Sports romance with Rebecca J. Caffery, Meg Jones & Adiba Jaigirdar

This event is a part of First Date 2026 edition series. Click to view more from this festival.

This event is part of FIRST DATE ROMANCE FICTION FESTIVAL, which we are thrilled to co-host with Book Lovers Bookshop! You can book tickets to their First Date events on their website.

Sports romance is truly having a moment, and we couldn't be more thrilled about it. The stakes are high, tensions higher, and whether it's a rivalry or someone you're stuck in a team with, there are so many opportunities for love.

We're excited to bring you queer sports romance from experienced romance writers:

FIRST TO FINISH is part 2 in the Pole Position series by Rebecca J. Caffery and features race car driver Johannes Muller, tipped for greatness this season but unexpectedly faltering on the track. The team’s race engineer, Caleb Hughes, is determined to get his star driver back in pole position, but soon the sparks flying over the radio are more chemistry than competition.

SET POINT is a sizzling dual-POV sapphic romance set in the world of competitive tennis. Stakes are high for Inés Costa, who hasn’t scored a Grand Slam since her breakout two years ago. Now, injuries and sky-high expectations are breaking her serve. Enter Chloe Murphy: brash, brilliant, and America’s newest tennis obsession, who has her eye on the US Open trophy. The two collide on and off the court, and the tension is advantage: chemistry.

THE PERFECT MATCH is Adiba Jaigirdar's first adult romance set in the world of football. It features Dina, who has been roped into coaching a football team while she is getting back on her feet after burning out in corporate London. Maya, Dina's old rival, is also back home looking for a second chance, and has also agreed to coach a football team. When they bump into each other, they have to figure out if the game that tore them apart can bring them back together.

About our speakers:

Rebecca J. Caffery is a queer romance author from Birmingham, UK, whose stories celebrate love, electric chemistry, fierce emotion and found families. She rediscovered her passion for writing in 2017 during a study abroad year in Canada, and she’s been writing one too many enemies-to-lovers tropes since.

Rebecca is best known for her high-octane F1 romances, Pole Position (2024) and First to Finish(2026), where fast cars meet even faster hearts. With hopes to expand her writing repertoire into small-town romances, she continues to craft stories that celebrate queer love in all its intensity and joy.

When she’s not writing, Rebecca can be found devouring queer romance novels, binge-watching romantic dramas and romcoms, or passionately (read screaming at her TV) supporting Arsenal Women’s football team and McLaren Formula One Team.

Adiba Jaigirdar is the critically-acclaimed and bestselling author of The Henna Wars and Hani & Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating. A Bangladeshi/Irish writer and teacher, she has an MA in Postcolonial Studies from the University of Kent, England and a BA in English and History from UCD, Ireland. All of her writing is aided by tea, and a healthy dose of Janelle Monáe and Hayley Kiyoko. When not writing, she is probably ranting about the ills of colonialism, playing video games, or expanding her overflowing lipstick collection.

Author photo credit: Adiba Jaigirdar © Aleksandria Rudenko

Meg Jones is a Scottish romance author who took beginners tennis lessons (two entire blocks and was still the worst in her class) twelve years ago before putting down the racket and picking up a book instead. Meg is passionate about representation of women in both fictional and non-fictional sports, and was constantly distracted by the idea of a tennis romance for two years before finally putting pen to paper.

About our chair:

Lola Keeley is an Edinburgh-based author of six Sapphic romance novels, featuring many of your favourite tropes in wildly different settings. She also writes for theatre and television. When not glued to the keyboard, she also adores football and theatre, and exploring her gorgeous home country of Scotland with her wife. Their five cats are annoyed not to be included in these adventures.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Lighthouse - Edinburgh's Radical Bookshop