What to read after “The Hook Up” by Kristen Callihan: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.
Corey arrives at college in a wheelchair after the accident that ended her hockey plans. Across the hall lives Adam Hartley, a hockey player with a broken leg and secrets of his own. Their friendship grows through shared meals and video games, then shifts into something neither is sure the other wants.
Jamie and Ryan were best friends at hockey camp until Ryan cut him off four years ago. Now they meet again as college players and take summer jobs coaching at the same camp. Working together forces Jamie to question what he wants, while Ryan tries to hide the crush he has carried since that last night.
Pro quarterback Dean, restless and disillusioned with his gilded life, picks up a hitchhiker in a beaver costume on a Colorado highway. Blue, a broke portrait painter running from her past, takes the ride, and their uneasy road trip leads to a Tennessee farmhouse where two guarded people begin to build a life and a makeshift family.
Ballet dancer Bree has been secretly in love with her best friend Nathan, a football star, for years. When a publicity plan calls for Nathan to have a girlfriend, Bree agrees to play the role, risking the friendship she cannot imagine losing.
Vanessa spends years as the assistant to Aiden Graves, a silent, demanding football star, and finally quits. He then turns up at her door to ask her back and follows it with a bigger request: a marriage of convenience that helps his immigration case. The practical bargain and the time it forces them to spend together wear down his reserve.
Olive, a third-year biology PhD student, kisses the first man she sees to convince her friend that her dating life is fine, and it turns out to be the famously severe Professor Adam Carlsen. To keep the story convincing, the two agree to fake a relationship, and their staged arrangement slowly becomes real.
A rink scheduling clash forces competitive figure skater Anastasia to share the ice with the hockey team and its captain, Nate. What starts as irritation grows into friendship and then something more as she chases a national title and he tries to hold his team together.
Casey Hicks, a cheerful young hockey star who talks to everyone, shares a house with Landon Stackhouse, the quiet, prickly backup goalie newly called up to the Calgary team. A season of games, small routines and slow trust turns the unlikely roommates into something neither of them expected.
Dex and Tripp are best friends and teammates on a Las Vegas hockey team, and Tripp has loved Dex for years. A wild night ends with the two of them accidentally married, and they stay wed to manage the publicity, forcing Dex to face feelings he never knew he had.
Jennifer Sylvester is tired of being Green Valley's Banana Cake Queen and of obeying her parents. Desperate for a way out, she tries to outmaneuver Cletus Winston, the town's scheming fixer, and draws him into her plan. Their deal slowly turns into something neither of them expected.
Stevie takes a job as a flight attendant on a hockey team's private plane, determined to keep her distance from players. Evan Zanders, the team's most disliked star, seems equally determined to provoke her. Long road trips and shared flights blur the line between irritation and attraction, even though both have reasons to stay away.
Summer Heyward-Di Laurentis transfers to Briar University and moves in with her older brother's hockey friends, including Colin Fitzgerald, the quiet player she has crushed on since they met a year earlier. Fitz knows she is off limits, but living together makes his resolve harder to keep.
Jasmine's pairs figure-skating career is nearly over when her former partner leaves. The only skater willing to take her on is Ivan Lukov, her longtime rival, and she has no choice but to accept. Months of gruelling shared training force them past years of resentment and into reluctant trust.
Stuck in a hotel elevator together at a wedding, Alexa agrees to be Drew's date for the weekend to avoid awkward questions. The pretend couple keeps meeting up in their two cities, and what began as a convenient arrangement becomes something they are both afraid to name.
Stand-up comic Farley and her grumpy manager Meyer have been best friends and secret crushes for years. When a television opportunity requires a stable image, they fake a relationship, and the line between performance and real love disappears.
Hockey captain Garrett needs a passing grade, and quiet music student Hannah needs the courage to approach her crush. They strike a deal: she tutors him, he pretends to date her. Studying late into the night, the fake arrangement deepens into trust and a real attraction neither of them expected.
In college, Matt and Grace were inseparable neighbours in their NYU dorm who fell in love, until lost contact after graduation pulled them apart. Fifteen years later, a missed-connections post brings Grace back into his life, and the two have one chance to understand what happened and decide whether their story is really over.
Tate Collins moves in with her older brother in San Francisco and meets Miles Archer, his best friend and a reserved airline pilot. Their attraction becomes a no-strings arrangement with strict rules, but Tate wants more while Miles is held back by grief he refuses to discuss.
Gavin Scott's marriage is falling apart. When his wife asks for a divorce, the Nashville second baseman accepts help from a secret club of local athletes who study romance novels. Their advice sends him on a clumsy campaign to win back Thea, but he has to learn why he lost her before grand gestures can work.
Georgie, the party clown her family never takes seriously, has loved her brother's best friend Travis for years. When the injured former baseball star needs a respectable image and she wants to be seen as an adult, they fake a relationship, and the act starts feeling far too real.
Rhett Eaton is the face of professional bull riding until a scandal forces him to accept a minder: his agent's daughter, Summer Hamilton. She has no patience for cowboys, and he resents being watched. Travelling the rodeo circuit together, their arguments soften, and a hotel booking mix-up leaves them with one bed.
Harriet and Wyn broke up months ago but still have not told the friends they spend every summer with. Sharing a room at the Maine cottage for one last week, they pretend to be the happy couple they used to be, hiding their split while old feelings refuse to stay buried.
Rosie Belmont returns to her small town and comes face to face with Ford Grant, her older brother's best friend and the man she has known since childhood. Ford is now a single father and a reluctant billionaire, and the pull between them soon becomes impossible to dismiss.
As teenagers Macy and Elliot spent every weekend trading books in a closet and slowly falling in love, until one night tore them apart. Eleven years later they meet again in San Francisco, and the friendship and heartbreak they buried come rushing back as they decide whether to try once more.
Start with “The Year We Fell Down”, “Him”, “Natural Born Charmer”: they are the closest to “The Hook Up” in tropes and mood. Under each book in the list you will see what exactly it has in common.
How are similar books chosen?
We compare tropes (for “The Hook Up” these are Sports Romance, Grumpy Sunshine, Mutual Pining), genre, plot, era and tone. It is not “readers also bought”; it is similarity in the content itself.
Are there recent books in this list?
Yes. Among the newer ones are “The Year We Fell Down”, “Him”, “Natural Born Charmer”. Switch the “Modern” filter to keep only books from 2000 onward.
