Following the unprecedented success of Hearted Rivalry, gay sports romances have become a mainstream obsession. But as any women’s sports devotee can tell you, in real life, openly queer women dominate their respective fields, and often fall in love along the way — for proof, look no further than the long list of every confirmed WNBA couple. A league in which one in four players is openly queer is the perfect setting for a lesbian sports romance, and thankfully, Cat Disabato’s new book Rooting Interest delivers just that.
Set at the WNBA’s All-Star weekend, Rooting Interest follows lesbian sports journalist Jennifer Felix, who’s just been yanked off her usual NFL beat to cover the event. After a rocky start interviewing star player Natalie Czapski, the last thing that Felix expects is to find herself taken with the sport… and, naturally, with Czapski herself. Navigating her attraction to a woman who claims to be married to the game while trying to claw her way back towards her dream career is no easy task. But this is a romance novel, so you can rest assured that, angst aside, these two are headed for a happy ending when the final buzzer sounds.
As Disabato recently told Go Mag, although queer romances within the WNBA are nothing new, finding books about them is markedly harder.
“There are actually very few sapphic sports romance books that exist, especially about professional athletes,” she said. “I feel like I’ve read every single one of them.”
If you got into the queer romance genre through Heated Rivalry, you can look forward to the same level of thrillingly high-stakes, steamy romance that the Crave series offered in spades. And if you find that you can’t stop thinking about Felix and Natalie’s love story? Well, you’re in luck. Rooting Interest was published by 831 Stories, a romance imprint that aims to create “book universes” out of their releases. Head over to the company’s website, and you can already find fanfiction based on the book, as well as a bonus epilogue set one year after the central couple’s initial meet cute. There’s even a “sports romance” hat, in case you want to show up at this year’s WNBA All-Stars game and shoot your shot.
Unlike the NHL or other men’s sports leagues, the WNBA’s fandom is very online and very vocally gay. Just as Felix discovers the sapphic joys of the sport, Rooting Interest also uses its enticing central romance to make the case for the queer community that the WNBA offers, both on and off the court.
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