Play Along

The Windy City series is an interconnected sports romance series that features stories about athletes finding love while navigating personal challenges and professional pressures. Each book in the series stands alone but is also thematically linked to the others, creating a shared world that is enriched by recurring characters, overlapping relationships, and a vibrant professional sports environment. Modern sports romance is a popular and evolving subgenre within romance novels. Set against the high-stakes world of professional athletics, this genre features intense competition, emotional depth, and steamy romance plots. Writers in this genre often combine the excitement of sports with realistic personal struggles to create multilayered stories that emphasize the importance of personal growth and resilience as well as love. Common topics include teamwork, the pressure to perform, emotional availability, and resilience. Athletes are typically portrayed as intense on the surface yet emotionally complex, and the genre typically explores the human struggles and vulnerabilities hidden beneath professionals’ public-facing façades.

Sports settings inherently add dramatic energy to romance, as the physical demands of athletic performance combine with the inevitable camaraderie and team rivalries to create a rich environment for storytelling. Additionally, sports romances often examine the physical and emotional dedication and sacrifices needed to succeed in competitive environments, resulting in strong narratives that examine the effects of ambition on work/life balance. A defining feature of contemporary sports romance can be found in its exploration of personal growth, as protagonists and secondary characters face multiple challenges both on and off the field. Whether they are navigating family dynamics, overcoming emotional trauma, or finding balance in high-pressure careers, the characters discover that their problems transcend their stats on the field, court, or arena. In Play Along, Kennedy’s struggles with vulnerability and Isaiah’s recurring anxieties spill over into their professional lives. In this and other examples, sports romances feature characters who must confront a range of conflicts and embrace the healing power of love, which is a cornerstone of the subgenre.

Another hallmark of sports romance is the theme of found family, given that the existing camaraderie among teammates plays a pivotal role in individual development. True to this pattern, Liz Tomforde’s Windy City series creates interconnected storylines in which secondary characters and recurring figures help to drive the nuances of her novels. For example, the first novel in the series, Mile High, focuses on Zander and Stevie’s relationship, while The Right Move features Ryan and Indy’s connection, and Caught Up tells the story of Kai and Miller’s romance. Each of these characters makes an appearance in Play Along, becoming part of Isaiah’s inner circle (and eventually Kennedy’s). Isaiah’s teammates and family also provide crucial moments of comic relief and emotional support, highlighting the beauty of found family.

Ultimately, the sports romance genre offers a blend of escapism and realism that appeals to a wide range of readers. Tomforde, along with other contemporary sports romance writers such as Elle Kennedy and Hannah Grace, integrates relevant social issues into her work, adding a sense of realism by crafting characters who struggle with everyday problems and inhibitions. Mile High’s heroine, Stevie Shay, is plus-sized and deals with negative thoughts about her body. In accordance with this pattern, Play Along features Isaiah’s struggles with anxiety and Kennedy’s fight for gender equality in the workplace, and these conflicts align with the growing demand for representation in contemporary romance as the push for inclusivity attracts a broader audience. Sports romances therefore focus on providing engaging love stories, dynamic characters, and narratives that are grounded in authenticity and emotional depth (Mathers, Gemma, et al. “Sports Romance.” The Publishing Post, 16 Aug. 2023).