With fall just around the corner, I'm getting ready for back to school and back to the field with these steamy football stories. Honestly, for me football or any sport really is just background noise. I use it as an excuse to make some snacks, curl up on the couch with my hubby, and read a good romance.
Here's a list of my favorite football romances to date:
Fumbled
By Alexa Martin
Blurb: Single-mother Poppy Patterson moved across the country when she was sixteen and pregnant to find a new normal. After years of hard work, she's built a life she loves. It may include a job at a nightclub, weekend soccer games, and more stretch marks than she anticipated, but it's all hers, and nobody can take that away. Well, except for one person.
TK Moore, the starting wide receiver for the Denver Mustangs, dreamt his entire life about being in the NFL. His world is football, parties, and women. Maybe at one point he thought his future would play out with his high school sweetheart by his side, but Poppy is long gone and he's moved on.
When Poppy and TK cross paths in the most unlikely of places, emotions they've suppressed for years come rushing back. But with all the secrets they never told each other lying between them, they'll need more than a dating playbook to help them navigate their relationship.
Why I like it: As the wife of a former NFL player, Alexa's stories are always super authentic. I like how her books deal with the drama of the WAGs and put the real life consequences of America's favorite past time into perspective.
The Friend Zone
by Kristen Callihan
Blurb: Gray doesn’t make friends with women. He has sex with them. Until Ivy.
The last thing star tight-end Gray Grayson wants to do is drive his agent’s daughter’s bubblegum pink car. But he needs the wheels and she’s studying abroad. Something he explains when she sends him an irate text to let him know exactly how much pain she’ll put him in if he crashes her beloved ride. Before he knows it, Ivy Mackenzie has become his best texting bud. But then Ivy comes home and everything goes haywire. Because the only thing Gray can think of is being with Ivy.
Ivy doesn’t have sex with friends. Especially not with a certain football player. No matter how hot he makes her…
Gray drives Ivy crazy. He’s irreverent, sex on a stick, and completely off limits. Because, Ivy has one golden rule: never get involved with one of her father’s clients. A rule that’s proving harder to keep now that Gray is doing his best to seduce her. Her best friend is fast becoming the most irresistible guy she’s ever met.
Which means Gray is going to have to use all his skills to get himself out of the friend zone and into Ivy’s heart. Game on
Why I like it: I love the transition from college to pros in this story, plus Gray Grayson is the ULTIMATE book boyfriend. This adorable Friends to Lovers romance will have you seeking out more of Kristen Callihan's work- I'm sure of it.
The Marriage Effect
by Karla Sorenson
Blurb: Logan Ward doesn’t want any more women in his life.
Being a football player and legal guardian to his four younger sisters means his playbook is full. However, one of them just landed in the hospital, which gives his brother the shot he needs to challenge Logan for custody.
Legal counsel says there’s only one thing Logan can do—find himself a wife.
Paige McKinney doesn’t always think things through.
Like walking away from her modeling career without a thought of what might come next. She really doesn’t think it through when she proclaims herself Logan’s fiancé at the hospital, simply because the sexy—albeit grumpy—football player forgot his cell phone at a party and security won’t let her pass. It’s not her fault it was overheard by the worst possible person.
A bargain is struck, and a fake marriage is the perfect solution. But the simple solution creates a whole new problem: they’re not as different as they seem. The reluctant groom has fire inside him, and his impetuous bride is about to light the match.
Why I like it: The banter with these two is adorable, plus I was totally here for our heroine's girl gang! I need to read the first in this series, The Bombshell Effect because I'm noticing some serious girl power.
Okay, I saved the best for last!
The Wall of Winnipeg and Me
by Mariana Zapata
Blurb: Vanessa Mazur knows she's doing the right thing. She shouldn't feel bad for quitting. Being an assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to the top defensive end in the National Football Organization was always supposed to be temporary. She has plans and none of them include washing extra-large underwear longer than necessary.
But when Aiden Graves shows up at her door wanting her to come back, she's beyond shocked.
For two years, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg couldn't find it in him to tell her good morning or congratulate her on her birthday. Now? He's asking for the unthinkable.
What do you say to the man who is used to getting everything he wants?
Why I like it: Mariana is the queen of slow burn and this book is the most satisfying slow burn I've ever read and listened to! Not to mention, it's got my all time favorite trope: a Fake Relationship. Plus while the heroes from Fumbled and Friend Zone are big adorable clowns, TWOWAM's hero is a grumpy surly football star and that has me all kinds of excited.
BONUS: I know I'm cheating here because this one's Rugby- but what's a silly American girl to do... it's like football, but with more danger!
My Life in Shambles
by Karina Halle
Blurb: They say bad things happen in threes.
After my boyfriend broke off our engagement, I lost my apartment, and was laid off from my job, I can definitely attest to that.
They also say life is what happens when you say yes to new adventures.
So when my two sisters invited me to ring in the new year in Ireland, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and go for it. I was going to let “saying yes” be my new resolution.
Little did I know I’d spend New Year’s Eve having a hot and dirty one-night stand with Padraig McCarthy, one hell of a sexy Irishman. I also didn’t know that the brooding and intense sex god was one of Ireland’s top rugby players.
A rugby player with a proposition for me:
Come with him to his tiny hometown of Shambles and pretend to be his fiancé for a few days, just so that his ailing father can have some peace of mind.
It sounded simple enough.
It was anything but.
Not when a town gets up in your business, not when the media hunts you down, not when your past comes back in the picture, not when there are real hearts and feelings at stake.
Not when there are secrets that could break you.
They say life is what happens when you say yes to new adventures.
This is my life in Shambles.
Why I like it: It's only July and I'm ready to announce this as my favorite book of the year! Reading this romance invoked all the feelings I had when I first started dating my husband. When a book can do that I'm holding it over my head like it's a boombox.
Alright ya'll, grab your favorite game day beers and sit back with these hunky football stars! Happy reading.