Erin Hahn’s Friends Don’t Fall In Love is sharply-written, sexy, romantic and lovely. With great tenderness, Hahn explores a friends-to-lovers romance – and deconstructs the music business with great honesty and aplomb.

Country music star Lorelai Jones has a bumpy romance with her equally famous fiancé Drake Colter. As always, she turns to her best friend, songwriter, Drake’s bandmate and sometimes songwriting collaborator, Craig Boseman, when the wheels fall off. As always she goes back to Drake while Craig goes on with other women. It seems as if that’s the way it’s doomed to be.

Then Lorelai plays a protest song in support of gun control at one of her concerts, and her career – and her engagement to image-conscious Drake – quickly falls apart. This is fine with Craig. He’s not a fan of Drake who has treated him poorly by welching on publishing rights to songs they’ve co-written. Plus Craig dislikes the way Drake has treated Lorelai. He’s less than happy, however, when Lorelai soon disappears from the music scene.

Five years later, she texts Craig, looking for help launching a comeback. He now runs a small independent record label, and after years of coping with Drake’s thieving, he’s become successful as a producer. But being in close quarters causes Lorelai and Craig to reconsider their choice to just keep things on a friendly level. Can Lorelai mint a comeback and have Craig in her bed, too?

I loved every last drop of this book. Friend’s Don’t Fall in Love works as a triumphant comeback story, as a tale about a woman who figures out her best friend is the one she should’ve stood beside the whole time, and as the story of someone combatting an industry that demands certain rules be played by.

Lorelai is spirited without being TSTL; Craig is handsome and smart and artistically creative. They both have realistic reasons to avoid talking about love and pursuing it even after getting into a sexual relationship. And the connection between them is definitely hot and definitely well-explored. (There’s a scene in a kitchen that will knock readers’ socks off.) And I’m always a sucker for best friends falling for each other. Everything about them works and makes sense.

The supporting characters are fun, including the clearly skunky Drake.

On top of that, the way the book takes a deep dive into what defines the music industry helps bolster this one even higher. It both takes on a conservative country culture and also leaves room for artists who adore working within the milieu.

Friends Don’t Fall in Love is a pinnacle when it comes to contemporary friends-to-lovers romance stories. It’s one of the best books of the year, and one of my favorite contemporary romances of 2023.