Hardballers — A 5-Book Contemporary Baseball Romance Series

HARDBALLERS

A Contemporary Baseball Romance Series

5-Book Series • Alternating First Person • Five HEAs + World Series Finale

“Five Austin Outlaws. Five women who were not supposed to fall for ballplayers. One clubhouse where a wedding ring, a paragraph 7.4, and a ninth inning will, by every honest accounting, change the architecture of a team.”

The Austin Outlaws are the kind of baseball team a sportswriter spends her twenties telling you about and her thirties trying to forget. Five seasons. Five men in the clubhouse who, by their own count, have never let a woman in. Five women who, by their own count, were never going to be the woman in question.

The Hardballers series is one continuous five-year arc told in the punchy, deliberate register of a heroine who counts the things the world is trying to take from her. Every book stands alone. Every book carries the team forward — each couple turning up at the next one’s wedding, ER, or press conference, with Britta holding the microphone and the front office holding the contracts.

Five rings. Five championships. Five women who, by their own count, did not check the mirror on the way out.

Book One — Curve Ball (Reagan & Cole)

“She writes the column that decides his contract. He throws the first pitch she is paid to call. Neither of them, by any count, is going to write what happened in the bullpen tunnel.”

Curve Ball · Cole

Reagan Sloane is the kind of sportswriter who counts. Innings, strikeouts, the number of times a thirty-six-year-old veteran pitcher has, in his career, publicly answered a woman by her first name.

Cole Maddox is the kind of pitcher who does not, by his own count, answer reporters at all — until Reagan walks into the press box at the Austin Outlaws’ season opener with a list of questions he has, for fourteen years, refused to be asked.

What starts in a bullpen tunnel at 11:42 p.m. on a Tuesday in April ends, by the count of Reagan’s editor, with a column she cannot honestly write. Cole’s contract is up for renegotiation in October. Reagan’s column is the only column in Texas the Outlaws front office reads twice. By August, by the count of one stick turning positive in a magazine bathroom, the line between her work and his career has become the line between her body and his last name — and the recusal letter she sends will, by every honest accounting, cost her the job she built her name on.

Workplace Forbidden • Older-Hero Captain • Alternating First Person (Reagan & Cole) • HEA

Book Two — Foul Tip (Lilah & Theo)

“She cooks for the team. He catches for the team. The rainout in May is the small kitchen window neither of them, by any count, was supposed to walk through.”

Foul Tip · Theo

Lilah Greaves is the new team chef — hired in April of Year 2, fresh off a long, quiet, careful divorce from a man who, by the count of the cardboard box in her kitchen, took everything except the knives.

Theo Hartigan is the Outlaws’ All-Star catcher, thirty-four years old, the kind of veteran who, by his own count, signs one-year extensions because he is too superstitious to say the word retirement out loud. He arrives at the kitchen window at 11:08 a.m. on a Tuesday in May. He arrives again at 11:06 a.m. the next day.

By the count of one rainout in May and one positive test on a Sunday in August six days before the trade deadline, Lilah has become the woman Theo cannot publicly acknowledge without exposing her to the same data access her job depends on. He withdraws. He owns the lie. He stands at a microphone at Britta’s press conference and says the only sentence that protects them both: he is finishing this season, and after the World Series, his last game is his last game.

Workplace Forbidden • Retiring-Catcher Hero • Alternating First Person (Lilah & Theo) • HEA

Book Three — Stolen Base (Sloan & Diego)

“She owns a flower shop with a back door and a hard stop at eleven. He is the youngest infielder in the league. The bar she walks into is, by every count, the wrong bar to walk into for either of them.”

Stolen Base · Diego

Sloan Briggs is thirty-one years old, the financially independent owner of a small east-Austin flower shop with locked doors after seven, and a list of rules she has, by the count of three years of being followed, written down.

Diego Ramirez is twenty-three, the youngest starting infielder the Austin Outlaws have ever sent to spring training, the kid Theo Hartigan has, by his own admission, taken on as a mentor. The bar Sloan walks into in late June is the one Theo told Diego he could find her at — under explicit rules.

What Sloan and Diego do not, by their own count, plan for is the voicemail Diego sends her ex without consulting her — a three-month sentence Diego added to a problem Sloan was already managing. The press conference that follows is Britta’s; the second microphone is Sloan’s, by her own request. She takes one question. She names herself the one in the room. And Diego, watching her from the side door, is logged that week as the team’s next captain-in-training.

Age Gap • Mentor-Channel Introduction • Alternating First Person (Sloan & Diego) • HEA

Book Four — Save Situation (Mari & Beau)

“She is the team’s senior publicist. He is the All-Star relief pitcher with a $60M contract and a paragraph 7.4 morality clause. Her daughter has a heart condition. The line between them is, by every count, the line that ends his career.”

Save Situation · Beau

Mari Reyes is the Outlaws’ publicist, a single mother whose five-year-old daughter Lulu has, since the diagnosis, lived with a cardiologist’s number on the fridge.

Beau Callahan is the All-Star relief pitcher in the final year of a $60M contract with a paragraph 7.4 morality clause Britta has, by her own count, read aloud in the office at five a.m. so nobody on this team can pretend they did not know.

What follows is the most legally textured book in the series. Beau goes on paid administrative leave by signed letter. An attorney walks Mari through a ninety-minute Paragraph 7.4 investigation interview. Beau forfeits $60M, takes a $12M structured buyout, walks into a nine-day retirement window, and pivots to executive director of a children’s-hospital foundation. The morality-clause amendment that follows is signed by the GM, the HR director, and the team owner.

Single Mom • Morality-Clause Forbidden • Alternating First Person (Mari & Beau) • HEA

Book Five — Ninth Inning (Iris & Wes) • Series Finale

“She has worked on his shoulder for nine years. He has worn his wedding ring on a chain under his uniform for three. The trainer’s room in Chicago is, by every honest accounting, the room neither of them was supposed to leave together.”

Ninth Inning · Wes

Iris Calloway is the Austin Outlaws’ senior massage therapist — thirty-six, divorced, the woman who has known the architecture of Wes Whitlock’s right rotator cuff for nine years.

Wes Whitlock is the Outlaws’ captain, a thirty-seven-year-old first baseman, a widower who has worn his late wife Cassie’s wedding ring on a chain under his jersey every game since he came back from bereavement leave.

What follows is a slow-burn nine-year reckoning. Iris recuses, signs the conflict-of-interest disclosure, and walks into a hotel bar where Wes takes the ring off the chain for one night and then keeps it in his pocket. When a pregnancy test forces a question she had given up asking, Wes pulls away — and Iris sends a resignation letter at 5:14 a.m. and drives to her sister’s beach house in Galveston. Wes drives to Bandera first, to ask Cassie for courage, not permission. Then eight hours to Galveston, where he arrives at 4:02 a.m. and is, by every honest accounting, on the right side of the front door.

Widower Hero • Slow-Burn Second Chance • Alternating First Person (Iris & Wes) • HEA + Series HEA

What’s Included in This Package

Series Tropes

Series Details

Heat Level

Content Notes

What You Get

Five reads. Five releases. One rapid-release season. ❤