Press & Media

Piper Houghes is a debut sports romance author whose work centers women athletes as protagonists, not love interests. Her debut novel, Breakaway Blades, follows figure skater Dani Kowalski’s return from a femur fracture.

Piper Houghes writes sports romance where the woman is the athlete — not the love interest orbiting one. Growing up playing hockey on outdoor rinks in the upper midwest, she learned that the cold is not your enemy. That sensibility shapes every page she writes: declarative, bodied, specific.

Her debut novel, Breakaway Blades, is sports romance that doesn’t flinch: medical realism, competitive stakes, and a slow burn that earns every moment. The novel follows figure skater Dani Kowalski’s return from a femur fracture — six pins, one rod, fourteen weeks until the qualifier.

Houghes is also the author of the newsletter She Plays Hurt, a Substack column on women athletes, injury, and the romance novels that take both seriously.