Best Second Chance M/M Romance Books to Make You Believe in True Love
I am going to be very honest. I am not the biggest fan of the second-chance trope.
Don’t hate me!
It’s just that I am always left feeling so sad about all of the wasted time and life experience that the couple misses out.
The angst is just too much.
However, there are a few second chance M/M romance books that are so good I was able to survive, nay greatly enjoy, reading.
I figure, if these books are good enough to convince me to enjoy the second-chance romance trope, then I have to share them with others!
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Best Second Chance M/M Romance Books
ASHTON
If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to play the game…both on and off the field. If it hadn’t been for that one teenage slipup where I kissed Beau Campbell, I’d be able to keep fooling myself. Football is the one thing I use to distract myself from the truth, and when I screw-up and lose the game I love, I find myself right back in Fever Falls. And right back face-to-face with Cranky Campbell, who hates me even more than he did when we were kids. Whatever magic he held over me then is still there. As much as I fight it, I still want him. And I always get what I want…well, except with Beau, who constantly calls me on my crap. Why do I like that so much?
BEAU
I might’ve spent years watching Ash live out my dream—without the off-field antics and orgies with women, at least—but I’ve made a good life for myself. I’m a firefighter, and I coach my brother’s football team for those with developmental disabilities. But when Ash swings back into town armed with his monster ego and an arsenal of stupid nicknames, everyone is in awe of him. Nope, not me. I don’t care if our kiss years ago was responsible for my sexual awakening. I won’t fall for Ashton Carmichael. Though that resolution would be a whole lot easier if he wasn’t so tempting. Once he finds his way into my bed, I’m screwed—in more ways than one. But there’s more to Ash than meets the eye, buried beneath his ego, sarcasm and how we burn up the sheets together. Soon, it’s more than a game. We don’t just get each other fired up, we just might win each other’s hearts.
Too bad things are never that simple…
Fired Up is the first book I ever read by Riley Hart. This is the type of book where you take note of the author’s name and then you spend the next few weeks reading everything you can by them because you just aren’t ready to move on.
I loved this second-chance book because the time apart was so good for these two. They were able to mature and develop into who they are as adults before pursuing a relationship.
Beau and Ash never could have been together back in high school. However, much later in their lives, and with this new set of circumstances, their relationship has a fighting chance.
Beau is an especially great character and I think he really makes this book one to check out!
The first time Dimitri Castallanos experienced obsession, he committed a felony. He was five. Dimitri is a psychopath. And he’s still obsessed with just one person.
Arlo Miller was born a victim, raised as his father’s punching bag and his mother’s scapegoat. Dimitri was his only protection, and they took him away.
As children, they clung to each other. As adults, they pretend neither remembers, while both harbor secret crushes on the other. Dimitri hides his feelings behind a mask of indifference. Arlo hides his by falling for very bad men.
When one of those men confronts Dimitri, this time it’s Arlo who commits a felony. Murder. But Dimitri won’t allow Arlo to take the fall. With the help of Dimitri’s mother and seven psychopaths, they now have twenty-four hours to fake an alibi, hide a body, and confess their true feelings for each other, once and for all.
Which is harder? Falling in love or getting away with murder?
Even though this is technically a novella from the Necessary Evils series, Damaged is one of my favorite books by Onley James. It feels like a full, fleshed-out story. Which is so hard for a novella!
The second-chances trope works here because the two were pulled apart as kids. It wasn’t their choice to separate.
As adults they work on finding their ground together in the midst of chaos and murder.
It is short and decided not sweet, but I highly recommend this one!
The guy who broke my heart is back and teaching at my school. I’m really trying not to give an F.
A long time ago, in a suburban high school not so far away, a closeted nerd (me) and a closeted soccer star (Hutch) fell in love and planned to make their public debut at prom. Until Hutch bailed at the last minute, leaving me with a broken heart and unworn tuxedo. Tale as old as time, right?
I spent the past ten years working to forget Hutch, returning to our old high school to teach and make new memories that could erase ones of him. I thought Hutch was ancient history, off living his professional athlete life. But he’s suddenly back in Sourwood, coaching soccer at South Rock High, and sexy as ever. Just when I’d gotten over him, we’re now colleagues.
As Hutch leads the soccer team to victory once again, and we find ourselves trading stolen glances in the halls, it feels like a reboot of our high school bad romance. Especially after a late night encounter where I find myself climbing him like the rope in gym class. Oops.
Hutch wants to give us another try, but what if history is doomed to repeat itself?
There is nothing better than the nerd getting the hot athlete! In Ancient History we get just that!
