Involving Sports in YA Novels

 Although some novels focus exclusively on the main character's involvement in a sport, others only include sports as part of the characters' lives. However, the author still must become familiar with aspects of the sport, including rules, player conditioning, competitions, etc. to the extent that the portrayal is believable.  Frequently, the author was an athlete herself, but others must research the sporting elements of the story. In this month's novels a variety of sports are accurately portrayed.  In Lights Out by Jenni Fletcher, Maisie Evans, a former competitive mountain biker and aspiring sports psychologist, follows Giovanni Bauer, a Formula-1 car racer as he competes in the fast-paced world of F1 racing. Meet Me Under the Lights by Cassie Miller focuses on a competition between two baseball teams. Eliza Crowley finds her grandfather's team pitted against a new team owned by Reed Fulton's grandfather.  Reed, an up and coming pitcher, has been recruited by his grandfather to lead his team to victory. At stake is the baseball stadium the families once co-owned.  Love on Ice by Sarah Ney has captured the hockey romance trend in literature in a young adult novel. Harper Conrad catches hockey star Easton Westman in the middle of pulling off a prank and agrees to help him if he will take her to prom. 

In Lights Out former mountain biker Maisie Evans is now a sports psychology student, after an accident ended her biking career.  When she meets Giovanni Bauer, a Formula-1 racer with a party-boy reputation, she accepts his proposition to be his fake-girlfriend, which will benefit them both.  He will clean up his reputation, and she will get an inside look at the fast-paced world of F1 racing. As they spend time together, their friendship blossoms into a romance.  Riveting accounts of races, as well as bad decisions after accident trauma and the pressure of extreme sports, make this a real page-turner. The author identifies herself as an F1 romance writer.  Having grown up in Indianapolis and watching the Indy 500 each year, I was particularly enthralled with the highly detailed racing competitions.

Meet Me Under the Lights is an homage to Romeo and Juliet. In the story the Fultons and the Crowleys are two North Carolina families who are feuding over a baseball stadium that the families formerly co-owned. Then the Crowleys bought it outright, after the Fultons  put hours of labor in running it. Now the rival families have struck a deal—whichever team wins this year's championship wins the baseball field.  Star pitcher Reed Fulton comes back to help his grandfather’s new baseball team win the bet against the Crowley's team.   Eliza Crowley has returned home for the summer to do the lighting for the community theater production of Romeo and Juliet. Since her grandfather owns the Crowley Cardinals, she is rooting for them to win. But when she and Reed, who were childhood friends, reconnect, they fall in love. Like Romeo and Juliet, Eliza and Reed’s attraction to each other is forbidden, but cannot be denied. Each alternating chapter told from Eliza and Reed’s points of view begins with a quote from baseball and theater icons, giving insight into the emotions the young lovers are experiencing. Reed's struggles with the training and injuries that pitchers experience are very believable. 

Hockey romances are currently very popular, partly due to the combination of a sport with violent action and the alpha male players becoming vulnerable in love. In Love on Ice Harper Conrad catches hockey star Easton Westerman in her back yard after he succumbs to a bet and steals her school’s mascot costume. She agrees to help him complete the dare and keep quiet, if he’ll take her to prom. Easton, who fears losing his college scholarship if he's caught breaking the law, agrees.  As the business transaction begins to feel more like a romance, Harper and Easton’s relationship weathers ups and downs as prom approaches.  Easton's hockey career plays a small role in the story.  There are a few practices and discussion of his college scholarship, but there are not a lot of detailed hockey competitions. However, the fun banter and alternating perspectives make this an entertaining read. 

Second Chance Romance

 As Valentine's Day is right around the corner, it's a perfect month to review second chance romances. This is a trope where characters, who shared a romantic connection in the past, get another opportunity to rekindle their relationship and find a hopeful future together. We've Hit Turbulence by Jessica L. Cozzi finds Olive Austin, who is on a plane to Hawaii to visit her current boyfriend, seated next to her former boyfriend and best friend.  In All We Once Had by Katie Upperman, Piper, who lives with her older sister and guardian since their parents' death, reconnects with Henry, a boy she had a romantic night with three years in the past.  Love Me Tomorrow by Emiko Jean is the first book in a duology about a girl who is getting emails from someone in the future saying he's always loved her.  She has three possible candidates for a second chance romance, but the correspondent won't be revealed until the sequel.

