I've been really enjoying Erin Hahn's books and this one didn't disappoint. Filled with romance and complex relationships, I really loved the way the author developed the story. I loved the way she created both children and made the families feel so realistic. Thank you netgalley for this arc in exchange for my honest opinion.

I loved this book! I am same age as FMC& found Maren to be inspiring and resilient with what she was presented with. This is my first Erin Hahn and realized I might should know more of the friends stories, and I’ll be putting those on my TBR!! I felt like things finished up a bit quick at the end but a very enjoyable book!

Smart, mature, sweet, romantic, sexy, feel-good, and oh-so-comforting!

Those are just a few words to describe this refreshing take on the brother's-best-friend romance trope. I was fortunate enough to get an advanced reader's copy from Netgalley for honest review prior to the release of the book.

A very strong 4-star read for me! This book had me smiling the entire time and made my heart feel light and happy. The writing flows beautifully, a perfect mixture of internal vs external dialog and sensory descriptiveness that has you feeling as if you are there with the characters. Both main characters are relatable, lovable and engaging. Plus, as an added bonus, they are both smart and mature, and they actually communicate their feelings! I know! So simple, yet so revolutionary in this genre where miscommunication and stupid decisions tend to rule characters' storylines. You won't get any of that in Catch and Keep. YOU ONLY GET THE GOOD STUFF! All of the secondary characters are extremely lovable too (except the "bad guys" that we love to hate).

Technical doodads:
- Stand-alone novel with HEA ending
- Tropes: Brother's best friend / Small Town / Single Dad / Contemporary Romance / Second chance at love
- 1st person narrative in present tense (alternating POV)
- Characters in their 30's (MFC 33 and MMC 38)
- Spice level is moderate: 3-4 beautifully descriptive sex scenes. Definitely not erotica but spicy enough to get the reader to feel the tension and the passion. For those who don't like sex-on-page, it's not too overwhelming, so if you choose to skip the sex, you won't be cutting out major sections of the book.
- Triggers / Warnings / Audience: Adult audience due to descriptive sex on page. Swearing and language. Alcohol (recreational consumption only)

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The storyline was a great friendship to lovers and captivating, and I particularly appreciated the author's writing style. It kept me eagerly turning the pages until the very end.

My first Erin Hahn book and it was absolutely amazing. I loved all of the characters (except Liam,Bryce and Kiley). I also loved seeing Joe's relationship with his kids.

Thank you to NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for an arc of this book.

I have absolutely loved this series by Erin Hanh and the third book was so wonderful. I loved the character development and the slow burn of family friends to being in love. The kids were so dreamy and I loved that it shared an honest glimpse into parenting and neurodivergence.

Erin has once again completely stolen my heart with her story! Our FMC and MMC are so sweet to each other and the perfect mix of friends to lovers and brother’s best friend! I loved the dynamic with Joe’s children and how well they were represented and the spice was perfectly executed!

Catch and Keep by Erin Hahn was a surprise delight! Small town, lake life, single-dad and older brothers best friend. Maren, a former fishing Youtuber, received a marriage proposal by her year-long boyfriend. Her reaction was to vomit and run away to her childhood vacation spot, where she had inherited a bait shop and apartment. Maren starts renovating the building, running fishing tours and connects with Joe, a single dad with two kids. A story with some great characters with the exception of Maren’s brother, Liam and a local who was a creepy fan from her Maren’s YouTube days.

Thank you to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley and the author for an eARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

Catch and Keep by Erica Hahn was a light romance that flew by. I really enjoyed both of the main characters, Joe and Maren, and the serene small town setting. As someone who works with kids with disabilities and their families, I really appreciated the author’s storyline of Joe’s daughter having ASD and getting a glimpse of what that looks like both as the child and as the parent.
I struggled a bit with too many subplots and wanting more development with some of the friends and family members in this book, but overall enjoyed this cozy read!

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Maren Laughlin, at 33, up and leaves hr decade long career, says no to the proposal of by throwing up on him, and runs way to her childhood safe place of Northern Wisconsin where her inheritance lies. Fixing up the rundown waterfront bait shop is as good of place as any to get a fresh start. A sexy, heart warming story of two people who left lost finding a new home in the mess that is their lives.

