The enemies-to-lovers romance is a new venture for the bestselling author of the ‘Curve’ series
Credit: Samia Minnicks Photography; Art by Keosha Lipsey / Design by Lesley Worrell
NEED TO KNOW
- PEOPLE can exclusively reveal the cover of Danielle Allen’s upcoming book Necessary Roughness
- The enemies-to-lovers romance follows an athletic trainer and a defensive tackle
- The book launches Allen’s new Maryland Monarchs series
It’s time to take to the field for another Danielle Allen novel!
The bestselling author will kick off a new romance series next year — and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at its inaugural installment.
The first book in the Maryland Monarchs series, Necessary Roughness centers on Nova Thomas, an athletic trainer whose first interaction with defensive tackle Jay Channing goes horribly wrong. When a bad injury takes Jay off the team for a season, however, he ends up relying on Nova much more than he anticipated.
Allen, who’s best known for her Curve series, says that her latest book explores “the not-so-glamorous side of professional football and what it means to give your all to your job.”
Credit: Art by Keosha Lipsey / Design by Lesley Worrell
“Unlike the Curve series, it’s not a romcom,” Allen says. “It’s an enemies-to-lovers, dual point-of-view, slow burn, sports romance about two people forced into a situation that ultimately forces them to get to know each other and each other’s circumstances better.”
The author also notes that she loves how different her latest book is from the Curve series, which centers on three best friends. That series includes the novels Curvy Girl Summer (2024), Plus Size Player (2025) and Big Girl Blitz (2026).
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“I love how it shows that you can love something and still be critical of it and question it,” Allen says. “I love that I wrote an enemies-to-lovers romance. I love how the reasons they are enemies makes sense (to me) and the way they get to the lovers part takes time. And some of the things I love most about Nova Thomas and Jayson Channing’s journey is how their situation evolves, how their relationship evolves and how information can change a perspective.”
She adds: “If the Curve series is Girlfriends, the Maryland Monarchs series is The Game. And I loved both.”
Credit: Samia Minnicks Photography
In an interview with PEOPLE in April, Allen spoke about the impact of the Curve series, her first venture into traditional publishing.
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“I knew that I wanted my first traditional release to be [about] fat Black women with natural hair, because you don’t see women who look like me who are the center of their love story,” Allen said.
“I know what I put in it and what I wanted people to get out of it. And sometimes that’s not necessarily what they get out of it, but when it resonates, that means everything to me,” she added. “The amount of people who didn’t see themselves as beautiful or as worthy or as the main character of their lives, who are now seeing that they can be, has meant everything to me.”
Necessary Roughness will be published on Aug. 10, 2027 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.
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