Liz Tomforde’s The Right Move is the second book in the Windy City series, a collection of interconnected standalone romance novels centered on professional athletes in Chicago. This structure, popular in contemporary romance, creates a shared universe where characters from one story appear in subsequent books, enriching the world and allowing readers to follow the lives of previous protagonists. The Right Move is directly linked to the first book, Mile High, which tells the story of Ryan Shay’s twin sister, Stevie, and her relationship with Evan Zanders, a player for Chicago’s professional hockey team. Stevie gradually uncovers the caring heart behind the bad boy façade Zanders cultivates to cope with his past trauma. In The Right Move, Stevie and Zanders are a central support system for the main characters. The plot is set in motion when Stevie convinces Ryan to let her friend Indy move into his apartment. Later, Zanders’ own experience with media scrutiny allows him to advise Indy on the pressures of dating a high-profile athlete. The narrative crossover deepens the story’s emotional stakes, as established relationships and past events directly influence the new protagonists’ journey.

As the Windy City series continues, some minor characters from this story become the focus of their own romances. Caught Up (2023) focuses on Kai Rhodes, a professional baseball player who appears with his infant son, Max, in The Right Move as a friend and neighbor of Indy and Ryan’s. Kai’s love story with Miller Montgomery, an acclaimed pastry chef who becomes Max’s nanny while grappling with a creative block, follows the slow-burn and “opposites attract” tropes. Play Along (2024) stays in the world of professional baseball and tells a loves story between an ambitious female trainer named Kennedy Kay and Isaiah Rhodes, the team’s fun-loving, handsome shortstop. They wake up married in Las Vegas after an impulsive night, and Tomforde uses their romance to explores mental health and gender dynamics in the workplace. The male lead of Rewind It Back (2025) is Rio DeLuca, a close friend of Indy’s who facilitates The Right Move’s happy ending by helping her reconcile with Ryan. The series’s fifth installment is a second-chance romance as the professional hockey player rekindles his relationship with Hallie Hart, an interior designer who was his childhood friend and first love. By weaving characters and plotlines together, Tomforde builds a cohesive fictional Chicago where relationships extend beyond a single book, creating a more immersive experience for the reader.