In We've Hit Turbulence Olive Austin finds herself seated next to her ex-boyfriend/best friend Tyler, when she is flying to Hawaii to surprise her current boyfriend Jack, who is in college there.  She is worried that her relationship with Jack is in trouble and finds out she's right when she walks in on him and his new love interest.  She calls Tyler, who is visiting his brother and sister-in-law, and they invite her to stay with them. She agrees to spending the day with Tyler before she heads home. Although she is still in love with Tyler, she thinks their relationship is doomed to failure because she is a planner and he is a free spirit.  He is determined to convince her that they are fated to be together. 

All We Once Had focuses on Piper and her sister Tati, who is her guardian since their parents died.  They couldn't be more different.  Tati, who had to turn her life upside down to move to Florida from Boston, finds Piper to be a troublemaker and a drain on her energy.  When they are conflicting, which is frequently, Piper escapes to the pool at their apartment complex.  There she runs into Henry, a boy she met at the same pool three years previously.  They shared a kiss and a walk along the beach, and then he disappeared.  Henry has returned to spend the summer with his dad, whom he barely knows. As they get to know each other, Henry wonders if Piper just might be his destiny.

Love Me Tomorrow is the first book in a speculative romance duology. It introduces Emma Nakamura-Thatcher who, after her parents' divorce, wishes to know that true love exists.  She receives an email from the future saying, "I have loved you from the beginning." She decides that it is from either her best friend and neighbor Theo, her music mentor Ezra, or a rich cleaning client's son Colin.  Although Emma is a violin prodigy, she is planning to forsake a music education to take over her arthritic mother's cleaning business and help with her grandfather.  Her best friend Delia counsels her to not only ignore the prophecy, but to also pursue a music career.  In the sequel we will presumably find out with which love interest she will get a second chance. 
 

What's New in Young Adult Novels? 2025

 

The latest revision of my book What's New in Young Adult Novels? and Ideas for Classroom Use 2025 is now available. Just click on the blue book icon in the upper right corner of this page and it will take you to Lulu.com where you can purchase this book.  I would again like to thank NetGalley for providing ARCs of many of the new young adult novels that I review. Before I leave the books I reviewed in 2025, I would like to recommend mysteries by three well-known young adult authors.  When We Were Monsters by Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places) is a psychological thriller about eight students at an elite boarding school who are chosen for a storytelling workshop with a visiting author, who happens to have attended the workshop when a friend was murdered.  The author gained fame and fortune by writing about the murder. Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley (Firekeeper's Daughter) tells the story of a Native American girl whose adoptive father hid her heritage from her. When she is injured in a pipe bombing right as she is leaving town, she attempts to uncover his motives during her recovery.  We Fell Apart by e. Lockhart is the third book in the We Were Liars series. In this book a young woman flies to Martha's Vineyard to meet her father who is a famous artist and to accept his painting of her that's worth millions. 

In When We Were Monsters Effy and Arlo, who have a messy romantic history, and six other students from their boarding school are chosen for an exclusive storytelling workshop with a famous writer, director, actress, Meredith Graffam. One will be chosen to have their story filmed, produced or published. Graffam attended the workshop when she was a budding artist and her best friend, who attended with her, was murdered. She wrote about the experience and brought the killer to justice. However, Graffam insists that good writers are risk takers and challenges them to complete life threatening tasks.  The students must decide if the reward is worth losing their lives. As competitors are supposedly sent home one by one, the remaining students begin to realize that there is more to the story than it would seem.

Sisters in the Wind explores the foster-care system and the Indian Child Welfare Act. After her father dies, Ojibwe Lucy Smith spends the rest of her childhood in the foster system. When Potawatomi former FBI attorney Jamie approaches Lucy at work during her diner shift, claiming to help reconnect people with their Indigenous heritage, she rejects his offer. But after she’s injured in a suspicious pipe bomb explosion while trying to leave town, she’s forced to rely on Jamie and his friend Daunis during her recovery. Alternating chapters between the present and her childhood shed light on the fact that her father hid her native American heritage from her. She should have been protected by the Indian Child Welfare Act. The failings of the foster care system, in particular, the illegal baby factories that many group homes facilitate are revealed. 

We Fell Apart introduces gamer Matilda Klein, who receives a letter from world-renowned artist Kinsley Cello, who is supposedly her father. Her self-absorbed mother has just left for Mexico with her latest boyfriend, and Matilda is just counting down the days until she leaves for college, so she picks up and flies to Martha’s Vineyard to meet Kinsley. When she arrives, she is greeted by Kinsley’s wife June, their son and Matilda’s half brother Meer, Brock, a former child actor, and Tatum, who seems to be holding the motley group together, but no Kingsley. Matilda has been lured there by the promise of a Kinsley painting of her worth millions. As she whiles away the summer, she begins to learn secrets about her father that could change everything.