Books Like The Comeback King: 12 MM Football & Secret-Relationship Romances to Read Next (2026)
Books like The Comeback King are what MM sports readers have been hunting for since June 17, 2026, when Riley Hart launched her Necessary Roughness series with a football romance about grief, secrecy and the one person you’re not supposed to want. It has more than 2,500 ratings on Goodreads in four months, a second book, The Lockdown Mann, set in the same world, and a premise that hurts in the best way: a star who lost the man he loved, and that man’s little brother, who has loved him for years. This list covers the football romances, the secret-relationship sports books and the grief-and-healing love stories that match it, with heat levels on every pick, plus four Inferno football romances from our own shelf.
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What Makes The Comeback King Work
Hunter King was drafted as one of the few openly bi players in pro football, and three years ago his boyfriend, Ellis Blake, died in a horrible accident. Hunter is still playing, but the drive is gone and the guilt is everywhere. Ellis’s father is Coach Blake, the man who mentored Hunter like a son. Ellis’s younger brother is Lucas, a photographer, the family black sheep and a man who has had a crush on Hunter since they were teenagers. When the two reconnect, what starts as shared grief turns into a secret relationship that neither the team, the media nor Coach Blake can know about.
Readers tag it dead boyfriend’s brother, friends to lovers, secret relationship, grief and healing and sports romance, and most of them mention reading it in one sitting. The steam shows up early, and one plot turn, Lucas sleeping with someone else partway through, split reviewers, so go in knowing. The best readalikes keep the football, the secrecy or the grief, and ideally two out of three.
More Riley Hart Football Romance
The Lockdown Mann by Riley Hart
Necessary Roughness book two, also out in 2026, stays in the same football world with a new couple and the same collision of public pressure, private longing and old baggage. If The Comeback King was your first Riley Hart, read this next before you go backlist.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See The Lockdown Mann on Amazon →
Rookie Move by Riley Hart and Neve Wilder
Garrett McRae is drafted by the Denver Rush as a rookie wide receiver, onto the team his older brother Houston used to play for. Houston asks his best friend, quarterback Warner Ramsey, to look out for him. What follows is a friends-with-benefits arrangement that refuses to stay casual. The Comeback King’s family-line tension (falling for someone tied to a person you love) played lighter, with snark and low angst. First in the Playing for Keeps series.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Rookie Move on Amazon →
The Endgame by Riley Hart
An out senator and a closeted NFL star meet on impulse and keep finding their way back to each other, while distance, football and public scrutiny make every stolen night a risk. The secret-relationship half of The Comeback King, with a political edge. First in Hart’s Atlanta Lightning series.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See The Endgame on Amazon →
The End Zone by Riley Hart
Atlanta Lightning book two. After his divorce, Jeremy forms an unlikely friendship with Atlanta quarterback Darren, and it turns into a first-time romance neither of them planned for. Starting over after a loss is the Comeback King’s whole emotional arc, and this one does it in a quieter, more grown-up key.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See The End Zone on Amazon →
Books Like The Comeback King: Grief and Healing
Fourth and Long by Quinn Ward
The closest match on this list for grief plus football. Tanner watched football take his father apart. Seth, his roommate, is a senior football player who wants to go pro. Tanner falls for him anyway, and the book is about whether he can love someone the sport might also take. Roommates to lovers, slow burn and hurt and comfort, published in February 2026.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️ Open door
See Fourth and Long on Amazon →
You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian
New York, 1960. Eddie O’Leary is a shortstop having the worst season of his life: homesick, in a slump and hated by his own clubhouse. Mark Bailey is the arts writer reluctantly assigned to cover him, a widower in everything but name, still grieving a partner he could never acknowledge in public and unwilling to be anyone’s secret again. Grief, a ballplayer and the cost of hiding, with Sebastian’s warmth. Our books like You Should Be So Lucky list has more.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️ Mild
See You Should Be So Lucky on Amazon →
Common Goal by Rachel Reid
Eric Bennett is 41, playing his final season and ending a sixteen-year marriage. He starts dating men for the first time with help from Kyle Swift, a 25-year-old bartender, and the friends-with-benefits arrangement turns into something much harder to walk away from. A second act at the end of a career, which is exactly where Hunter is standing when The Comeback King opens.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Common Goal on Amazon →
If the Secret Relationship Was the Best Part
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov are hockey’s two biggest stars and public rivals, and for years they meet in hotel rooms nobody knows about. The Crave and HBO Max series turned it into a word-of-mouth hit in December 2025, and it’s still the benchmark for MM secret-relationship sports romance. Hunter and Lucas hide for family reasons; Shane and Ilya hide from everyone.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Heated Rivalry on Amazon →
