This Rec League was suggested by Sarahwasme in the SBTB Podcast Patreon Discord:
I am so mad at US men’s hockey team I could spit. (Not really, I hate when dudes do that.) I want to buy all the sports romances featuring women’s team players and gift them to random people on the street. Maybe with a whistle.
Anyone have recs for romances featuring women’s league/national team? My first thought is FMC/Soccer player in Mariana Zapata’s Kulti – already planning on a reread.
JoVE in the podcast discord: Wake Up Nat and Darcy. ( A | BN | K | AB ) 2 former Olympians doing broadcast at the Olympics. 2nd chance. Forced proximity. It’s good.
Jfhobbit in the podcast discord: Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner features two professional soccer players who also play for the USWNT.
Josephine in the podcast discord: If Only You by Chloe Liese ( A | BN | K ) is a female soccer star and queer disaster of a man in a fake friends to lovers. Yes, he’s a hockey player, but Seb (and Ren, his captain and Ziggy’s brother) would never.
There’s a sapphic Cricket series ( A ) that’s not bad too. The first one is members of the Australian national team.
Amanda: We had an Olympics Rec League from 2024 that may have some recommendations.
What books would you recommend? Drop them in the comments!
Kelly Farmer’s Out on the Ice series is an f/f hockey series; I enjoyed it.
Playmaker by Lauren Gallagher (aka LA Witt) is a standalone f/f hockey romance.
Seconding Kelly Farmer! And I loved Anita Kelly’s How You Get the Girl, which involves two former women’s basketball players now co-coaching a team of teen girls (and falling in love).
Women of W.A.R series,
Escape Publishing, 2018
m/f romance, women’s professional Australian football, four different authors:
Game On / Nicola Marsh
Fair Game / Amy Andrews
Long Game / Catherine Evans
A Whole New Ball Game / Lauren K. McKellar
All are short & cheap.
Bombshells by Sarina Bowen features a female hockey player. It’s M/F and part of her Brooklyn Hockey series.
https://sarinabowen.com/bombshells
Some other books featuring women athletes:
We Ride Upon Sticks / Quan Barry
Field Hockey, witchcraft, not a romance, Alex award winner
Bombshells, Shenanigans / Sarina Bowen
Brooklyn Hockey 5 & 6, m/f romance, Women’s & men’s hockey teams
First Flight, Final Fall / CW Farnsworth
Women’s Soccer, m/f romance
Deep End / Ali Hazelwood
Platform Diving (college team), m/f romance
The Mane Squeeze, Beast Behaving Badly, various Honey Badget Chronicles / Shelly Laurenston, Shifter Roller Derby, m/f romance/urban fantasy/humor
Head Over Wheels / Leonie Mack
Women’s Peloton Team (bicycling) m/f romance
Oar than Friends / Lulu Moore
Men’s & Women’s Crew, m/f romance
Snow & Ice Games series / Tamsen Parker
Women athletes , winter sports, 5 books f/f, f/m, m/m
I haven’t read all of them, but here you go! Plus some GR lists you may be interested in. I’m glad to see others have recs for MF women’s sports romances. Those are really difficult to find.
Grand Slam Romance graphic novel series (Emma Oosterhous) – softball
Catch & Cradle (Katia Rose) – collegiate women’s lacrosse
Yours for the Season series (Kate Cochran) – Olympic women’s hockey
Like a Power Play (Elle Sprinkle)- collegiate women’s hockey
Tip In (Josie Mae) – collegiate women’s basketball
She Drives Me Crazy (Kelly Quindlen) – high school women’s basketball
Sapphic sports romances:
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/sapphic-sports-romance
Sapphic hockey romances:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/223147.Sapphic_Hockey_Romances
Thanks for this Rec League, Sarahwasme.
Rachel Spangler has several f/f sports romances.
I read and enjoyed her book Edge of Glory about two Winter Olympic athletes – a goofball snow boarding champion and a focused downhill skier trying to make a comeback.
Dragon Boats & Doctor’s Notes by Hudson Lin – dragon boat racing (nb/f)
Love and Sportsball by Meka James – WNBA (f/f)
7-10 Split by Karmen Lee – bowling (f/f)
Kiss Hard by Nalini Singh – Paralympic track & field (m/f)
If Only You by Chloe Liese – soccer (m/f)
Kiss and Cry by Mina Esguerra and sequel So Forward – first one has an Olympic figure skater, second has a hockey player (both m/f)
Cricket Slam series by Renee Dahlia – cricket (f/f)
Milwaukee Wolfpack series by Liz Lincoln – soccer (m/f and f/f)
Lasairiona McMaster just released The Fly-Half and the Fling – the FMC is a rugby player!
I second Sarina Bowen! Bombshells and Shenanigans both feature women hockey players, and the F romantic lead in Shenanigans is queer.
Sara Rider had a couple of books featuring female football/soccer players (f/m) that I liked. For The Win was the first in the series.
In The Graham Effect by Elle Kennedy, the FMC plays college hockey and is being considered for the US Olympic team.
Mariana Zapata has a great figure skating romance called From Lukov With Love, it’s a slow burn and enemies to lovers (my favorite trope!) And features a pretty bada$$ FMC. It’s a great peek into athleticism and the world of elite competition.
Forging Glory by Lainey Davis is clearly inspired by the Spanish women’s coach kiss incident, and is excellent. Devney Perry did a similar one, set in college sports, but I didn’t think it was that good.
This rec is more adjacent to the prompt. In Ainsley Booth’s The Nanny Goal the female lead is a former Olympic level hockey player. He’s a pro hockey player friend of her family’s who needs emergency child care and she gets voluntold to help out. They do practice together in at least one scene, but hockey is no longer her focus.
https://www.ainsleybooth.com/the-nanny-goal