If you’re looking for the finest basketball romance books featuring the hottest muscular boyfriends with the highest scores, this is the list for you.
I offer all of the best basketball romance novels you may possibly want to read in this popular romance book genre. I’ll start with the best basketball romance novels I’ve read and would recommend to everyone.
Best YA Basketball Romance Books to Read in 2024
1. The Right Move
RYAN
She is nothing more than a diversion.
The last thing I needed this year as the newest Captain of the NBA team in Chicago—the Devils—was for my sister’s best friend, Indy Ivers, to move into my apartment. She is clumsy, sensitive, and extremely alluring.
However, I can’t think of a better method to persuade the team’s General Manager—who openly expresses his displeasure of my promotion to Captain—than to pretend that I’m in a relationship with my outgoing roommate. He calls me an unapproachable lone wolf with no work-life balance.
The sole issue? It feels far too natural to fake it.
It wasn’t meant to be messy to have a false girlfriend, but it gets complicated when Indy moves in with me and shares my bed, especially when she demands all the romantic aspects of life that I can’t provide.
INDY
I never thought I would be living with NBA player Ryan Shay, the brother of my closest friend. Even more absurd? He requires me to play the role of his devoted girlfriend, who has transformed him into a personable and amiable man overnight.
Since, well, he’s not. He is possessive of his personal space and mistrustful of others.
However, our partnership isn’t one-sided. My former boyfriend and all of my childhood pals will be present at my upcoming wedding, and there isn’t a finer date than my ex-boyfriend who is a famous person.
It’s nearly impossible to tell the real from the phony when there are blurry lines. It was never my intention to fall in love with my roommate, especially because Ryan is always the first to remind me that he doesn’t think that love exists.
I’m a romantic and can’t help but hope that he’ll change, but eventually I start to wonder if living under the same roof as my best friend’s brother was the correct decision.
2. Long Shot
In August West’s last semester of college, Iris DuPree meets him in a sports bar. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime conversation that shoots flames everywhere. There is no denying the connection, yet the time is completely off. Iris is a player who plays for another man who is basketball’s “golden boy” and August’s longtime opponent. August is set to enter the NBA draft.
After parting ways, the two talk about that electrifying night and all that may have been. August is living the life of a star, surrounded by wealth and celebrity, while Iris’s picture-perfect public relationship has turned into a nightmare when they are alone. A faded vision of fool’s gold.
The world momentarily appears brighter when August reappears in Iris’s life, but her darkest days are still ahead of her. She needs to strengthen herself and have faith that her relationship with August will last despite all of this time if she is to live.
Even if her fake prince has promised to keep her forever.
3. Night Shift
After hours, a romantic encounter between a basketball player and a bookworm gets heated in the stacks.
When Fridays come around, Kendall Holiday is right where she wants to be: curled up with a romance novel while working the graveyard shift in an abandoned college library. The calm of the library is consistent, which provides Kendall with a great justification for missing the boisterous, early weekend.
Kendall loses herself in her favorite love stories, blocking off the outside world until the arrival of Vincent Knight, the star basketball player at the school.
Vincent is a handsome, tall, and well-liked player who stands out on the court, but he’s lost in the stacks with a pressing task that he doesn’t know where to begin. Neither of them is quite ready for what happens when their initial meet-cute with Kendall develops into a passionate make-out session.
In romance novels, opposites may attract, but in real life, truth is far more important than clichés.
4. Hook Shot
She’s the danger he must take, but she’s not the plan he created.
In the last years of his basketball career, Kenan Ross is a single, divorced father whose ideal life has fallen apart. When he first encounters Lotus DuPree, he’s still gathering up the pieces. a wildflower. A tempest. From the instant their eyes contact, he feels a punch to the gut and his preparations are thrown off. Although he made a self-promise to never trust a woman again, he has never wanted anyone as much as he wants Lo.
Lotus is finally achieving her dream at the age of 25, dominating the fashion industry in New York. She’s not looking for love; she’s focused on her future and knows what happens when you trust a man. The last person she needs is Kenan. She can’t help but be drawn to him even though he’s eleven years her senior and very different from her in every aspect.
