Last week I had hellaflu, and while working on this week's lineup, I asked on Twitter if there were any requests for content. OddSoxAlex requested a GS vs. STA for sports romances – specifically those that take place in the UK, or in Europe, and not in the US.
Most of the sports romances I know of, such as Jaci Burton's Play by Play series, which features football and baseball, or Erin McCarthy's Fast Track series, which is about car racing, take place in the US.
Do you know of any sports romances that take places outside the US, or, if not, sports romances that you loved in general? Recommendations, please!
Keep up the great work here at Sprint Connection! Many thanks.
India Grey has a romance called At the Argentinian Billionaire’s Bidding which features a hero who owns a polo team and a heroine who designs polo kit. I think it’s loosely connected to the rugby series mentioned earlier (the hero played rugby before).
For female athletes, I second Lowell’s “Remember Summer” and Seidel’s “Summer’s End” (weird coincidence with the names there). The Lowell is weaker, but I enjoyed both because I felt that being an athlete was truly part of the heroine’s identity.
Thanks E!
NR also has an early category where the heroine is a former gold-medal gymnast but is now a PE teacher who heads West to help her sister on her ranch. It’s not really about gymnastics, though, since she doesn’t do that anymore.
Amy Lane’s “The Locker Room” is about a relationship between two male basketball players. I loved this book. Think it is American, though.
…some of the romance stuff is awful, frankly, particularly on the horse end of things
toppysmom, thanks for the morning gigglefit! 😉
Thank you!
D’oh! And snork. I was trying so hard not to do something like that, LOL.
But I am glad I made you have a gigglefit. Always a good way to start the day.
From the Outside by Helen Brenna. He is a NASCAR driver. I don’t recall if we ever see him race or just hear about it. He is from Argentina, IIRC, and part of the story takes place there, though not the NASCAR.
The “International Billionaires” Series from Harlequin Presents had something to do with rugby~
Dick Francis wrote a lot of books featuring steeple chasing and as he was the Queen Mother’s steeple chasing jockey for a while he probably got the details exactly right. His books are not romance novels, but they usually feature a strong love story and his heroes are generally awesome.
Ones that have both sport and a strong sense of romance:
Break in
Bolt
Nerve
Enquiry
Dead Cert
to name just a few
One Way Street by Laney Cairo is also about AFL – not soccer, sorry. Australian Rules for Tigers and Devils and Cairo’s book. I enjoyed it a lot.
Almost Like Being in Love is an hysterically funny gay romance between a baseball obsessed OCD history professor and a former football jock. Baseball is central to all Kluger’s books that I’ve read. I can’t rec this one hard enough because it’s the funniest, most fun book I’ve ever read.
i like sport romances. steaming hot and lots of good looking, sexy male characters. dating blog here——http://www.relationshi…
In the “surprise pregnancy” subcategory that seems to be within every larger category of romance, there is “Argentinian Playboy, Unexpected Love-Child” by Chantelle Shaw that was surprisingly alright, for what it was (although it had its fair share of cliches—dead perfect wife that was, perhaps, not-so-perfect; Trauma involving a twin; virgin-that-hero-did-not-know-was-a-virgin; rich and powerful guy vs. poor and powerless girl; stupid misunderstandings; and Big Trauma forcing I-love-yous). It is set in both rural Britain and Argentina and both the hero and the heroine in this book are equestrians: she is a show jumper working towards being on the British Olympic team, and he is a world famous polo player.
As for other sports-related books…I can’t think of any off the top of my head. There’s one where the guy had a fling with the heroine’s sister, said sister had a baby then died, and you know where this leads…but he was a football player. I don’t remember what it was called, and I don’t remember whether I liked it or not. The others I know of have pretty much already been mentioned.
Having checked with Amazon, that was indeed the romance! It’s now setting comfortably on my Kindle. Thank you very much!
Thanks *so* much for this recommendation. I’m an American who moved to Australia 6 years ago and follow Aussie Rules football (not soccer, as M88888888 notes) so I thought I’d check the book out. It’s really well written besides being full of inside references that I’m proud of getting now :->
Four-man rotation? Retro! Is this guy the second coming of Denny McLain? Hopefully he doesn’t end up in prison.