MM sports romance is the busiest corner of the whole genre, and hockey owns most of it. There is a reason for that. Put two men on a team, add a locker room, a rivalry and a press conference, and you have built a pressure cooker before anyone has said a word about feelings.
I like hockey and I have read an enormous amount of it, but I do like a bit of variety. And I suspect you do too. If you have just finished Heated Rivalry, the book or the show, and you are hunting for something that feels the same, or for that same intensity in a completely different sport, you are in the right place.
Below are sixteen MM sports romance books, sorted by where they are played: pro hockey first, then college, then everything that happens off the ice. Tennis, racing, MMA, and a gym. I’m French, I blog about MM romance in French, and I read most of these in English, so expect the occasional turn of phrase that gives me away.
Your Next Read, by Mood or Want
Sixteen books is a lot to scroll. If you already know what you are in the mood for, start here.
You want rivals who cannot stop
You want them loud, filthy and furious
You want a soft landing into the genre
You want the one that hurts
You want a second chance and a small town
You want to laugh the whole way through
You want campus, teammates and low angst
You want dark, and you mean it
You want grown men with real lives
You want a rivalry with a net between them
You want speed, and enemies to lovers
You want the ice plus something impossible
This is only the shortcut, and it leaves plenty out. Scroll on for the full list, with covers, what each book is actually about, and what I thought of it.
The books in this selection
- → Heated Rivalry · Rachel Reid
- → Poetry On Ice · Jesse H. Reign
- → Egotistical Puckboy · Eden Finley & Saxon James
- → The Shots You Take · Rachel Reid
- → Goaltender Interference · Brigham Vaughn
- → Rebound · L.A. Witt
- → Home Ice · Saxon James
- → Phoenix and his Dragon · Victoria Sue
- → Him · Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy
- → Power Plays & Straight A’s · Eden Finley & Saxon James
- → Iced Out · C.E. Ricci
- → In Your Court · Kit Haley
- → Pit Stop · G.N. Wright
- → Jacked · K.M. Neuhold
- → Kage · Maris Black
- → Fake Out · Eden Finley
Pro Hockey, Where the Genre Lives
Eight books set in professional leagues, and they cover the whole spread: the secret relationship that runs for years, the rivalry that turns into something neither of them planned, the veteran with kids and a divorce behind him. If you only read one section of this list, read this one. It is where MM sports romance does its best work.
Heated Rivalry (Game Changers, Book 2)
Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are the two best players of their generation, on rival teams, and the league has decided they hate each other. What they actually do is find each other in hotel rooms for over a decade, in a relationship neither of them can name out loud and neither of them can stop. This is the book the show is based on.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
Already read it, or watching the show? I have two follow-ups: every Rachel Reid book in order, including the free Shane and Ilya extras, and what to watch after Heated Rivalry for the nights you don’t want to read.
Poetry On Ice (Totally Pucked, Book 1)
Two hockey players who spend every game trying to destroy each other, and every minute off the ice failing to work out why the hatred keeps turning into something else. The line between the two gets very thin, very fast.
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Egotistical Puckboy (Puckboys, Book 1)
Ezra is out, loud, and perfectly happy with a life of parties and hockey. Anton has spent years becoming one of the best in the league without letting anyone know he likes men. One night together puts all of that at risk, and the two of them spend the rest of the book arguing over which of them has the bigger ego.
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The Shots You Take
Two former teammates who were also, quietly, more than that, back in a small Nova Scotia town for a funeral. Years of silence between them, one week in the same place, and everything they never said still sitting there.
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Goaltender Interference (Scoring Chances, Book 1)
Connor wakes up next to Jesse Webber, a cocky Toronto goaltender, the morning after his brother’s wedding. He has three kids, a failed marriage and a captaincy in Boston, and he is only just starting to admit he is attracted to men. Then Jesse gets traded to Boston.
