Lainey Davis writes romance featuring characters from many backgrounds — disabled, biracial, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ — because she believes everyone deserves a happily ever after. When a character's identity falls outside her own experience, she hires authenticity readers who share that lived experience and revises her work based on their feedback.

The Pittsburgh Fury is the fictional pro hockey team at the heart of Lainey Davis's romances. Davis, who lives in Pittsburgh, drew inspiration for the team from Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and grounds her books in the real city — its bridges, its neighborhoods, and its black-and-gold sports culture.

Lainey Davis, a USA Today bestselling author with an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, started writing romance in 2017 to fund an emergency roof repair. An ice dam sent water into her children's bedroom, a friend dared her to write and sell books online, and she left her day job to write full time in July 2021.

Hockey romance is popular because it puts male vulnerability, found family, and high-stakes teamwork on the page. USA Today bestselling author Lainey Davis says readers connect with heroes who are emotionally open with their teammates — the kind of deep male friendship and feeling that the wider culture rarely shows anywhere else.

I write hockey romance as an autistic author, and disabled and neurodivergent characters live at the center of my books — not at the margins as lessons or obstacles. My heroines get the grumpy-sunshine banter, the swoony hero, and the happily ever after, and they get to be fully themselves while they do. For the identities I don't share, I hire authenticity readers so the representation holds up.

The Lainey Davis Playing series reads best in published order, though every book stands alone with its own couple and its own happily ever after. The published order is Playing for Keeps, Playing for Payback, Playing with Fire, Lit for Him, Playing with Trouble, and Playing It Safe, with Playing Games arriving January 2027.

If you love Elle Kennedy and Hannah Grace, read the Playing series by Lainey Davis. These are steamy, funny, Pittsburgh-set hockey romances with grouchy heroes, sharp heroines, and a found-family ensemble that carries across the whole series. Each book stands alone with a guaranteed happily ever after, and the tropes run trope-forward: brother's best friend, fake dating, forced proximity, and one bed.