more! It was seriously the perfect romance! 🥰 Not to mention it had some of my MOST FAVORITE tropes. Catch and Keep was a small town romance featuring a single dad who is our FMC’s brother’s best friend… Y’ALL, don’t sleep on this one!

I felt a special connection to this story too because it is based in Wisconsin! 😍 The setting was seriously perfect for a fall read and it made me feel completely at home. I cannot wait for our Up North trip this weekend!

Don’t be fooled by the cover, per usual. This was on par with my other favorite spicy reads! There’s just something about a family guy with rolled-up sleeves and a backward baseball cap leaning over a counter and giving you that look… 🥵

Minus all the fabulous fluff, this story also starred a young autistic girl who stole my heart. It balanced the easy moments with the hard ones, but also showed how some people will never fully understand what it takes to care for a neurodivergent child. Honestly, this part of the story was utterly heartbreaking. I know I previously said while reading Love and Other Conspiracies that I’ve never wanted to punch a character so much, WELP, I’ve found another character to add to the list…

This book is technically the third in a series, but it can definitely be read on its own. I read the first book, Built to Last, in 2022, but somehow missed book two! I cannot wait to go back and read Friends Don’t Fall in Love!

Overall, I cannot recommend this story enough. It was absolutely perfect and it made me so excited to pick up more from Erin Hahn! Please, please, please add this to your TBR! 💕

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press (@smpromance) for the advanced copy!

this was such a sweet, heartwarming story 🥰 between a woman who returns to her hometown & her brother’s best friend (who happens to be a single dad 😉).

📖 Catch and Keep by Erin Hahn
⭐️ rating: 5/5
🌶️: open door, a few scenes

💭 overall thoughts:
I love how their relationship developed - Maren literally just started showing up for Josiah, and seamlessly became a part of their family 🥰

As much as I loved the dynamic between Maren & Joe, seeing her fall for his children (and them for her) made the entire book for me 🥹

Both his children have their own unique characteristics, and Maren fully embraces them for who they are.

(their biological mother is AWFUL & I kinda h@te her 😡 she made me irrationally angry)

🎙️ audiobook thoughts:
Zura Johnson & Michael Norman Johnson perfectly captured the MCs 💜

read if you love:
💙 single dad & her brother’s best friend
🐠 fisherwoman
(both in their mid/late 30s)
🧠 autism rep - Joe’s daughter Lucy
🌳 return to (small) hometown
🫶🏼 family & found family
🙅🏻‍♀️ no 3rd act breakup
💞 dual 1st person pov

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Spotify Audiobooks & NetGalley for an advanced copy.
All opinions are my own.

Fleeing an epically embarrassing fail of a public proposal, Maren heads to the fishing camp/bait shop she inherited. The relationship itself was no great loss, but with her two best friends living out their happily ever afters, she wishes it were her turn.
In a flash from childhood summers past, her brother’s friend Joe is now running the resort in the lake, with help from his parents, his two kids (and minus a wife)
As she fixes up the property, she’s spending more time with him and his family. Friendship turns into romantic feelings, and it’s so much more than her crushing teenaged self could have hoped for.

This was a perfect fall read, with the camps getting closed up for the season and continuing on into the winter. I don’t know a thing about fishing, but it didn’t stop me from being interested in a quiet life on the lake!
There’s drama/tension in the form of the return of an obsessed fan from Maren’s YouTube fishing show days, and from Joe’s ex-wife and her complete lack of parenting ability (she is the worst, you’ll see)

Joe is like a bouquet of green flags, and his children are lovely.
Maren and Joe are an excellent team, and I was 100 percent sold on their HEA
It’s great how they can both jump in and help the other where needed, and communicate well enough to know when/if and how to do that best!

This book is connected to Built to Last and Friends Don’t Fall in Love, with the MCs from each making appearances. You can read this without their backstories, but they’re excellent and I still think you should check them out!

Thank you to NetGalley and SMP for the arc!

𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁: I enjoyed this one, I always love seeing MCs in their 30s finding love a second time around. The characters were relatable with real life issues and I loved the lake setting. If you like slow burn, vivid imagery that transports you and characters you want to root for, this one’s for you.

