The niche world of hockey romance novels is getting mainstream attention after the wife of an N.H.L. player criticized book fans who she said had made comments and videos on social media about her husband that were “predatory and exploiting.”
Here’s what happened when the worlds of professional sports, romance novels and TikTok collided.
First, there was BookTok.
On TikTok, people share book recommendations and reviews under the hashtag #BookTok, and the community has become a powerful force in publishing: More than 100 authors with large BookTok followings drove $760 million in sales in 2022, a 60 percent increase from 2021, according to Circana BookScan, which tracks print sales.
Romance is a big part of the BookTok universe, as is its popular subgenre hockey romance, which falls under the broader sports-romance category.
Recent hits have included Anna Zabo and L.A. Witt’s “Scoreless Game,” a love story between two longtime friends who are players on the fictional Pittsburgh Griffins. In “Overnight Sensation,” by Sarina Bowen, an office intern for the fictional Brooklyn Bruisers moves in with a player after leaving the condo she lives in with her father, the hockey league’s commissioner.
The success of these books has been credited with driving interest among…