The Long Game by Rachel Reid
Ten years into Shane and Ilya’s relationship, with Ilya now playing in Ottawa, the sneaking around has stopped being romantic and started to hurt. The sequel is about what secrecy costs once you’re past the thrill of it, which is the question Hunter and Lucas run into by the back half of their book. A third Shane and Ilya novel, Unrivaled, is scheduled for June 1, 2027. See our books like The Long Game list for more.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See The Long Game on Amazon →
Game Changer by Rachel Reid
New York Admirals star Scott Hunter is in a slump and in the closet when he meets Kip, a grad student working at a smoothie shop. Kip loves him and starts to resent being hidden. A pro athlete whose public image has a hole in it the exact shape of the man he loves, with a tender, hard-won ending.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Game Changer on Amazon →
Role Model by Rachel Reid
Troy Barrett is traded to the Ottawa Centaurs after a scandal and a breakup, closeted and miserable. Harris Drover is the team’s out, relentlessly cheerful social media manager, determined to get him smiling. A man rebuilding his reputation and his life at the same time, and the book that the second season of the Heated Rivalry series is adapting, with Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie as Harris and Troy.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Role Model on Amazon →
Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy
Ryan Wesley and Jamie Canning were best friends and summer roommates at a Lake Placid hockey camp until one bet and one night ended the friendship. Four years later they’re back at camp as coaches, Wes headed to the NHL, Jamie finally figuring out he’s bisexual. Years of unspoken longing on one side, the same as Lucas’s, and a reunion that cracks it open.
Heat: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ Explicit
See Him on Amazon →
Read Next: Hotter Picks From Fractal Enigma
If The Comeback King left you wanting more football and less fade, our Chase Power and Jace Wilder shelves run on the same things: big men under public pressure, secrets in the locker room and comebacks that cost something. Every pick is Inferno heat with a guaranteed HEA. More in our MM sports romance roundup.
Home Field Advantage — Chase Power
An NFL comeback and a man from the past, which is The Comeback King’s whole recipe. Quarterback Dane Archer takes the hit, smiles for the cameras and wins anyway, until his knee comes apart on national television. The only physical therapist his surgeon trusts is the man Dane kissed and abandoned at eighteen. One guesthouse, a small town and very thin rules. Available at all major retailers.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Second Chance, Injured Athlete, Physical Therapist × Patient, Closeted Hero, Coming Out, Comeback Story
Start reading Home Field Advantage →
Illegal Contact — Chase Power
“No one can know about this. Ever.” Derek Shaw is the captain: thirty, ten years in the league, everything earned through discipline and image, and he has never once crossed the line. Tyler Knox is the new wide receiver, twenty-four, fast, fearless and fixated on the one man he shouldn’t want. A secret in a locker room with no locks. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Teammates to Lovers, Secret Relationship, Closeted Captain, He Falls First, Possessive Hero, Coming Out
Start reading Illegal Contact →
The Tight End Is Flexible — Chase Power
At six-foot-six, openly gay rookie tight end Malachi Reed is used to being watched, and he won’t be treated as a headline instead of a weapon. Especially not by Rafael Vega, the controlled, silver-templed veteran quarterback who personally demanded the Phoenix Firebirds draft him. His quarterback says “perfect,” and Malachi’s whole body believes it. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Bi Awakening, Veteran/Rookie, Age Gap, Secret Relationship, Praise Kink, Public Declaration
Start reading The Tight End Is Flexible →
Hands On — Jace Wilder
For the healing half of The Comeback King. Marcus Reed is a former NFL linebacker, the largest and quietest man in any room, checked into ninety days of residential rehab. Julian is the Korean-American physical therapy tech whose hands are supposed to put his body back together, and instead they open a closet door that has been shut for nineteen years. A long, slow, hurt and comfort romance with dual POV. Available at all major retailers.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Closeted Athlete, Patient/Therapist, Hurt/Comfort, Touch Starved, Coming Out, Bisexual Awakening
FAQ: Books Like The Comeback King
Do you need to read Necessary Roughness in order?
No. Each book follows its own couple in a shared football world, but starting with The Comeback King introduces the team and families before The Lockdown Mann.
Which Riley Hart book should I read first?
The Comeback King for grief and longing, Rookie Move (with Neve Wilder) for something lighter, or The Endgame if you want a closeted NFL star and a secret.
How spicy is The Comeback King?
Steamy, with explicit scenes that start early in the book. Our spice levels guide explains the chili ratings used above.
Is The Comeback King being adapted?
No adaptation has been announced, and it isn’t connected to the upcoming Glen Powell comedy film of the same name, which is about a country singer. If you want MM sports on screen now, the Heated Rivalry series is the one to watch.
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