In the Ring of Love: 18 Best Boxing Romance Books

Beautiful Disaster – Jamie McGuire

Now a major motion picture! The “deliciously intense” (USA TODAY) New York Times bestselling phenomenon follows a good girl drawn to a very bad boy…

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear and has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. With the darkness of her past behind her, she believes her freshman year at college is the start of a new beginning. But then she meets Travis Maddox.

Lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand is exactly what Abby needs to avoid. Intrigued by her resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in his apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

Distance – Luna Mason

From a poor, underground street fighter, I rose to fame as the world heavyweight boxing champion.
No one knew I was also a monster who hunted in the shadows.
Trapped in the mafia until my debts were paid.
A simple deal held my freedom- unify my belts.
It seemed simple until an enchanting British firecracker landed on my lap, knocking me sideways.
Wanting her was dangerous for us both, but I took her anyway.
Leaving me with the choice, fight for my freedom or hers.
When the truth is unmasked, could she still love me?
Would love be enough to battle our demons and come out on top?

Real – Katy Evans

Remington Tate has a bad-boy rep in and out of the ring, a granite-hard body, and a raw, animal power that sends his female fans into a frenzy. But from the moment their eyes lock, the only woman he wants is Brooke Dumas. His desire is pure, all-consuming, and REAL.

Hired to keep his perfect body working like a machine, Brooke finally has the lucrative sports therapy job she’s been dreaming of. But as she tours the dangerous underground fighting circuit with Remy and his team, Brooke’s own body becomes alive with the most primal of hungers. If what happens between Brooke and Remy is ever as light as a flirtation, it quickly becomes an erotic obsession for them both, and promises so much more.

Beat – Amity Cross

A troubled fighter. A disillusioned woman. In the ring, all bets are off.

Renee “Ren” Miller was five when her Dad left to go to the shops and never came back.
Left to grow up with a cancer riddled mother, things have never been easy for a teenager who had to be wise beyond her years. Then one day they lose the battle and she’s all alone.
Now twenty-two, Ren reluctantly goes to find her estranged father. He owns the down and out boxing studio, Beat, and Ren finds herself drawn to the ring. She thrives on learning a new way of fighting a life that kept kicking her down…instead of struggling against the current, she kicks it right between the legs.

The Hurricane – R.J. Prescott

Emily McCarthy is living in fear of a dark and dangerous past. A gifted mathematician, she is little more than a hollow, broken shell, trying desperately to make ends meet long enough to finish her degree.

Through an unlikely friendship with the aging, cantankerous owner of an old boxing gym, Em is thrown into the path of the most dangerous man that she has ever met.

Cormac “the Hurricane” O’Connell is cut, tattooed and dangerous. He is a lethal weapon with no safety and everyone is waiting for the misfire. He’s never been knocked out before, but when he meets Em he falls, HARD. Unlike any other girl he’s ever met, she doesn’t want anything from him. Just being around her makes him want to be a better person.

They are polar opposites who were never meant to find each other, but some things are just worth the fight.

Down and Out – Kelley R. Martin

A troubled girl with a dark past struggling to keep her head above water.
A compassionate underground fighter with a sweet, filthy mouth who brings her to her knees.

When I walk into Declan’s gym, I’m desperate. Homeless. Hungry. It’s fall in South Boston, and the temperatures are steadily dropping. Sleeping in my car won’t be an option for much longer, so when I see a help wanted sign in a rundown gym, I go inside and ask the two guys sparring in the ring for the manager. Imagine my shock when the shirtless guy—the gorgeous one covered in tattoos who’s seriously making me reconsider my recent vow of celibacy—comes into the manager’s office and says he owns the place.

Causing Havoc – Lori Foster

 
Sexy, sculpted extreme fighter Dean “Havoc” Connor has knee-melting good looks—and thick skin. But not from his brutal sport’s enclosed rings. Orphaned and torn from his sisters as a boy, he has no family. That is, until he gets a letter revealing how much the once-little girls want him back in Harmony, Kentucky.
 
To stop his sister from marrying a man as sleazy as he is wealthy, Dean finds himself teaming up with her pretty-but-smart-mouthed friend Eve—who’s heard of “Havoc’s” reputation and doesn’t need some hunk trampling on her heart. Now all Dean has to do is protect his sisters, win Eve over, and expose a devious criminal. And he thought winning the heavyweight cage fighting belt was hard…

Down for the Count – Christine Bell

Outmatched – Kristen Callihan & Samantha Young

What happens when a boxer finds chemistry with a geek?

Parker Brown can’t believe she needs to hire a fake boyfriend. When she landed her dream job in renewable energy, she thought she’d be entering a world at the forefront of progressive thinking. But the head boss prefers to promote employees who are “settled.” Thankfully, she’s found the perfect candidate, a fellow intellectual looking for some quick cash. What Parker gets is his protective big brother—Rhys Morgan. The tall, muscled ex-boxer with a foul mouth shows up just as her boss does, and now she’s stuck with the manipulative jerk.

Fighting Silence – Aly Martinez

I’ve always been a fighter. With parents who barely managed to stay out of jail and two little brothers who narrowly avoided foster care, I became skilled at dodging the punches life threw at me. Growing up, I didn’t have anything I could call my own, but from the moment I met Eliza Reynolds, she was always mine. I became utterly addicted to her and the escape from reality we provided each other. Throughout the years, she had boyfriends and I had girlfriends, but there wasn’t a single night that I didn’t hear her voice.

