This is Elena Armas's best release yet! It was everything a sports romance-lover could ever dream of, and much more.

This book gave me third degree (slow) burns. Best Elena Armas book, and I couldn't care less about soccer.

OKAY Elena Armas!!! Officially an auto-buy author for me. I've read her other two books, The Spanish Love Deception (5 stars) and The American Roommate Experiment (4 stars). Loved them both. HOWEVER, this book is no doubt my new favorite and I'm now placing it at the number one Elena Armas spot on my bookshelf. To absolutely no one's surprise, EA of course remains the reigning QUEEN of slow burn writing and The Long Game is slow-burn-perfection incarnate. I wasn't sure what to expect going into it--sort of a sports romance? Cameron Caldani (*insert all the fire emojis*) is a famous retired pro goalkeeper living the small town quiet life in woodsy North Carolina, and Adalyn Reyes is the privileged daughter of a soccer club owner who is sent to said small town to work with him to coach a U10 girls soccer team. They live in neighboring cottages (hello forced proximity) in a wooded area of town (hello risk of wildlife encounters). Cue all the typical, adorable small town vibes--eccentric townspeople, festivals galore, everyone-knows-everyone, general shenanigans because Adalyn isn't used to the rural lifestyle a la Piper Bellinger/Naomi Witt. For being Elena Armas's first book in this style, she totally knocks it out of the park. I loved this more than so many other small town romances I've read. Literally felt like I was living in this little town and rooting for the girls' team and going to the parties.

Things this book makes sexy that otherwise would (probably) not be: dirty farm animals. yoga with said farm animals. a sprained ankle. a pottery class. a blind goat. sno-cones. a bug infested cottage. meditation. a home beer brewing machine. crooked fingers. The list goes on. Cameron Caldani >>> Aaron Blackford and Lucas Martin. He's tall, dark haired, green eyed, half Italian/half English with an English accent (think "love" and "darling" nicknames), covered in tattoos, a literal soccer star, super broody and at first judgmental of Adalyn because she can't hang with the small town vibes but slowly falls in love and just knows she is THE one. Adalyn puts on a great facade of being stoic and cold but really is this melting puddle of insecurity and self-doubt that I felt to my core, and Cameron is there for it. He's there for her. He wants to help her slay her dragons but knows she's capable of doing it with or without him. Its stupidly romantic and spicy and tricks you into thinking its realistic, which is just the best type of writing.

And I cannot forget the girls soccer team!!! Maria Vasquez, the little nine-year-old with the mind of a full grown adult! Chelsea! Juniper! The tutu! The nicknames for Coach Cameron! The way Cameron interacts with these little girls (strong daddy vibes that I didn't realize I was missing in a book)! Everything about this is just one giant pile of sweetness. Anyways, I am now experiencing a book hangover and need to go tell everyone to read this when it comes out. If you loved Elena Armas's other books, you will eat this one up. But even if you didn't love the others, this has such different vibes and is so easy to read and fall in love with. It's got everything you could possibly want. 5 whole incredible sexy spicy fun endearing happy stars!!!

The Adalyn and Cameron love story is perfect as is - with a perfectly awkward “meet cute” moment and spicy chemistry. Bonus points for the absolutely adorable underdog story around a struggling girls soccer team. I definitely cackled at a few scenes that oddly all involve a runaway chicken, cat, and some baby goats. Cameron is hot as hell and earns #soccerzaddy status - tattooed and volunteer coaching - Gordon Bombay could never 🤣. Read it in one sitting, couldn’t put it down - perfect vacay read that won’t leave you disappointed and genuinely perfect balance of steamy and funny.

Special thanks to #elenaarmas #atriabooks and #netgalley for the ARC copy in exchange for an honest review of #thelonggame

When a viral video forces the Miami Flames to send one of their employees to Green Oak to "learn a lesson", "go someplace while this simmers down". Did I mention her dad owns the club? Adalyn learns the charms of small-town and finds an easy-on-the-eyes soccer star that has disappeared since he retired. Ada doesn't only learn about herself but also knows who won't take advantage of her.

