Liz Tomforde Books in Order: Windy City Series Reading Order (2026)
Liz Tomforde books in order is a short list with a lot happening on it right now. The Windy City series wrapped in 2025 with Rewind It Back, its first spinoff, In Her Own League, landed in March 2026, Amazon MGM Studios announced a Windy City TV series in May 2026 and a brand-new series set in Northern California is due in 2027. Below is every Liz Tomforde book in reading order with a spoiler-free hook, which couple and which sport each one follows, where to start, the adaptation news and hotter sports romance picks for when you’ve finished the lot.
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Liz Tomforde Books in Order: Where to Start
Start with Mile High. It’s the first Windy City book, the one that started on TikTok and ended up with a UK publishing deal and a TV option, and it introduces the whole Chicago ecosystem: the hockey team, the flight crew, the siblings and teammates who become the leads of the next four books. Every Windy City novel follows a new couple and can be read alone, but the found family is the point, so reading in order pays off more here than with most sports romance series.
If you want the newest Tomforde first, In Her Own League (March 2026) is a standalone spinoff that works without the series, although it stars a character you’ll have met in Caught Up. If you want to see where she started, the Selfish duet predates the sports books entirely.
The Windy City Series in Order
Five books, one city, three sports. Each one swaps the sport and the couple, and the cast from earlier books stays in the room. Heat is 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ explicit across the series: open door, frequent, with the dirty talk doing a lot of the characterization.
- Mile High (2022, hockey): Evan Zanders is the villain of Chicago hockey and he’s built a brand on it. Stevie is the flight attendant on the team’s private plane and she is unimpressed. They clash at altitude, the line between work and attraction blurs, and the man behind the brand turns out to be the softest person in the book. Tomforde wrote it while working as a flight attendant for a pro hockey team. Our list of books like Mile High has the readalikes.
- The Right Move (2023, basketball): Ryan Shay, Stevie’s brother, has just been named captain and needs the team’s GM to believe he’s settled down. Indy Ivers, his sister’s best friend and his brand-new roommate, agrees to fake-date him. The rigid point guard and the chaotic roommate are the series’ most popular pairing for a reason.
- Caught Up (2023, baseball): Kai is a single dad and the starting pitcher for Chicago’s MLB team, and he does not want help raising his son. His coach hires the coach’s own daughter, award-winning pastry chef Miller Montgomery, as the nanny. She’s leaving Chicago when summer ends. Single dad, nanny, coach’s daughter, a clock on the whole thing.
- Play Along (2024, baseball): Kennedy Kay is the only woman on the staff of the Windy City Warriors and she’s protecting her job through one last season. Then she wakes up in Las Vegas with a ring on her finger and no clear memory of the wedding. Her husband is the team’s shortstop, Isaiah Rhodes, who has had a crush on her for years and suggests they stay married for one season and call it a planned elopement. He falls first, loudly.
- Rewind It Back (2025, hockey): Rio, the hopeless romantic who carried a boombox through the first four books, finally gets his own point of view. He and Hallie grew up next door to each other, were secretly in love as teenagers and haven’t spoken in six years. Now he’s an NHL defenseman in Chicago, she’s working two jobs and barely affording groceries, and she lands the job of lead designer on his home remodel. Second chance with flashbacks, and the series’ most emotional book; Hallie’s caretaking storyline is drawn from Tomforde’s own experience with her mother’s illness. Our books like Rewind It Back guide picks up from here.
In Her Own League: The Windy City Spinoff
- In Her Own League (March 3, 2026, baseball): Reese Remington is the first woman to own a Major League Baseball team, and the public is waiting for her to fail. Emmett Montgomery, her field manager, is a former All-Star who has run the club his own way for years and does not want a new boss. Long road trips turn the sparring into something else. This is Monty, Miller’s father from Caught Up, getting his own book, and it’s billed as a standalone Windy City spinoff. Published by Entangled, with the Windy City heat intact.
The Selfish Series in Order
- Becoming Selfish (2021): Tomforde’s debut, the first half of a contemporary romance duet written before the sports books.
- Staying Selfless (2022): the second Selfish book, published a few months before Mile High.
These two are for completists. The voice readers know from Windy City, the banter, the found family, the athletes with filthy mouths and soft hearts, arrives with Mile High. Read them after the series rather than before it.