Lotus can no longer resist the attraction that pulses between them when Kenan moves to New York for the summer to be close to his daughter, but she still won’t let him in. Not after all that she’s had to endure. However, Kenan is so devoted to her that he would stop at nothing to get beyond her barriers.
5. The Assist
You know the ones where the intelligent chick teaches the bumbling jock? It’s not this.
Blair
How likely is it that I’ll offend the one student on campus who will help me pass statistics? I wouldn’t be asking Wes Reynolds to tutor me in front of him if I knew.
I knew he played basketball, was attractive, conceited, and frequently slept through class. I had no idea that he was a really intelligent jock.
Wes
How can I best get rid of the enthusiastic, persistent girl who continues asking me to be her tutor? I wouldn’t be trying to teach her statistics and stare at her tan legs if I knew.
I knew her to be a sorority girl, fine as f**k, determined, and a ball buster. She is everything I didn’t know I needed or wanted, but I didn’t know that.
Or everything would change after just one semester with her.
6. Block Shot
Jared Foster would be even wealthier than he is now if he had a dollar for each time Banner Morales made his heart skip a beat—the heart that everyone believes is frozen over. His strategy for becoming a successful sports agent is to always interpret “no” as “I’ll think about it.”
He is also aware that Banner is considering him. Her simmering fury? The manner in which she sets him straight? Pre-play. The game is barely getting started, but she believes she has won.
Banner would have precisely one dollar if she had a $1 for each time Jared broke her heart. One night of spectacular failure. Banner had no intention of ever giving Jared another chance after their acrimonious breakup.
She has succeeded in an industry where men like him are in charge. She is now capable of making the decisions and blocking them when necessary.
She will therefore disregard the way he makes her heart race. She can look past the fact that he seems cut out of her deepest desires.
Jared won’t have her, and she only has one dollar.
7. Waiting To Score
“MONTY” EMILY MONTGOMERY
I had no idea that the guy I was mauling with my tongue to get away from my overly dramatic ex-boyfriend was the extremely attractive star of the Pierson University basketball team when I approached him on the quad.
What if we had the sexiest unintentional kiss of our lives? West Wright is as accomplished on the court as he is on his headboard. I also don’t want to be just one of many.
But when my ex starts acting like a stalker, West’s spontaneous offer to step in as a pretend boyfriend makes sense.
No matter how hard West tries to make his shot, I have a few rules to lay down because, despite his incredible appeal, I have no intention of actually dating someone like him.
WEST WRIGHT
Although I’m used to girls flinging themselves at me, I was unprepared for the stunning brunette who jumped me in the quad. She had legs for days.
Shame not, but I have my sights set on the goal of joining the NBA. It implies that I have no time for dating. even those that aren’t real.
But I can’t get Monty out of my thoughts after one passionate kiss that was more intense than a three-point buzzer-beater. And between my sheets, I desire her.
The next moment I’m her campus knight, promising to pretend to date her in order to win her back from her ex-boyfriend. Why then does it feel like this relationship is real now? And why am I not running away from the situation?
8. Hating the Player
Worst of all is Gavin Leonard. Overrun by jocks all around, he resides in the best off-campus party home at Valley University. I watch renditions of Jane Austen next door while holding my sketchbook.
He remains on his portion of the wall. I remain on mine. We’ve unintentionally ended ourselves going camping together, but there’s only room for one tent. Worst of all is Gavin Leonard. And the last person to break my heart was him.
9. The Fadeaway
He believes that we are engaged in the longest game of catch-up ever. We’re not.
Joel: I can’t get the hottie on campus to go out with me. I realize it sounds conceited, but I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that this girl feels for me. I visit the café where she works every Thursday. She has given me all kinds of justifications.
There are a lot of chicks blowing up my phone; I should give up and bang one of them. I’m not. Thursday is my favorite day of the week, even if she says no.
Katrina: I keep getting asked out by the sexiest man on campus. While that may seem like a nice issue to have, this person…
This person doesn’t realize how difficult it is for me to balance being a single mother and a college student. He arrives at the café where I work every Thursday. I should be furious at his smugness and corny pickup lines. I’m not.
