Sports geeks unite: These authors know (and love) the score
Are you a sports geek? Six authors of sports romance are here today to reveal their passion for sports. Their latest books were published this week as part of Carina Press' Sports Week, a celebration of sports romance. So whether you geek-out over football, tennis, baseball, hockey, mixed martial arts, or rugby — or you just love stories about sexy athletes — there's certain to be a book you'll love. Ready ... set ... GO!
Kat Latham, author of Playing It Close
When I was in high school, I was the statistician for our football, basketball and softball teams, so I'm a sports geek in the geekiest sense of the word. To this day I love a good tournament where it all comes down to the last match and any team could win — like this year's RBS Six Nations rugby tournament. Rucking brilliant!
What Playing It Close is about: Kat Latham writes the London Legends series about the world's hottest rugby team. Book two, Playing It Close, features the team captain and a scandalous woman with whom he spent one passionate night and never thought he'd see again—until she turns out to be his team's newest sponsor.
Rebecca Crowley, author of Love in Straight Sets
What I love most about sports is the drama — the highs and lows, the agonies and the ecstasies. So would I call myself a sports geek? Not necessarily — technicalities and statistics leave me cold. My sports fandom is more like what South American football fans call "la pasión," that ingrained, immovable, irrational love of the game.
What Love in Straight Sets is about: In Rebecca Crowley's Love in Straight Sets, love and ambition go head-to-head. Professional tennis player Regan Hunter's temper is almost as notorious as her unstoppable serve, but her anger when player-turned-coach Ben Percy attempts to wrest control from her grasp is nothing compared to the sizzling attraction that instantly blazes between them.
Rhonda Shaw, author of The Ace
If there's a game on, we're watching it. In our house, there isn't a problem with one person wanting to watch something other than sports. Where we start to have problems is when there are multiple games on and one person wants to watch one over the other because we do have our preference (mine is baseball and hubby's is basketball). Solution? Multiple televisions.
What The Ace is about: The Men of the Show series follows the sexy and irresistible men on the Detroit Rockets baseball team. In the second book, The Ace, a friends-with-bennies agreement quickly turns into long, romantic evenings. But denial is the name of the game…until a line drive to the forehead threatens to erase all that's happened.
Kate Willoughby, author of On the Surface
I'm a total hockey freak and I proudly let my freak flag wave. My Dustin Brown Los Angeles Kings jersey now has seven signatures, but that's pretty common for a fan, to have an item signed by a player. What perhaps puts me into the extreme category is the bedazzled Kings-themed advent calendar I made. Even though it's not Christmas, that puppy is on display all year long.
What On the Surface is about: Kate Willoughby's In the Zone series invites you into the locker room and the love lives of the NHL San Diego Barracudas. In book one, On the Surface, Erin thinks all Tim wants is another notch on his hockey stick, when what he's really shooting for is forever.
Michele Mannon, author of Tap Out
Call me fickle or a pseudo sports fan, but I love all sports ... when a championship game is being played out. There's nothing as exciting as watching the Super Bowl or participating in an NCAA March Madness bracket — go, Florida! Otherwise, I prefer live events to being an armchair warrior. Matter of fact, I'm attending MMA Bellator in May, with seats near the cage. Talk about live action!
What Tap Out is about: Michele Mannon's second book, Tap Out, in the Worth the Fight series, features an underwear model turned MMA superstar, and a reporter who just won't take no for an answer.
Allison Parr, author of Imaginary Lines
I might be the odd duck out, but I wasn't interested in sports growing up. Instead, I was a theater nerd with my head in a book. But the more I've learned, the more I love the complexities of sports — the intricacies of strategies, the politics of management, the loyalty and rivalries among teams. And I love pairing my artsy heroines up with football heroes!
What Imaginary Lines is about: Meet gorgeous NFL linebacker Abraham Krasner in Imaginary Lines by Allison Parr. Tamar fell hopelessly in love with Abe at age twelve but knew he'd never see her as more than the girl-next-door. Years later she gets a sports journalist job covering Abe's team and the sparks fly.
Readers, are you a sports geek? Which sports can't you get enough of — whether in real life or in romance novels?