Rebound (Pucks & Rainbows, Book 1)
Geoff Logan is a forty-something cop and Marine veteran, short on money and long on damage, with teenagers who are furious he left the boyfriend they loved. Asher Crowe is a twenty-something star for the Seattle Snowhawks whose private life is a lot uglier than his public one, and whose boyfriend will not accept being left.
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Home Ice
Ten years ago Tai ghosted his oldest friend, the week Jensen left for the NHL and Tai’s own hockey dreams collapsed. When they run into each other again, Jensen’s only reaction is “Do I know you?”. Meanwhile Jensen has come home to a bigger problem: a high school girlfriend, and a son he never knew about, who hates him and whose coach happens to be Tai.
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Phoenix and his Dragon (Colorado Dragons, Book 1)
Phoenix is homeless and out of options, so he crashes a private party thrown by the Colorado Dragons planning to seduce a player and blackmail his way to enough money to survive. His mark turns out to be Cole Armstrong, the British star centre, who is also a dragon shifter whose fire was bound by the same cruel father Phoenix came to exploit. Cole sees through the lie immediately and keeps him anyway.
College Hockey, Where Most People Start
Lower stakes on paper, higher stakes in practice: nobody here has a contract to protect, they have a team, a dorm and a first time working out who they are. Three books, and the first two are the ones the whole subgenre was built on.
Him (Him, Book 1)
Jamie Canning never understood why his best friend stopped speaking to him four years ago. Ryan Wesley knows exactly why: he pushed a bet too far with a friend he was in love with. Their college teams meet again at the national championship, and Wesley finally gets the chance to apologise to someone he has never stopped wanting.
The rest of Him
Two more with the same couple: Us picks up as they try to make it work in the pros, and Epic closes their story.
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Power Plays & Straight A’s (CU Hockey, Book 1)
Foster and Zach, a college team, and a brother who worked out what was going on long before either of them did. Steam, banter, and no manufactured drama beyond what happens on the ice.
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Iced Out (Leighton U, Book 1)
Two teammates who have decided they cannot stand each other, forced to play on the same line, working out that the thing between them was never really hatred. Snarky the whole way through, and more explicit than the campus setting suggests.
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Off the Ice: Tennis, Racing, MMA and a Gym
Hockey has the numbers, but it does not have a monopoly. Five books where the sport is something else entirely, and where the shape of the romance changes with it. An individual sport puts the two of them on opposite sides of a net with nowhere to hide, which is a very different problem from sharing a locker room.
In Your Court (Love Game, Book 1)
Matteo Russo is Australian, the only openly gay pro on the tour, and broke: a freak accident took the career he was supposed to have. After losing again to Miles Callahan, the rich American superstar he grew up competing against, Mat throws Miles’s privilege in his face and dares him to do a season without any of it. Miles accepts, turns up at Wimbledon with no coach, no team and no idea how a laundromat works, and needs a hitting partner.
Pit Stop (The Fast Miles, Book 1)
A rookie season in the best racing league in the world, a famous surname that opens doors, and a one night stand who turns up on Monday as the PR man assigned to follow him for the next four months. Prescott Reed Lamont IV is old money, still in the closet, and everything our driver claims to hate. Neither of them can leave it alone.
Jacked (Gymbos, Book 1)
Two gym bros share a flat, a lot of roughhousing, and a running theory that none of it means anything, because guys are just like that. One of them is slowly running out of ways to explain why he thinks about his roommate’s mouth, finds his terrible cooking charming, and misses him when he leaves the room.
The Gymbos series
Three books so far, one gym, a new couple each time. Pumped is a trans nerd and his golden retriever personal trainer, Grind is an injured hockey star and the trainer rebuilding him.
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KAGE (KAGE Trilogy, Book 1)
Jamie Atwood tells his own story, and he tells it as an addiction. Michael Kage is a famous MMA fighter, and from the moment the two of them meet, Jamie stops being able to want anything else. What follows is not a healthy relationship and never pretends to be.