All Liz Tomforde Books in Publication Order
- Becoming Selfish (2021)
- Staying Selfless (2022)
- Mile High (2022)
- The Right Move (2023)
- Caught Up (2023)
- Play Along (2024)
- Rewind It Back (2025)
- In Her Own League (2026)
- Cardinal Rule (2027, announced)
What’s Next for Liz Tomforde: Cardinal Rule and the Windy City TV Series
The next book is Cardinal Rule, the first title in a new series called Wilder Woods, listed for March 2027. Tomforde has said the new series is a sports romance set in Northern California, where she grew up, and that Rewind It Back quietly previews the family it follows. The Windy City run itself is finished; Rewind It Back is the final book in the series, and In Her Own League is the standalone coda.
On screen, a Windy City television series is in development at Amazon MGM Studios with Premeditated Productions, announced in May 2026. Alison McDonald is writing and executive producing, with Tomforde among the executive producers. As of October 2026 there is no cast, no shoot date and no premiere date, so the books remain the only way to get Zanders and Stevie. Tomforde’s UK editions come from Hodder, which picked up the series in 2023 after it took off on TikTok.
See In Her Own League on Amazon →
Read Next: Hotter Picks From Fractal Enigma
Windy City readers want pro athletes with public masks and private devotion, women who are very good at their jobs and a Chicago skyline in the background. These Fractal Enigma reads keep all of that, two of them in Chicago, and run the heat to Inferno. For the full hockey shelf, our hockey romance reading guide has every roundup.
Sin Bin — Rowan Black
Tommy Catalano is Chicago’s favorite party boy, the charming center with a smile for every camera, until a viral video catches him punching a fan. The crisis manager hired to save his career proposes a fake relationship, and the secret he has hidden for thirty years starts to surface. The Right Move’s fake-dating engine with a Chicago hockey player, neurodivergent representation and no fade to black.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Dating, Grumpy/Sunshine, Found Family, He Falls First, Neurodivergent Rep
Going Deep — Rowan Black
Sloane Sterling inherited the Chicago Cobras at twenty-nine, the youngest female GM in NFL history, and the press calls her The Machine. She doesn’t date. Then she bails her wide receiver out of jail at two in the morning. If Reese Remington running a baseball club is your favorite part of In Her Own League, this is the same woman-in-charge fantasy with the football season as the clock. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Forbidden Romance, Secret Relationship, Boss/Employee, He Falls First, Touch Her and Die
Return to Contact — Tessa Valehart
Grant Callahan is a veteran hockey captain on a comeback. Elise is the surgeon who rebuilt his shoulder, and the professional boundary between them is the only thing holding. Cleared to play, not cleared to touch her. A silver-fox hero, a woman at the top of her field and a phone call that happens long before the first touch, for readers who loved watching Zanders fall for someone who refuses to be impressed.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Surgeon × Hockey Captain, Forbidden Romance, Injured Athlete, Silver Fox, Praise Kink, He Falls First
Start reading Return to Contact →
Call the Pitch, Call Me Yours — Chase Power
Micah Wynn throws a hundred miles per hour and has one of the worst reputations in baseball. He shakes off signs and challenges coaches, until veteran catcher Darius Cole, thirty-eight to his twenty-six, crouches down and calls a game he can’t argue with. An MM baseball romance for readers who loved the Warriors’ clubhouse and want the secret relationship to be between two teammates. More on our MM baseball romance shelf.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Veteran Catcher / Younger Pitcher, Age Gap, Bisexual Awakening, Praise Kink, Secret Relationship, Teammates to Lovers
Start reading Call the Pitch, Call Me Yours →
FAQ: Liz Tomforde Reading Order
Do you need to read Liz Tomforde’s books in order?
Not strictly. Each Windy City book follows a new couple to its own happy ending. Reading in order is still the better experience, because the leads of later books are introduced earlier (Stevie’s brother Ryan is in Mile High, and Rio and his boombox are in all four books before his own) and the group scenes assume you know everyone.
Which Liz Tomforde book should I read first?
Mile High. If you’d rather start with the fan-favorite couple, The Right Move stands on its own, and if you want baseball, In Her Own League is a true standalone.
How spicy are Liz Tomforde’s books?
Explicit and frequent, around 4 chilis: fully open door with a lot of dirty talk, but not dark and not kink-heavy. Our romance spice levels guide explains the scale; every Fractal Enigma pick above is Inferno.
Is there a Windy City TV show?
One is in development at Amazon MGM Studios with Premeditated Productions, announced in May 2026, with Alison McDonald as writer and executive producer. No cast or release date has been announced as of October 2026. If you’re waiting for it and want another campus-to-pros hockey world in the meantime, our Elle Kennedy books in order guide covers the series behind Prime Video’s Off Campus.
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