You see, meeting the love of my life at age thirteen was never part of my plan. However, neither was gradually going deaf at the age of twenty-one.

CROW – A. Zavarelli

When I walked into his club looking for a job…
I had no intention of capturing the attention of the notorious Lachlan Crow.
His reputation sends a shiver down most spines. Now the Irish mafia overlord is my new boss.
He doesn’t trust me, and I don’t trust him. But it doesn’t matter because I have a job to do. I can’t let him distract me, even if he burns hotter than the sun.
And all those growly commands and dark looks he tosses around? I won’t let them get to me.
He’s used to everyone falling in line and obeying his every command, but he doesn’t know why I really needed this job.
Lying to him was supposed to be easy. Except the longer I’m near him, the harder it gets.
It doesn’t feel like a game anymore because now my heart’s on the line. And when the web I’ve spun begins to unravel, it could destroy us both.
Now Lachlan has a choice to make.
Let me go forever…
Or burn his world to save me.

Their Broken Legend – Nicci Harris

My peers think I’m a tramp.

The District believes I’m the flawless youngest daughter of a tycoon.

Neither is true. And I’m about to have my world, my house, my rose-coloured glasses, and all, stripped from beneath my Jimmy Choo heels.

With one flickering light at the end of the tunnel…

Mine – Katy Evans

In the international bestseller REAL, the unstoppable bad boy of the Underground fighting circuit finally met his match. Hired to keep him in prime condition, Brooke Dumas unleashed a primal desire in Remington “Riptide” Tate as vital as the air he breathes . . . and now he can’t live without her.

Brooke never imagined she would end up with the man who is every woman’s dream, but not all dreams end happily ever after, and just when they need each other the most, she is torn away from his side. Now with distance and darkness between them, the only thing left is to fight for the love of the man she calls MINE.

Fighting for Flight – JB Salsbury

Raven

All I wanted was a simple, quiet life.

Then I met him.

Jonah Slade is my polar opposite. I fly under the radar, he’s a celebrity. I’m a good girl mechanic, he’s the UFLs bad boy. We make no sense together.

And none of that matters when I’m in his arms.

Our differences aren’t the problem, though. We could overcome those.

But fate (and my evil father) seems to have other plans for us…

Ruin – Samantha Towle

And the new heavyweight champion of the world is…

Those are the words that Zeus Kincaid has been waiting to hear since he first put on a pair of boxing gloves. He just didn’t think they would come with a tragedy that would change how he viewed the sport forever.

Cameron Reed was in her second year at Juilliard when her childhood sweetheart, Zeus Kincaid, walked away from her. A few months later, Cam realized that she would never fulfill her dream of dancing for the New York City Ballet.

Now working as a dancer in an upscale club in Manhattan, Cam is brought face-to-face with the man she once loved. And it’s her turn to walk away from him.

After five years of missing Cam, Zeus isn’t prepared to let her go again. But when he finds himself standing on her doorstep the next morning, things don’t go quite as he expected . . .

Fighter’s Heart – Alexa Rivers

I hate everything about MMA bad boy Jase Rawlins, and now the biggest promotion of my life depends on me convincing the world he’s reformed.

After breaking up with my violent ex, I want nothing else to do with professional fighters. Unfortunately, I have to turn my ex’s biggest rival into a media darling, or else I could lose my dream job as a publicist.

Jase’s infuriating attitude pushes all of my buttons. The more I get to know him, the more I wonder if I’ve gotten him wrong… or if he’s playing me.

Our chemistry is blazing hot, but if we give in to the attraction, I could lose my job, and Jase could lose his freedom.

The Boxing Baroness – Minerva Spencer

A Hidden Gem: Historical Boxing Romance Books!

Of questionable birth, but made for greatness, the Regency-era heroines in Minerva Spencer’s thrilling new historical romance series possess both clever minds and unusual skills that enable them to go head-to-head—and heart to heart—with the best of men, including those of the ton . . .

Magnetic and educated, Marianne Simpson has the manner of a lady and the looks of a lover, not a fighter. Neither of which explains her occupation as a boxer in her uncle’s circus, Farnham’s Fantastical Female Fayre. Nonetheless, when St. John Powell, the exquisitely handsome Duke of Staunton, begins turning up at her shows, she finds herself dangerously distracted by the powerful peer’s mysterious presence. With her safety at stake, Marianne’s days in the ring are numbered. But how long can she fight her attraction to the man the ton calls Lord Flawless?

Noah – Elizabeth Reyes

Veronica Cruz has been through hell and back. After disconnecting with the world two years ago to be at the side of her dying mother, she’s left alone, unemployed, overweight, and feeling a decade older than her twenty-eight years. When her best friend coaxes her into joining the local gym to ditch her depression and rejuvenate her life, she meets Noah. Assigned to help Veronica lose weight, Noah is everything she expected a young trainer to be—perfectly chiseled, supportive and motivating. Add to that, he’s incredibly sexy. He’s everything she’s ever looked for in a man. What she least expected was for him to fall for her, but he has. There’s just one glaring problem: Noah is eight years younger.