Maren just turned down her boyfriend’s proposal and headed off to her happy place, Northwoods Wi. She recently inherited a bait shop that’s on the lake waterfront but it’s not in an inhabitable condition. So she agreed to work with her brother best friend’s family who owns the local resort to run fishing tours as she’s an amazing fisherwomen, in exchange to live on their property while she fixes up her new property. One things she didn’t count on was the adult version of Joe.

Joe is a single dad struggling with his new norm. He went through a messy divorce and he has full custody of his two kids, Anders and Lucy. His ex gave him a lot of guilt that he’s learning to work through and parenting his son who enjoys more feminine things and his daughter who is autistic has been a learning curve.

Joe enjoys having Maren around his families resort, she interacts with his kids in a way that makes his heart melt. But she is off limits as she’s his best friend’s little sister. But things between Maren and Joe are just so easy and how can something so right not be meant to be.

See if Maren ends up being the catch of Joe’s life when this releases on October 15th.

𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒚𝒐𝒖’𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅:

* Friends to Lovers
* Older Brother’s Best Friend
* Single Dad
* Autism Rep
* Fisherwomen FMC
* Retired Marine MMC
* Lake Life - Wisconsin
* Dual POV
* Spicy 🌶️

🌲🎣🚤🌲🎣🚤🌲🎣🚤🌲🎣🚤🌲🎣🚤🌲

This book is SO cute. I don’t love a brothers best friend trope (and this big brother was especially hard to take) but that did not take away from this fun, and very funny, romance. We have perfect banter, adorable children, a strong independent intelligent FMC, spice, and something I don’t find often- very real life characters. This little family was so sweet and perfectly imperfect, you’ll wish you could go stay at the resort with them.

Maren returns to her lake-side home to escape her life and ends up not only finding her love of fishing again but her new love of her brother's best friend Josiah.

This was such a good one! Here's what I loved:

Maren: She was an amazing character. I felt for her as she came to terms with things from her past and I also cheered her on as she found her new life to move on to.

Josiah: This man has been through the wringer and comes out so strong. I loved seeing him navigate his feelings for Maren because he wants to be the good guy in all of this, but is so drawn to her.

The setting: I loved this setting. I wanted to go to this resort and stay there!

Josiah's kids: This is a single dad trope and I adored both of Jo's kids. I also loved the family unit they built and how they work together. Seeing his kids embrace Maren was so special.

All in all, this was a really good romance that has some spice in it!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the gifted copy!

I’m going to say it now - Catch and Keep is not only one of my best reads of October, it’s one of the best of 2024.

I knew I would love this book because I’m of the opinion that everything Erin hahn touches turns to magic. Each book in this series has built the world up and expanded the cast of characters in the best way. I thought she couldn’t top Friends Don’t Fall in Love, but Maren and Joe might just have done it.

This is a romance, so I have to note that the chemistry between them is incredible. Their relationship builds in the most natural, lovely way. From the start, as friends, they’re so complementary of each other, and I loved watching that become more.

But oh, Anders and Lucy, Joe’s kids, completely captured my heart. They turn this from a book about a romance to something so much more. For me, it was about family, love, and home in all the forms they take. That they might not be exactly what you expected but they sure as hell will be what you need. There’s a moment that made me cry as I was reading, just broke my heart in the most beautiful way and then stitched it back together as something even better grew out of it. A moment I can’t get out of my head, I loved it that much. And that’s the mark of a perfect reading experience for me.

I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars. The appropriate words to describe how great it is defies me. The plot is wonderful and interesting, but it’s the characters that make this story amazing. Josiah is a divorced single dad with two of the sweetest children. Maren runs to the one place filled with happy memories and where she feels safe. The story will tug on so many reader emotions. You will laugh at the characters antics but some scenes may also make you cry. The author has dealt with everything in the story in such a graceful way. This is definitely a book to buy and read more than once.

Maren has just very publicly not accepted her boyfriend’s proposal and run off with her dog to her to safe place by a lake in Northern Wisconsin, not realizing that the place that she inherited needs major work to be livable. Soon she discovers that her former crush and her brother’s best friend is living next door with his children at the resort that he helps his parents run. I really enjoyed this book and wanted it to go on longer.

Thank you NetGalley, St Martin’s Press and Erin Hahn for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Midway through this book I realized there are other books in this “universe” that I wish I would have read first just for the full background but it didn’t take anything away from this book.