I thought this was a very sweet and easy story to follow. The characters have wonderful arcs and are easy to relate to while presenting real life struggles. It has a good amount of spice for those who include that. It touches on the hardships of single parenting an autistic child, being divorced and having to co-parent, dating after divorce, a career change at 30, childhood fame troubles, and more. This book was a quick and simple read but held a lot of real life struggles that anyone could find something to relate too.

Sweetest with a side of spice. Instantly attracted to each other, forbidden from the beginning, love and connection growth between his kids and her was so cute.

She loves to fish and this time her catch is a handsome single dad who is also her brothers best friend.

I absolutely loved this, I couldn't put it down. It was fuzzy with side of fish.

this was a good one from the start. must read and really enjoyed this from page one. I am loving this author more and more. Every book does it for me.

Maren is running away from her boyfriend almost fiancé. What did he do? Propose publicly and stole her job. Maren enjoyed her summers growing up on the lake fishing with Fost, local bait shop owner and widow. With no family left Fost left his prize possession, the Bait Shop, to the only person he knew would do it justice. Maren leaves her boyfriend, job, and apartment to find peace on the lake and rehab the “gift” Fost left her. Josiah Cole has known Maren her whole life. Her brother’s best friend and now taking over his parent’s resort they all spent summers fishing at. Josiah “Joe” is recently divorced from his High school sweetheart. A single dad with two kids who are trying to figure out a new normal. Joe and Maren are a swoony couple! I adored reading their story and the honesty between them. I love that there wasn’t a third act breakup.

Thank you to net galley for the opportunity to read Catch and Keep as an ARC.

I am a big fan of Erin Hahn that's for sure! I read "Even if it Breaks your Heart" and let me tell you that book broke my heart but in a good way. That book is what made me try this book out!

Let me just say to start, I love Erin Hahn's characters. What I really love is how real they feel, she is so good at writing characters that feel real. I also love her atmospheres. She writes worlds I want to live in, and I love it. Maren and Joe just felt so real and I loved them.

What worked for me:
-THE COMMUNICATION wowwww is it hot when characters can actually communicate with one another about their thoughts and feelings to where there is no doubt. Maren and Joe had such great communication and I loved it.
- No third act breakup (seriously, I love how Erin Hahn handled the third act bit and it was realistic but not annoying.)
-Maren as a character was really good I think! So was Joe, his name gives me the Ick but I mean... that's a me problem.
-How the two of them sort of feel into their relationship and it was not dramatic. You know when you read a romance book and you just know the characters would never last in a real relationship? Well, this was NOT that way at all. I feel as if the two of them would be great together in real life.
-Maren's friends were funny and fun, loved them.
-Joe's kids! Sweet, fun, and I love the single dad who is responsible and loving.
-Maren and Joe! Loved them together, it makes sense.

What did not work for me:
- The whole Liam plotline... Like it didn't feel needed for how dramatic it was. If my brother EVER talked to me that way I would slap him or tell him to mind his own business. For real, he cannot claim to love Maren and treat her the way he did.
- Kiley. She just seems like a glorified teenager-adult who never matured past 15. Her treatment of her daughter felt absurd. I know that is the point, but you really want me to believe Josiah married and had children with THIS person? Because these attributes don't just hide for 10 years and randomly appear when you have a kid with autism. He would have had to see them in other areas... and when he tried to DEFEND her to himself and others? No. That is a no for me.
- The Bryce stuff... I just don't think it was handled well in the book. At times he seemed like a threat, at other times he just seemed like a weirdo.
-The whole calling Maren (a 33-year-old adult woman) a "kid"... that was just weird. Liam and Josiah were FIVE years older than her, that is not much when you are past 30 lol. 33 and 38 is not an absurd age gap and I don't know why it was portrayed as such.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend! Thank you to the publisher for an advanced eARC! Obviously, all thoughts are my own :)

catch and keep was a really sweet romance- i thought the connection/development of the relationship between maren and joe was great, and i loved how it felt mature (seeing as how they're both fully fledged adults) but didn't miss out on the giddiness of falling in love. i loved how the conflict was solved, it felt very low stakes and realistic for everyone involved. the setting lowkey made me want to move to a lake and fish from a cabin for the rest of my life, and joe's kids were so so sweet and beautifully depicted. erin hahn romances always!!

thank you to netgalley and st. martin's press for an arc of this book :)

This sweet friends to lovers, single dad romance, hooked me from the start. Joe’s best friend from the beginning of time, Liam, has a Musky fish-loving little sister named Musky Mare who is nothing but a silly nuisance when he is a teenager and she is a preteen. But when Mare is a grown woman, who happens to still love fishing, and walks out on her boyfriend’s proposal, Joe finds himself getting hooked by her effortless kindness to his neurodivergent children. The two find friendship, and then more as they work together at Joe’s vacation resort in Wisconsin. This book was spicy, funny, and very endearing. I loved how understanding and kind Maren was to Joe’s sweet children. Now I want to read everything by this author!

