We did a Rec League on Winter Olympics back in 2018, but some of y’all might be in the mood for an updated list with an inclusion of summer sports.
Sarah: Cleat Cute!
A lot of coach books are popping into my head, like Head Over Heels by Hannah Orenstein ( A | BN | K | AB ) – former athletes not current.
Elyse: Yeah, it’s about an Olympic gymnast hopeful who is trying to move on after not making the cut.
Sarah: Oh! Kiss Hard by Nalini Singh ( A | BN | K | AB ). Paralympic athlete.
The m/m fencing ones – dang it brain.
Amanda: The fencing ones – is it Fence by C.S. Pacat, the graphic novels?
Sarah: Yes! The hero is the illegitimate son of an Olympic fencer, not an Olympian himself.
Elyse: I reviewed a lesbian Olympic book for the site that involved fisting but I cannot remember the title for the life of me
Tara: Elyse, it’s Fire on the Ice by Tamsen Parker.
Sarah: This is a really old one, but Elizabeth Lowell wrote an equestrian romance (as in they ride horses, not that they ARE horses, which could easily be a romance but not necessarily from Lowell) but I haven’t re-read it in a billion years easily so I don’t know if it holds up.
Remember Summer! Good job Google.
Tara: I haven’t read it, but I know Pas de Deux by E. J. Noyes ( A | BN | K | AB ) is very well loved and about preparing to compete in dressage at the 2016 Olympics.
Sarah: From DiscoDollyDeb in the comments: “Olympic swimming theme ahoy: last week, @flchen1 noted that the two books in Layla Reyne’s Changing Lanes series (Relay & Medley, m/m Olympic swimmers) ( A | BN | K | AB ) were 99-cents each. They are still 99-cents, and an associated novella, Freestyle, is currently free.”
What romances would you recommend? Let us know!
Sarina Bowen’s Coming in from the Cold (alpine skier) and Falling from the Sky (snowboarder). There is a third snowboard-centric book in this trilogy as well, but no Olympics mentioned – Shooting for the Stars. I have this series in audio, and listen to Coming in from the Cold several times per year- set in Vermont but it’s separate from the True North world.
Fun trivia – I went to a university that attracted winter sports athletes. I had an Olympian (she competed luge) in my freshman seminar, and over the next 20 years I picked out the names of fellow students/acquaintances/classmates in the Olympic hockey and nordic skiing rosters. It made the Winter Olympics feel very intimate!
I enjoyed this fun rom-com about a sprinter and an Olympic volunteer: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/202404523-let-the-games-begin
Las Palmas fencing club series by LA Witt – m/m, one of the main characters in the second book did make it to Olympic trials in the past
Outfield Assist by Cat Giraldo – mmf, while it’s set in a baseball team, one of the MMCs is a swimmer and was an Olympic hopeful. He had kind of a breakdown and hasn’t been near a pool in a year, but is getting to a point where he wants to at least try training again.
Playing to Win series by Reba Dale – f/f, each book will be a different sport, first one is between two gymnasts at an international competition
En Garde by MJ Duncan – f/f, one main character is an Olympic fencer
Cleat Cute is getting a TV adaptation! https://deadline.com/2024/04/wnba-sue-bird-megan-rapinoe-cleat-cute-1235887807/
I would recommend ‘The Front Runner’ by Patricia Nell Warren even though it’s tragic, because it’s effing great and has a positive ending.
And for those looking for a great book about a young woman athlete, ‘Fox Running’ by R.R. Knudson, is hard to find but I’ve read it a dozen times and it has stuck with me for 40+ years.
Not Olympics per se but story built around competitive pairs ice skating – from Lukov with Love by Mariana Zapata.
It’s not olympics and I know Hockey romances are popular right now, but if you’re into monsters Monster Pucker by Clio Evans is fabulous and Shelly Laurenston’s Beast Behaving Badly is hilarious MMC is a Hockey player and FMC is Roller Derby, it’s my most favorite of all her books under that name
Synchronicity by Keira Andrews is a m/m romance about synchronic divers at the Olympics. She also has several m/m figure skating romances that all feature the Olympics too.
Meghan Quinn’s Stroked series is about Olympic swimmers. I haven’t read them – I find her stuff to be hit or miss, and the descriptions for these suggest miss for me, but book 1 has 4.3 stars and books 2 and 3 have 4.6 stars on amazon so YMMV.
Elyse Springer’s HEAD OVER HEELS is an m/m romances featuring divers training for the Olympics.
Liz Lincoln has some fun books centered around women’s soccer (World Cup & Olympics). One of the books was my confirmation that I have Rheumatoid Arthritis (and needed better care), so she has a special place in my heart.
SUMMER’S END by Kathleen Gilles Seidel is about a former Olympic figure skater, and it takes place during the summer at the family’s lake house in Minnesota. I love that book. Highly recommend! Also it’s 1.99 for kindle today!
Can’t recall if it’s tied to the Olympics or not, but Jennifer Lohmann’s WINNING RUBY HEART involves a runner who was implicated in a cheating scandal and is trying to make a comeback with a coach who is in a wheelchair.
Winter Olympics, not Summer: THE HUSBAND GAME by Brigham Vaughn, about the Vegas wedding of a Hockey star and a retired Olympic figure skater and its aftermath (M/M). Content warning for eating disorder. I just love both characters in this book.