Finished Heated Rivalry And Want More? The Best Books To Fill The Void

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The HBO Max show, "Heated Rivalry," has been on everybody's lips since its release in November 2025. The steamy series, based on the LGBTQ+ book you'll want to add to your TBR list, centers around two rival male hockey players who carry on a secret relationship for years. Not only do they play a super male-centric sport, but the main characters, Shane and Ilya, are afraid to come out publicly due to family and societal expectations. Although viewers are undoubtedly captivated by the hot bedroom scenes, the underlying message of the show is about a slow-burning love between two people who deserve a shot at success.

The last episode of "Heated Rivalry" Season 1 aired on December 26, 2025, and while the second season has been confirmed, fans will likely have to wait until 2027 for the series to pick up again, per Forbes. According to the publication, the writing has yet to begin, so filming is estimated to begin this summer. With such a long wait, naturally, the way to fill that void is with the best sports romance books, and we've got plenty that will have you heating up.

Proving that you can never have enough MM sports books, "Him" by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy is definitely a fan-favorite diverse romance book to broaden your reading horizons. Just the cover alone is reason to pick up the contemporary novel, but once you start flipping through the pages, you'll be hooked. Former friends Jamie Canning and Ryan Wesley (referred to as Wes) reunite after a falling out, but when they come together years later as rivals on a college hockey team, their feelings for each other can't be denied. As the two reconnect, it's clear that their one sexual encounter at hockey camp meant more for both of them, and the friends finally become lovers.

Fans of the book loved reading the different perspectives of Jamie and Wes, with one sharing on Amazon, "Wes jumped off the page a little more than Jamie did for me, but both were written well. They were simultaneously endearing, sexy in different ways, and a little complex." Another praised the authors for writing a romance that went beyond two men being attracted to each other. "Their evolution from childhood best friends to estranged acquaintances to something beautifully more follows a path that feels both inevitable and miraculous. The authors masterfully capture that delicate dance where unspoken desire threatens established boundaries, creating tension that practically vibrates off the page," the reader wrote.

If you love historical romances, "You Should Be So Lucky" by Cat Sebastian is one that's sure to tug at your heartstrings. The book takes place in 1960, when LGBTQ+ romances were considered taboo, and Sebastian does a great job of highlighting homophobia during that time without creating "pitchfork mob" scenes. Instead, the story revolves around a struggling baseball player named Eddie O'Leary, who is tasked to do interviews with Mark Bailey, a reporter, who is mourning the death of his partner. As the two reluctantly come together, they realize that a professional relationship can turn into something much more, but first, they must navigate a world that is not ready for them to come out.

Sebastian is no stranger to writing queer books, and she does it in such a way that feels real. O'Leary and Bailey's personalities jump off the pages, and the themes of grief and acceptance serve as subplots that move the story along. "I cheered so hard for the characters' happiness. I believed in their belonging to one another and wanted so desperately for them to believe it too. I cried a lot, but I screamed joyfully even more. Please read it for yourself," a reviewer wrote on Goodreads. With an almost 4.3-star rating on the site, this book is clearly a home run.

Along with ice hockey, baseball seems to be a popular sport for LGBTQ+ writers, and KT Hoffman captures MM yearning perfectly in his debut novel, "The Prospects." Trans minor league baseball player Gene Ionescu is thriving in his career when a past teammate and rival, Luis Estrada, makes his way onto his team. Although they initially can't stand each other, their physical closeness soon turns into an emotional one, with Ionescu and Estrada learning how to strip their armor and let each other in.

Hoffman, who is a trans man himself, is a baseball fan who wants to create a bridge between the LGBTQ+ community and sports. "I fell in love with baseball the same year I started coming out as trans, so baseball to me has always been very linked to those terrifying, exhilarating, leap-of-faith moments when you let yourself reach for something that seems impossible. Writing about a trans baseball player felt very natural — I don't think I could have written anything else at that time," he told Geeks Out. And, creating a trans character like Ionescu was important to him, with Hoffman stating, "I wanted to read books where queer, trans people could do more than be an object of derision, pity, or illicit desire — books where we got to love and be loved."

"Pucking Strong" is Emily Rath's fourth book in the "Jacksonville Rays" series, but unlike her previous ones, this story follows two male lead characters, Teddy O'Connor and Henrik Karlsson. O'Connor is a sports doctor for the Jacksonville Rays hockey team, on which Karlsson plays as the star forward. The physical therapist has been pining for the player for years, and comes to his rescue by offering to marry him out of convenience. While Karlsson has no feelings for O'Connor at first, his charms grow more irresistible, and the two find themselves turning their situationship into something more.

Rath's novel isn't just about two men falling in love with each other; it also shows a sweet family dynamic when Karlsson adopts his young niece after his sister dies. Readers loved seeing the stoic hockey player's soft side, with O'Connor jumping in to help raise Karolina. "I totally cried at multiple points for Karolina and our Henrik. Pulled me right in the heartstrings. Many moments between Teddy and Karolina brought the biggest smile to my face!" a reader raved on Amazon. A reviewer on Goodreads shared, "I LOVED the single dad(ish) rep in this book — the scenes with Karolina were SO SWEET. It was kind of nice that both Teddy and Henrik were learning to be parents at the same time, definitely a different dynamic than most single-dad books." And, a bonus for Rath fans is that they'll see characters from her previous books, so get ready to be delighted with this spicy yet heartwarming LGBTQ+ read.

Since we based our list on "Heated Rivalry," we searched for books with a similar plot — one that included an MM romance and was sports-centric. We didn't want the stories to be entirely too similar to the show, so we made sure that our picks had diverse storylines that included a wide range of characters. The enemies-to-lovers theme was a huge one in "Heated Rivalry," and that's always a page-turner, so there are a few books on our list that have just that. The others include athletes who fall in love with someone entirely outside of their profession, which we thought was an interesting dynamic. And of course, we based our list on reviews, ensuring that the majority of readers were hooked by the books, which all received favorable marks across Goodreads and Amazon.