10. Friday Night Lies
He uses a H to begin his name. Happiness follows suit. Heartbreak. House. Basketballs. Everything I connect with him.
Holden Adams has been that guy ever since my family moved in across the street when we were kids. my very first love interest. My ex-partner in crime. The brother of my dearest buddy. He is the pinnacle of happiness and the depths of despair.
I cherish him. I despise him. There are two lies there. I’m merely…not sure which to choose.
11. The Tip-Off
I’ve been hidden in the shadows for years. His entire life has been devoted to pursuing the dazzling lights of the NBA. Other than the fact that our pals abandoned us for spring break, we have nothing in common.
For my final year at Valley University, I have a wish list. I don’t know anyone else on campus but him. I’m prepared to begin crossing items off my list.
Check for a frat party.
TP the baseball home run: Accurate.
Goat yoga: Yes.
Check for skinny dipping.
Falling in love with Valley U’s MVP, Zeke Sweets: Not likely to occur.
12. Dear Love, I Hate You
An anonymous letter was the beginning of it all.
Nobody was meant to locate it, including him. It was also certainly not supposed for him to respond.
We wind up exchanging messages via notes on sticky notes within a book. Just one sticky note. Two post-it notes. Ten post-it notes. revealing our innermost, most sinister secrets.
Up until I find out who my pen friend is, everything is fun and games.
Emery Xavier. My childhood bully turned king of my town infatuated with hoops, and the guy I am very close to falling in love with.
However, the guidelines were quite clear: the confessions could never, ever be revealed, and we could never know who we were speaking to. Really? Lives would be destroyed by it.
Alright with me. It’s not like Mr. Popular would ever love me back, even if he did discover that his confidant is little ole me.
13. Beneath the Stands
After leaving Sugarlake, Elliot Carson never turned around. Eli is seen as the next big thing in basketball and is a star until an injury ruins his career and leaves him aimless.
He won’t go home, though.
He is unable to.
Instead, eager to put his past behind him, he takes a coaching position at Florida Coast University. However, destiny has different ideas when Becca, the closest friend of his sister, enrolls as a student and, worse yet, takes over as the team manager.
Rebecca Sanger is the town’s disappointment and the daughter of the pastor. She gets cut off and requires a job to continue her education at FCU after she disobeys her family’s requests for her to return home.
Before Eli Carson—the person she despises more than anything in the world—became her new boss, she believed she had everything figured out.
When Becca and Eli are forced together, their animosity intensifies and they begin an affair. But calamity comes swiftly and tears them apart.
Years go by, and Becca is still living a routine existence at home under her parents’ supervision. Becca is thrown into organizing Eli’s and her fiancée’s wedding when they unexpectedly show up.
There is just one issue. Eli is still Becca’s favorite. He despises her as well.
They are compelled to spend the second time of their lives together, and they will discover how flimsy the boundary is between lifetime love and hate.
14. Teardrop Shot
I inquired about his standards for sleeping partners—that’s the PG version. He told me he didn’t do groupies and swore at me. And with that, our friendship had officially begun.
The Seattle Thunder’s starting point guard was Reese Forster. Beautiful. Cocky. adored across the country. In addition, he’s at the basketball training camp for preseason play where I used to work.
Corrected: where I work once more after losing my previous position. and emptied. And it’s normal that I would carry a little bit of luggage. Correct?
I shouldn’t have gotten close to Reese. We weren’t supposed to live together. Furthermore, we definitely ought not to have begun sharing a bed. (Well, we did.)
I’m adorable yet insane. He plays basketball in the NBA. This isn’t a catastrophe waiting to happen, at all.
15. Coach’s Daughter
Basketball players are not dated by Greta Welding. I have a strong objection to that rule because I intend to marry her. Sadly, my future wife is just as gorgeous as she is stubborn, so I’ll have to find other ways to obtain what I want if I want her forever.
I won’t let the fact that her father is my new coach deter me either. He’ll give me Greta first if he wants to win a championship.
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