Three Books to Try if you Loved Friday Night Lights!

So, you may have been wondering where I've been? Maybe you haven't at all, but I'm going to tell you anyway. You see, there's this show called Friday Night Lights, and it has pretty much taken over my life. I'm not kidding. I can barely even bring myself to read or to blog at the moment, because all I want to do is check out Tim Riggins another episode of FNL.

But, all good things must come to an end: I just recently discovered FNL via Netflix, but the show actually ended back in 2011 after five seasons. I'm just about to start Season 4 (Man, those final two episodes of Season 3 - Friday Night Feels!) and so my time with FNL is quickly running out. 

What am I going to do when I have no more episodes to watch? Is there rehab for severe Post-FNL Trauma? Don't even answer that.

I guess what I'll have to do is go find myself some books that might just remind me of the show. 

Here goes...

 Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines || Release date: August 2015.

 To everyone who knows him, West Ashby has always been that guy: the cocky, popular, way-too-handsome-for-his-own-good football god who led Lawton High to the state championships. But while West may be Big Man on Campus on the outside, on the inside he’s battling the grief that comes with watching his father slowly die of cancer.

Two years ago, Maggie Carleton’s life fell apart when her father murdered her mother. And after she told the police what happened, she stopped speaking and hasn’t spoken since. Even the move to Lawton, Alabama, couldn’t draw Maggie back out. So she stayed quiet, keeping her sorrow and her fractured heart hidden away.

As West’s pain becomes too much to handle, he knows he needs to talk to someone about his father—so in the dark shadows of a post-game party, he opens up to the one girl who he knows won’t tell anyone else.

West expected that talking about his dad would bring some relief, or at least a flood of emotions he couldn’t control. But he never expected the quiet new girl to reply, to reveal a pain even deeper than his own—or for them to form a connection so strong that he couldn’t ever let her go…

*****

First & Then by Emma Mills || Release date: October 2015

Devon Tennyson wouldn't change a thing. She's happy watching Friday night games from the bleachers, silently crushing on best friend Cas, and blissfully ignoring the future after high school. But the universe has other plans. It delivers Devon's cousin Foster, an unrepentant social outlier with a surprising talent for football, and the obnoxiously superior and maddeningly attractive star running back, Ezra, right where she doesn't want them first into her P.E. class and then into every other aspect of her life.

Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights in this contemporary novel about falling in love with the unexpected boy, with a new brother, and with yourself.

****

 

All Lined Up by Cora Carmack || Release date: May 2014

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cora Carmack follows up her trio of hits—Losing It, Faking It, and Finding It—with this thrilling first novel in an explosive series bursting with the Texas flavor, edge, and steamy romance of Friday Night Lights.

In Texas, two things are cherished above all else—football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both.

Dallas Cole loathes football. That's what happens when you spend your whole childhood coming in second to a sport. College is her time to step out of the bleachers, and put the playing field (and the players) in her past.

But life doesn't always go as planned. As if going to the same college as her football star ex wasn’t bad enough, her father, a Texas high school coaching phenom, has decided to make the jump to college ball… as the new head coach at Rusk University. Dallas finds herself in the shadows of her father and football all over again.

Carson McClain is determined to go from second-string quarterback to the starting line-up. He needs the scholarship and the future that football provides. But when a beautiful redhead literally falls into his life, his focus is more than tested. It's obliterated.

Dallas doesn't know Carson is on the team. Carson doesn't know that Dallas is his new coach's daughter.

And neither of them know how to walk away from the attraction they feel.

*****

Friday Night Lights is actually referenced in the description for two of these books and the new Abbi Glines has Friday Night Lights written all over it (apart from the Lights part, ha!) so I think these three will be winners for me once I run out of episodes of FNL to watch. What do you think? Do you have any other FNL-alike book recommendations for me?

 I have never read Abbi Glines before, but I know that Cora Carmack's books are always good fun - and I really like the sound (and the cover) of First & Then by Emma Mills.

Let me know what you think (and any other receommendations you might have) in comments.