This book was so sweet. I want to hang out with Musky Maren! I loved the connection between Maren & Joe; I fell in love with Joe’s kids and I wanted to throat-punch Maren’s brother Liam. Erin Hahn did a wonderful job bringing these characters to life & the spice level was just right. Although I loved the inclusion of a child with autism, for me that narrative seemed a bit forced. Overall, a great read that I will recommend. Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy your novel!

This was SO good!!! I loved everything about it from the storyline, to the characters and the writing!!

I absolutely loved the setting, very cozy and picturesque. My aunt owns a fishing lodge and the entire time I was reading I was taken back to my time spent there. ❤️

In terms of the storyline and the characters— I also was blown away!! I loved Anders and Lucy (which admittedly I don’t always love children in books, but they were too sweet not to) and I adored seeing their relationships with their Dad and with Maren. So many sweet moments that pulled at my heart strings.

The romantic relationship in this was so adorable as well! I felt like the pacing of their relationship was actually perfect— it was fast enough to keep me interested and to play on the “we’ve had crushes on each other forever” and “we’ve wanted this for a long time but it was forbidden” tropes but wasn’t too fast where the characters were all of a sudden suffocatingly in love and I was like “where did this come from”. I felt like they progressed steady and strong!

Lastly, I just want to touch on the “internet fame” storyline that was going on in the back burner. I thought it was really interesting and it commented on so many aspects of the world with social media (but obviously in a chill way— it was by no means the purpose of the story). I was happy with the resolution of that at the end, although maybe would have liked it to be mentioned somewhere in the epilogue bc I was still a little bit concerned about safety for the main characters down the road…

All in all 10/10 and I will be purchasing for my collection when this releases! A perfect “summer-to-fall” read.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4.5 stars (rounded down to 4 for GoodReads and NetGalley)

This review will soon be posted on my bookstagram, @PurpleReadsBooks. Follow for this review and more bookish content!

Without further ado, let me start by telling you that I would trust Erin Hahn to write my obituary. I've only read one of her other books (Friends Don't Fall in Love) and I really liked that one, so I was excited to start this one. Admittedly I was a tad skeptical as I know literally NOTHING about fishing, and I had no clue how Hahn would make running a bait shop interesting. Turns out I had no need to worry because I fell head over heels for this book and all the characters in it.

I absolutely love books with dual pov, and this was not an exception. Hahn did an incredible job balancing the two perspectives and I never felt like I was out of the loop as a reader. I also love love LOVED Joe's kids, and how she portrayed ASD.

The chemistry between Maren and Joe was also top-tier. Every single development between the two of them felt perfectly timed and I ate each little bit up like I was a rat in a jail cell starving for crumbs--that is to say that I loved it.

One last little bit of information: I literally read this book in a day. It was that good. In short, put October 15 on your calendars, everyone. This is a book that I promise you'll want to read.

I loved this so much, and I loved that we had a dad who was 100% loving and supportive and involved and INVESTED in making sure that his autistic daughter knows how wonderful and loved she is. And that he has no interest in entertaining anyone who doesn’t recognize those things about her.

Maren just up and leaving everything behind because one thing made her reevaluate her entire life is SO what we all wish we could do. Minus living in a crusty mouse dungeon but that was temporary. She’s determined and strong but also vulnerable and earnest, and the way she wholeheartedly supports everything that Joe and his kids need was so sweet.

Joe was such a delight, from his seemingly endless patience to his genuine interest in learning how to best support the people around him. He never once underestimated Maren even when he worried about her - he knew she could do it on her own but wanted her to know she didn’t have to.

(Spoiler paragraph?)
The buildup with Maren’s stalker felt like it stalled out, and I think more could have been done with it to offer more closure - while satisfying, it seemed a little unrealistic for it to end so simply.