Sports and romance are each gripping genres on their own, but put them together, and you get the makings of, well, a heated rivalry.
As the genre experiences a moment thanks to TV shows based on book series by women (think Prime’s “Off-Campus” and HBO Max’s “Heated Rivalry”), here are several more sports romance reads by female authors to tide you over until the new seasons — and sequels — come out.
"Off Campus" series by Elle Kennedy
The latest book in bestselling author Kennedy’s wildly popular series-turned-TV show, Love Song follows the offspring of fan favorite characters: college student Blake Logan heads for her family’s vacation home in Lake Tahoe after a sex tape comes out showing her boyfriend cheated on her. Once there, she falls into a steamy will-they-or-won’t-they with the son of the family they vacation with (the love interest’s father is pro-hockey star Garrett Graham, on whom the Prime television show is based). According to Publishers Weekly, “the erotic scenes sometimes [overpower] the romantic tension.” Surely the fans won’t mind.
"The Long Game" by Rachel Reid
The show that turned every hockey hater into a salivating supporter was actually based on a book by Rachel Reid — who’s currently adapting her sequel to Heated Rivalry, titled The Long Game, into a second season of the steamy show, which is set to return to HBO Max in April.
The sequel once again follows star-crossed lovers Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander 10 years into their relationship as they navigate being out together in public and their own respective hockey careers. This book (and season) leans more into emotional territory, but it’s also certain that Reid won’t skimp on the sex.
"Only When It's Us" by Chloe Liese
This Swedish-American standout is a college sports romance about a women’s soccer star and her sworn enemy, an arrogant lumberjack lookalike named Ryder who goes head to head with her in their Business Mathematics class.
The two go, predictably, from rivals to lovers as they’re forced to work together on a final project. What starts as pranks and practical jokes to claim victory on their assignment turns into something more as they start to catch feelings.
"Icebreaker" by Hannah Grace
This story is set in the world of both hockey and figure skating, as protagonist Anastasia Allen joins her college team in hopes of becoming a competitive figure skater. She’s solely focused on her goal to get a shot in the Olympics — that is, until a facilities blunder forces the ice hockey team to share a rink with her team. When Anastasia’s skating partner might have to bow out of the competition, she looks to the ice hockey team’s captain (whom, of course, she can’t stand — cue the sexual tension) to step up.
"Deep End" by Ali Hazelwood
This college sports romance by bestselling author Hazelwood takes readers deep underwater into the world of competitive swimming as a Stanford junior and competitive diver tries very hard to stay on track (recover from a nearly life-threatening injury, get into med school) and not get distracted by dating. But then she starts a fling with the hunky captain of the university’s swim team, and a secret comes out, changing the course of their relationship and pulling the characters into increasingly dangerous territory.
"Fangirl Down" by Tessa Bailey
When pro golfer Wells Whitaker starts playing badly in this first book of five in Bailey’s series, only one person stays in his corner: Josephine Doyle, his No. 1 “fangirl.” As she keeps showing up to the games that he bungles, insistently cheering him on despite his competitive nosedive, he becomes more annoyed and decides to quit the sport altogether.
But when he realizes he made a huge mistake, he shows up at her door and asks her to be his caddy so he can get back on track. That’s when things start to heat up — on and off the course.
"Cleat Cute" by Meryl Wilsner
In this sapphic romance that leans more farcical than serious, two soccer stars on the U.S. Women’s National Team become teammates when the more experienced of the two gets sidelined by an injury and the other, an upstart, fills her cleats.
The two women first see each other as rivals, but when the veteran player makes the first move, the teammates can’t keep their hands off each other. The upcoming World Cup casts them as rivals once again, and as a miscommunication drives a wedge between them, they have to decide what’s more important to them.
"You Should Be So Lucky" by Cat Sebastian
Sebastian’s mid-century baseball romance takes a slightly different tack than the other books on this list as the love story plays out between a grumpy shortstop and the snooty reporter charged with covering him for the newspaper — who usually writes about arts, not sports.
As the two men are pulled into each others’ orbits, sparks start to fly — even though both know, as high-profile New Yorkers, they can’t be out in public in 1960.