A.J. Truman masterfully walks us back in time to get glimpses of what Hutch and Amos’s relationship looked like in high school while also having them fall for each other in real time. I loved the almost parallel storylines of the same characters falling in love twice.
This is one of the less angsty second-chance M/M romances out there, so try this one if you don’t want to cry!
What happened in high school stayed in high school. Until now.
Five years ago, Michael Graham betrayed the only person who ever really knew him. Since then, he’s made an art of hiding his sexual orientation from everyone. Including himself.
So it’s a shock when his past strolls right into the Harkness College locker room, sporting a bag of hockey gear and the same slow smile that had always rendered Graham defenseless. For Graham, there is only one possible reaction: total, debilitating panic. With one loose word, the team’s new left wing could destroy Graham’s life as he knows it.
John Rikker is stuck being the new guy. Again. And it’s worse than usual, because the media has latched onto the story of the only “out” player in Division One hockey. As the satellite trucks line the sidewalk outside the rink, his new teammates are not amused.
And one player in particular looks sick every time he enters the room.
Rikker didn’t exactly expect a warm welcome from Graham. But the guy won’t even meet his eyes. From the looks of it, his former… best friend / boyfriend / whatever isn’t doing so well. He drinks too much and can’t focus during practice.
Either the two loneliest guys on the team will self destruct from all the new pressures in their lives, or they can navigate the pain to find a way back to one another. To say that it won’t be easy is the Understatement of the Year.
What makes The Understatement of the Year a little more unique is that it is book three of The Ivy Years, a largely M/F romance series by Sarina Bowen.
However, you shouldn’t feel like you need to read the entire series to enjoy this book. I definitely didn’t read a single other book in the series, but this book works well as a stand alone.
I loved Rikker’s courage and understanding. I really felt for Graham and appreciated all of the complicated emotion he was trying to work through.
Sarina Bowen does a beautiful job of having these two get back together without me feeling like their time apart wasn’t just a waste.
His broken bones could finally mend their broken bond…
Bull riding was the only thing that calmed the thrill-seeking, self-destructive beast inside of Calvin Craig. It allowed him to escape a small-minded town and the pain of his troubled youth, fleeing to bright lights and big city fame without looking back.
One trip on the horns of the wrong bull changed everything.
Cal is forced to come crawling back home for the first time in ten years, his body broken and riding days behind him. But not everyone is happy for the return of their local celebrity.
Eli Jackson was once the tall, dark, and sinful preacher’s son who had Cal wrapped around his little finger. Now the steely-eyed sheriff of Sweetwater, Eli is hell bent on running him right back out of town. He’s never forgiven Cal for the spectacular implosion of their relationship. Even though the lingering tension soon has them burning up the sheets, he refuses to be tamed.
Cal is surprised to find himself rising to a new challenge: breaking the bull that is Eli Jackson.
He might have run out of luck, but he’s not out of miracles… yet.
The entire Down Home series is pure second-chance gold. I could have easily placed every book in the series on this list!
Down Low, the first book in the series by Parker St. John, is genuinely an amazing book. In fact, this book easily earned a spot on my Best M/M Romance Books of All Time list.
Eli and Cal are the definition of hard-fought true love. Cal has my sympathy, but Eli has my heart. He is a solid rock and one of my favorite characters.
Definitely check out this entire series for amazing cowboy second-chance love.
Opposites attract, sure. But when Manhattan glitz collides with Texas grit, will love be enough?
Noël:
Manhattan is my heart and soul. In the cutthroat world of elite public relations, I’m one of the princes. I manage global superstars, predict the up-and-coming trends, easy. And social media? That’s my specialty. I can make you, hon, and launch you straight to the stratosphere. My life is champagne glitter and starlight, and everything around me is gold. But then, my own wedding bells turn into alarm bells, and suddenly, I’m off to Cancun—alone. Alone with a first-class ticket to a honeymoon for one. All that gold? Tarnished tin. Everything I thought I knew? Gone.
Cancun is supposed to be where I obliterate myself on margaritas and tropical waves. Forget the past, shake off the pain, and look ahead. It’s my strategy, always has been. But beneath it all, I long for someone to see the real me, the Noël I’ve hidden away for years. I’m so damn lonely.
And then I meet Wyatt.
He’s nothing like me. He’s a rancher from Texas, he can’t tell me whether high waist jeans are in or out, and he’d rather work his fields than rub elbows with celebs. Velvet rope lines and VIP access are meaningless to him. He’s also kinder than me, and altruistic in a way I haven’t seen since cargo pants died as a trend in the early 2000s. He’s the best man I’ve ever met.
