Out of all the romance tropes and genres, sports romances continue to have their moment. While hockey and football have long reigned supreme, there’s been a surge of other sports entering the arena as of late. Sports like golf and even F1 racing have entered the chat, hoping to introduce romance fans to all they have to offer. No matter your preference, these heartthrob athletes will never go out of style. We’ve rounded up some of the biggest sports romance authors and big authors who have entered the arena.
Tessa Bailey
As a prolific romance writer, Tessa Bailey has written nearly every trope imaginable. Her latest series, Big Shots, has been a massive success, featuring everything from golf to hockey to baseball—something for everyone! Known for Tessa’s signature humor (and spice), this series is a must-read for sports romance fans. As an added bonus, you can dive into her backlist with the novella “The Football Pants Chronicles” if you’re looking for something to read while you wait for book four in the Big Shots series, Pitcher Perfect, out September 9th.
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Lynn Painter
After the major success of previous novels, including the YA hit Better than the Movies, and the steamy rom-com Mr. Wrong Number about a meet-cute gone awry, Lynn has FINALLY given us a sports romance—Fake Skating, publishing September 30th. Childhood friends Alec and Dani are reunited after years apart & Dani quickly realizes Alec has transformed from boy next door into the town’s revered hockey star. What follows is a fake-dating escapade sure to have romance fans everywhere swooning.
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Bal Khabra
The bestselling hockey series Off the Ice includes Collide, Spiral, and the eagerly awaited book three, Revolve. Whether you like enemies-to-lovers, fake dating or a reformed bad guy hockey player turned figure skating partner, you can’t miss with this series!
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Helena Hunting
Helena Hunting is the OG hockey romance author, starting with Pucked. Since then, she’s written over twenty hockey novels. The Pucked series alone includes eleven books and a cast of unforgettable, swoon-worthy characters. Pucked also inspired not one, but three different spin-offs in the same universe: Lies, Hearts & Truth, All In, and the Toronto Terror series.
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Kennedy Ryan
While Kennedy has written several emotional romance novels, her Hoops series is not to be missed. Set in the high stakes world of the NBA, this popular series features some of our favorite tropes, like forbidden love, second chances and single dads. Sign us up!
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Meghan Quinn
Can’t decide which sport is for you? With Meghan, you don’t have to choose! Meghan loves to push the envelope when it comes to steam, and her humor leaps off the page in all of her sports romances. Her beloved Vancouver Agitators series is spicy but sweet, focusing heavily on themes of found family over five different books. If baseball is more your thing, check out The Brentwood Boys series. Heading back even further in her extensive catalog, she also has three other series to check out: the Hot-Lanta series, a baseball series filled with drama, a new adult series, Love and Football is full of twists, and her Stroked series features three different Olympic swimmers and divers—promising to heat you up instead of cool you off.
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R.S. Grey
Famous for rom-coms with her signature banter and chemistry that sizzles, R.S. Grey has also given us several sports romances. Scoring Wilder (a forbidden romance between a coach and player), Blushing in the Big Leagues (brother’s MLB teammate), and The Summer Games series (an Olympics romance duology).
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Alexa Martin
Who better to write a sports romance than a former NFL WAG?! Alexa’s hit Playbook series is a four-book series about NFL players and the women they love. After Taylor debuted at a Chiefs game in Kansas City nearly two years ago, it was learned that the NFL player in Martin’s Fumbled was inspired by Travis Kelce himself. Vanity Fair interviewed Alexa about the book, which was written long before Travis had a bracelet and a dream, but Swifties everywhere don’t discount the power of manifestation! While Alexa has written several other romance novels, her marriage gave her an in-depth look behind the scenes at what it really takes to win at love—on and off the field.
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Kandi Steiner
Kandi is the author of nearly a dozen sports romances, most notably her Kings of the Ice hockey series, with book five, Stand Your Ground, coming October 2025. She also wrote a football series, The Red Zone Rivals. Kandi’s stories are packed with heat and humor, a must for sports romance fans.
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Maren Moore
Maren has written several sports romances, including the recently published Red Card, the first book in the Prescott University series, which is being described as She’s All That meets She’s the Man (say no more!), about a bad-boy rugby player and the off-limits coach’s daughter. Maren also just released The Bad Boy Rule, the first in her new Hellcat Hockey series. She wrote a baseball trilogy called as the Orleans University series, and also has another hockey series called Totally Pucked.
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