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Fake Out (Fake Boyfriend, Book 1)
Maddox once told his childhood sweetheart he was gay to get out of marrying her, then moved to New York. Five years later he is invited to her wedding and needs the boyfriend he does not have, because he is straight. Damon takes the job in exchange for an introduction to a client: an injury ended his own playing career, and he is building a life as a sports agent instead. Forty-eight hours of pretending looks easy until it isn’t.
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My Top 3 MM Sports Romance Books
All sixteen are here because I enjoyed them. But if someone new to the genre asked me for three and nothing more, these are the three I’d give them. Different reasons every time, and the order could move tomorrow.
KAGE, by Maris Black
The one that stayed with me longest, and the one I am most careful about recommending. Jamie narrates his own undoing and you follow him down without ever losing the thread of why. It is dark, it is not comfortable, and it is the best written thing on this list.
In Your Court, by Kit Haley
The one that proves the genre doesn’t need a rink. Mat dares Miles to do a season without the money, the coach and the team, Miles says yes, and the whole book grows out of that one decision instead of a misunderstanding. The Australian versus American culture clash is genuinely funny, the tennis is atmosphere rather than commentary, and the ending has a problem built into it from page one: on a court, one of them has to lose.
Home Ice, by Saxon James
My favourite of the recent releases. A second chance where the ghosting is treated as the real wound it was, a surprise kid who reads like an actual furious teenager, and two men who have to earn their way back rather than being handed it.
MM Sports Romance: Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I start with MM sports romance?
Heated Rivalry if you want the one everyone talks about, and Him if you want something warmer and lighter. Both are hockey, both are easy first books, and both open a series so you are not stranded afterwards.
Why is MM sports romance almost always hockey?
Partly because the setting does the work for you: a locker room, a long season on the road, a rivalry the press keeps feeding, and a sport where being out is still rare enough to carry real risk. Partly because Him and the Game Changers series were huge, and readers went looking for more of the same. Tennis, racing, football and MMA all exist in the genre, there is just far less of it.
Do I need to know anything about hockey to read these?
No. Most of these authors write the game as atmosphere rather than commentary, and nothing depends on you knowing what icing is. In Your Court is explicit about it in its own blurb: lots of tennis details, very little actual tennis.
Which ones are standalones rather than long series?
The Shots You Take and Home Ice are standalones. Everything else opens a series, though most of them switch couples each book, so you can stop after one. The exceptions are KAGE, which is a trilogy about the same two men and needs to be read through, and Him, which has two sequels about the same couple.
Which of these are enemies to lovers?
Most of the good ones. Heated Rivalry and Poetry On Ice for rivals on the ice, Egotistical Puckboy and Iced Out for teammates who cannot stand each other, Pit Stop and In Your Court off the ice. If that is your trope, I have a whole list of enemies to lovers MM books sorted by how much they actually hate each other.
Is there any MM sports romance with a paranormal twist?
There is, and it is better than it has any right to be. Phoenix and his Dragon puts dragon shifters on an NHL roster and plays it straight. If you want the paranormal side properly, my MM werewolf romance list is the place to go next.
How do the audiobooks work?
Twelve of the sixteen books on this page have an audio edition, and I’ve put an Also on Audible button on each one so you don’t have to go looking. Audible is Amazon’s audiobook side and it runs on a membership rather than on one-off purchases, which is why a title that costs money on its own shows up at zero once you are a member.
If you have not been an Audible member in the past year, you can start with a free trial and pick one of these for nothing. And if you have already used yours, honestly, the subscription earns its place. The MM catalogue in English is enormous, most new releases get an audio edition within weeks of the ebook, and the narrators working in this genre are very good. Sports romance in particular is well served, which is not true of every subgenre.
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Before You Go
Thank you for reading! Sports romance is the section of my shelves that grows fastest, so if you have a favourite I’ve missed, tell me. I am especially short on anything that isn’t hockey, and I will read almost any sport if the book is good.
New to the genre? Start with the map.