And that’s a problem, because all of his big-hearted warmth and Texas gentleness is drawing me in. I’m desperate to surrender, but I can’t. Good things aren’t meant for me. I’m no good for Wyatt. In fact, I’m his looming heartbreak.
So why am I kissing him?
Wyatt:
I’m a man of the land, made from the Texas soil I work on, strengthened by the vineyard I tend to. It’s a world I’ve carefully nurtured, a balm for the wounds of my past. This life hasn’t been easy, but it’s mine. I’m fiercely protective of the world I’ve built for me, my brother, his fiancée, and my nephew. The four of us are everything that matters to me, and my life and my cares extend to my cross fences and the edges of my range. Everything else out there? It’s all just dust in the wind.
And then Noël blows into my life.
I’m gone. Captivated, spun around, tipped upside down and torn apart. I can’t breathe; being around Noël makes me feel like I’m sixteen again and hiding all my secret fantasies and unspoken desires. I’m down in Cancun with my family, and this isn’t the time to be falling for a guy, but how can you not fall head over heels when the man of your dreams walks into your world?
Noël’s many multi-hued layers fascinate me and perplex me, and I want to spend every minute unraveling him. Noël’s life is glittering gold, and mine is Texas soil, but I can learn to understand Manhattan, pop culture, and celebrities if that means I get to be Noël’s man.
But does Noël feel the same? What is this between us? Is it just a week that we both need, a Pause on life, out here in this place so far removed from our real lives? Or is this the start of something new and huge and life-changing for the two of us? What am I seeing in Noël’s eyes when he looks at me?
And what’s going to happen when this week ends?
I love when Tal Bauer writes cowboy. He does it so well!
How to Say I Do is subtle second-chance, but I felt that the time apart for the main characters was enough of the book to justify this pick.
We are also given a little bit of the fake-husband trope to spice up this read.
I loved Wyatt! He really makes this book something special. Check this one out for the cowboy fake husband!
If you never fooled around with someone of the same gender, did you even go to high school?
PEYTON
My whole life I’ve had the pressure of being Marcus Talon and Shane Miller’s football prodigy. I’ve been destined to follow in my NFL-playing fathers’ footsteps since the day I was born. I usually thrive under pressure, but as senior year looms, it all gets too much, and I need an outlet. The last place I thought I’d find my release is at Levi Vanderbilt’s graduation party. In his bed. With him.
It’s a one-time thing. An experimentation. And while it was fun, we agree that being with guys isn’t for either of us. I’m happy to accept that until he turns up in California.
I haven’t had to think about him for four years, but now I can’t get him out of my head.
LEVI
Coming to Franklin University for grad school to follow a boy I hooked up with once is the stupidest thing I could have done.
We said that high school didn’t mean anything, but the truth is, that night made me realize who I truly am, and since then, I’ve been trying to find that sense of freedom again.
I’m hoping it can be with him, but everything I’ve heard around campus points to Peyton not having the same life-changing revelation I did.
And if that’s the case, did I just move across the country for a straight guy?
Kill me now.
This book is so cool because it actually features the child of a favorite couple of mine by Eden Finley!
Peyton is the son of Talon and Miller from Blindsided! I highly recommend reading that book first so that you feel even more invested in Peyton. Conveniently, there are hints of second-chance love in Blindsided too!
Football Royalty is the last book in the Franklin U series, a really cool anthology series by many of my favorite authors.
Jump into this one if you were a big fan of the Fake Boyfriends series by Edin Finley!
Orion’s life turns upside down when someone outs him as the first Omega in the NHL…that anybody knows of. Now, he has to wrestle with the decisions he made throughout his life to keep that secret hidden—including the man he left a decade earlier.
Problem is, that man is Gabriel McKenna, Captain of the Gotham Hounds. Seeing as Orion captains the Brooklyn Cats, their relationship is more one of hate than love at the moment.
Or so he tells himself.
Orion has enough difficulties dealing with idiots on the ice thinking they can put him on his knees just because they know he’s an Omega. He doesn’t need to suddenly reconnect with his old flame. Doesn’t need to deal with the feelings he thought he’d buried long ago.
Orion is trying to escape the memories of the best year of his life, but the past is catching up with him. After the way Orion left, after all the fights on the ice, he doesn’t know if he deserves a second chance…
But he might want one anyway.
If I can sneak in a book by Marina Vivancos, you know I am going to!
Face Off is the second book in the Alpha Omega Hockey series. While, Overtime has to be my favorite book in the series so far, Face Off was a close second!
Gabby and Orion are a couple that I just adore and the touch of hockey is what really tips this book over into greatness. Click below to check it out!
Hey, I’m Heather!
I read M/M romance books exclusively, and I help other readers find their next great M/M romance read.