Maren finds herself in a situation she realizes she does not want to be in (being proposed to) and her gut reaction is to pack up her dog (Rogers) and a few possessions and take off up the Northwoods of Wisconsin where she spent her favorite summers. Maren was given a bait shop and small apartment by her old fishing buddy who recently passed away so she decides to fix that up while determining her next steps in life.

Right away, she comes across her older brothers best friend, Josiah Cole who happens to live at and run his family resort right next to the bait shop. He’s also sexy, divorced, father of two and they cannot seem to stay away from each other.

I loved how organic their connection was. Yes, it was attraction right away but wasn’t insta-love and they gradually started hanging out and intertwining their lives.

Joe’s kids were such a sweet part of the story and I loved that there was a seemingly realistic but positive perspective on Lucy’s autism. I got emotional seeing the kids become attached to Maren as she grew to be such an important piece of their world.

Being from Wisconsin, I loved the local references and especially the “ope!”. 4.5 rounded up.

Now, the other books are on my TBR so I can read how the wonderful friends and supporting characters got together.

I absolutely adored Maren and Joe! This was a quick read and super enjoyable. The characters were fun. I loved Joe's kids and the relationships that were built all the way around. Sometimes I feel like authors try to cram into much - especially when it comes to family dynamics, but I feel like this book really balanced it well. We got the dynamics of a single dad, a child with special needs, and Maren's overbearing brother. I do think her brother was slightly dramatic overall but it allowed for some character growth and connection.

This book was so sweet and I think a great fall love story. I loved watching Maren find herself and see Joe supporting her, too. It was a beautiful slow love story of what happens when people are meant to be. I appreciated that while it had fast moments, it was about building a solid foundation and what that makes possible.

Really sweet and so fun!! 🎣

Thank you to NetGalley for early access!!

I can’t handle how much I loved this book. I binge listened to it over the last couple of days and savored all of it. Maren and Joe might be my favorite Erin Hahn couple. I will always read her books.

A rom com with a....bait shop? Maren heads to Wisconsin to decompress at the bait shop and apartment she's inherited. Joe is a single dad who has also been burned romantically. These two become friends first and then their affection grows to love. This has a charming setting, the characters are good. and if it's trope-y, well, it's all about the journey. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This made me smile.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and St. Martin's Griffin for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

What can I say about this book that I haven't set a million times about all of Erin Hahn's books? This book has developed characters, it's a friends to lovers plotline that is so enjoyable, it has complications without being cringey or giving extreme secondhand anxiety. This book is a standalone in the same universe as Erin's other adult novels, following Maren as she goes back to a place that she loves as a child, reconnecting with an old crush who is trying to make it on his own as a single dad with two kids, and trying to figure out who she is at 33 & leaving the life she knew. This is a romance in that there is a HEA/HFN ending, but it is so much more than just the romantic scenes. This book has adults learning to heal their childhood wounds to be better parents. It has found family and nature. It has a dog named Rogers - and who doesn't love a dog?!

I loved this book, and I fully intend to re-read the series of books again as we get more into the fall weather, as this book was a great hug. 5/5

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an early copy of “Catch and Keep.” I loved the story of Maren and Joe - it was sweet and swoony and romantic. You could feel the characters falling in love in every one of their interactions. And I adored both of Joe’s children - Anders and Lucy were just the sweetest and deserved their HEA with Maren and their Dad too. 5 stars for sure!

Catch and Keep by Erin Hahn is a heartfelt contemporary romance that explores the complexities of first love and the challenges of self-acceptance. The story follows two characters who navigate their dreams, fears, and budding relationship amidst the pressures of high school life. Hahn’s engaging writing style captures the intensity of young love and the importance of staying true to oneself. With relatable characters and a sweet, uplifting narrative, this book is perfect for fans of contemporary YA romance.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It struck a good balance between the main female character's personal journey and her romantic relationship, which was unexpected due to family connections. The male lead complemented the female lead well and their dynamic was enjoyable to follow. The progression of their romance felt a bit rushed, and I would have preferred a slower buildup from friendship to romance. I appreciated the balanced portrayal of the characters, although the brother's lack of understanding became repetitive and frustrating. Overall, I believe this book would appeal to readers looking for a quick, steamy read featuring a strong female lead and an outdoorsy setting.