Every “best gay sports romance” list on the internet right now includes nearly the same books, sometimes the same ten books in a different order by someone who read blurbs.
But we didn’t start this podcast or blog because we wanted to create listicles for clicks. We started it because we freaking love the romance genre and can’t stop talking about it.
And one thing that we both are on the record about loving: strong, interconnected series.
There are dozens of ways to do interconnected series (families, friend groups, workplace), but one of our favorites to fully immerse ourselves in the world is sports romance, because the stakes are high (somehow every team is always competing for the Stanley Cup?), the interpersonal communication is important (so many locker room debates), and the team is a forced-proximity workplace drama, with all their travel schedules and grueling workouts and owner squabbles.
And then you add in the bonus layer of characters being gay, bisexual, and queer? And hooking up with fans, teammates, and rivals? SIGN US UP.
When Meg realized that we’d accidentally amassed a list of over forty books that we’d both read and raved about and often cried over … it felt worthwhile to pull it into a list.
But this isn’t your typical “here’s 10 books to check out.” Instead, we’re breaking it down by series and worldbuilding, because that’s where some of the best gay sports romance lives — in the middle of a giant series.
Below are the full series we’ve read cover to cover (including bonus epilogues) — because the worldbuilding within a book and across a series often elevates any single couple’s romance.
Table of Contents
Game Changers series by Rachel Reid (6 books)
Gay sports romance was popular before Heated Rivalry hit Crave & HBO Max in November 2025 … and the internet exploded. (So did our YouTube and Instagram whenever we posted about them).
Heated Rivalry is the one everyone’s talking about, and for good reason — Shane and Ilya are rivals, not enemies, which means the tension never has to be manufactured; their jobs force them into the same room, year after year, for a decade neither of them controls.
But it’s the six-book series that built the entire hockey universe HR lives inside, and that context is part of why the show hit as hard as it did — you’re watching two guys whose world was already fully populated before their story became the main event… and who didn’t think that they could be happy until they saw Scott Hunter’s very public kiss with Kit.
The Fake Boyfriend series by Eden Finley (5 books + bonus)
Reading in order matters here, because Finley is playing a long game with her cast. Fake Out (Nikki’s favorite of the bunch) kicks things off with Maddox fake-dating his way out of a run-in with his ex-girlfriend, while Damon studies to become a sports agent… and then signs all the players throughout the reset of the series, being the glue that holds both the hockey and football stories together.
Trick Play is the tonal gut-punch: “immediately stressed me the fuck out,” in Nikki’s exact words, following an NFL football play lead who makes one unlikeable, self-sabotaging decision early and spends the rest of the book chasing the fallout. It also introduces Matt’s brother Jet, who is the hero of book five.
Deke flips the fake-dating premise on its head — publicly, the couple is hiding, not performing; but with Ollie’s family the farce actually plays out, then eventually bleeds into Ollie’s hockey career. Blindsided (Meg’s favorite of the bunch) returns to football with a friends-to-lovers, bi-awakening between teammates. And Hat Trick features a hockey player and a musician.
Listen to our episode on the Fake Boyfriend series for all the details.
Puckboys series by Eden Finley & Saxon James (10+ books)
When we said that Eden was setting up a long game when she wrote Fake Out, we weren’t exaggerating. Damon’s role as agent is the thread that carries through the CU Hockey series into the Puckboys series and beyond into the King Sports series. (And that’s just the sports romance overlap — don’t get us started on the boy bands & bodyguard overlaps.)
The CU Hockey series and the Puckboys series are co-writes with Saxon James, Nikki has read all of them (because she’s a machine). Meg opted out of the college-aged/new adult (she prefers her characters to have fully-formed prefrontal cortexes, thanks).
Puckboys is where Eden & Saxon’s shared universe truly shines. Every couple is interesting and unique, and the cameo work is genuinely impressive — characters like Asher and Ezra and Damon recur across the universe in a way that rewards readers who’ve been following along without ever feeling like homework.
We interviewed Eden about how she wrote the shared universe across multiple generations… and why she abandoned baseball and football romance in order to double down on hockey.
Him/Us Duology by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy
If Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand battleships, Him was the award-winning book that launched the Hockey Romance Industrial Complex.
Smaller in scope than the others here, but still a real universe (with a meet cute in Lake Placid — you know Meg can’t resist an upstate New York setting!).
Wesley and Jamie’s slow-burn, best-friends-to-lovers arc in Him gets a companion book in Us, and the college-hockey world they live in carries over to the pros. We gave Him the full review treatment separately: read our Him review for the deep dive.
Tal Bauer — A Different Kind of Gay Sports Romance Worldbuilding
Bauer doesn’t build his universe by stacking books in a series — he builds a complete universe inside each one. and Nikki has to be “in the mood” before she picks one up, because — her words — “he’s just so fucking talented… everything he writes is beautiful, but it’s an emotional journey.” Bauer’s standalones often feature teammates who resist falling for each other specifically because of the proximity, which means you get the full team dynamic baked into every book, not spread across a series.
Here are a few of our favorites:
The Team duology by Tal Bauer (gay football romance)
The closest Tal has to a sports romance series.
In The Jock, Justin and Wes strike up a romance as roommates while studying abroad in Paris… then once they get back to campus, they have to figure out how to have a secret relationship that won’t ruin Wes’ chances at playing professional football.
The Quarterback is the story of Wes’ teammate Colton… and Justin’s dad Nick. Still plenty of sports romance, but also a juicy forbidden age gap romance.
The Fall runs over 800 print pages, which means it functions like three novels in one, and the length is exactly why the hockey team around Shane and Ilya’s counterparts feels as lived-in as it does. Meg’s 2025 Tingly Award Book of the Year.
Also featured on our Second Chance Romance book recs, although it’s really more brain-injury-time-travel than a traditional second chance … but we won’t give you any spoilers beyond that.
The only thing better than gay hockey romance? French-Canadian gay hockey romance.
The book synopsis (the Montreal team captain Bryce is closeted, but finally acts on his feelings during the All Star Game with Hunter) doesn’t do this book justice.
Go ahead and download it, then let yourself sink into the prose. As Meg says, “The only time I care about hockey is when Tal Bauer writes it.”
The Rest of the Story by Tal Bauer
The Denver team is at the bottom of the NHL, and Morgan is pissed when he gets traded there… until he discovers why the team is struggling. Eventually he’s promoted to Captain … and starts a secret relationship with his co-captain Shea. Until things go wrong …
This is a beautiful, slow-burn, friends-to-lovers gay hockey romance. It’s set in the same universe as Gravity but the cross-over is minimal, so you can read them out of order.
Looking for more? We revisit Heated Rivalry often — including a full episode of comps for what to read after Heated Rivalry if you’ve already cleared everything on this list.