Soccer team executive Adalyn Reyes gets caught in a viral altercation with the Miami Flames mascot, and her father (and owner of the team) banishes her to a small North Carolina town to run a girls’ youth soccer team. She immediately makes a terrible first impression on Cameron, a grouchy retired soccer star who lives next door and just wants to be left alone. Set on redeeming herself to her father, she coerces Cameron into helping her and coaching the team.

I tend to have a problem with an enemies-to-lovers trope in contemporary romance because it usually feels forced, but I enjoyed the banter between Adalyn and Cam. Although this did have to rely on them both being too judgy and immature at times, the conflict between them felt real and grounded in character. The quirky small-town characters and events were very cute and fun. I wasn’t super invested in the soccer team mostly because it wasn’t focused on as much as the romance between Adalyn and Cameron. But overall this was a light small-town romance that was a breeze to read.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

4.75 ⭐️

This wass sooo good OMGGG, cameron is everything, he was soo patient with Adalyn, HE IS EVERYTHING, i love him soo much, he is aaron 2.0 with an accent, and Adalyn went through so much and i wanted to stab everyone one who kept hurting her, i love them together. The grumpy x grumpy was done so well. I loved the slow burn and the build up. I adored them together and i adored their relationship with the little league team.

The only things that didnt do it for me was some mentions of pop culture and some cringe scenes.

* no cheating
* No om/ow drama (there was a women flirting with him but he turned it down quickly, I wouldn’t really call it drama)
* Hea
* Epilogue

Thank you NetGalley and atria books for the arc.

🥀The Long Game Review 📖✨

1/5 ⭐️

I have enjoyed Elena’s other books, but didn’t love this one. I felt like it was boring and really slow paced. Also, I felt like nothing really happened, and the chemistry wasn’t great.
This one wasn’t for me, but you may enjoy it if you like soccer romances with cute kids. Thank your for this ARC.

🥀Dual POV
🥀Forced proximity
🥀Sports romance
🥀Small town romance
🥀Slow burn 🔥

After making a mistake, Adalyn is shipped off to Green Oak to make their U10 soccer team a success story. When Adalyn gets to Green Oak, she learns soccer star Cameron Caldani is the coach. Will they be able to work together to help the team win the Six Hills?

3.5 stars. I love Elena Armas’ writing and while I enjoyed this story overall, there were a few things that kept it from being a 5 star read. The main character, Adalyn, was extremely unlikable in my opinion. She was constantly overreacting and quick to be angry at Cam for even the smallest things. I understand that’s a result of her trauma, but it felt hard to read at times and some of the arguments she created as a result made her seem very immature. On the other hand, Cam, the male love interest, was great. He said the loveliest things to Adalyn and wanted to take care of her, and I was here for it. I loved how he listened to Adalyn and let her voice what was weighing on her and was continuously very supportive. However, the book starts out slow and their initial interactions disliking each other and the way Adalyn continued to behave afterwords made it hard for me to feel like they had good chemistry. As a result, I wasn’t invested in their slow burn. The youth soccer team was a cute addition to the story and I enjoyed the few scenes with them.

Adalyn works for the Miami Flames and after an unfortunate video of her goes viral is sent on a special assignment in rural NC in order to try to save her job. She ends up living near and working with soccer star Cameron who is just trying to avoid the public eye. They butt heads big time and it’s fun to see all the ways that plays out.
Whew! The book flew by and I kept finding myself thinking about it when I was doing other things. The slow burn was slow, but the payoff was worth it.
There were some hilarious parts including goats and some really special supporting characters like Maria, Josie, and Matthew. I’m really hoping that it is the start to a series and we get to see these characters and the town more.
This was such a fun read! Thanks to Net Galley for supplying me with a copy of this book.

Fun book as usual from Elena Armas. I enjoyed the side characters and the extra dose of cheesy family fun. The bad guys were truly despicable. Great chemistry between the protagonists.
However, even for an ARC, this needs a strong edit for typos and grammar and the like. It’ll make the story more easy to enjoy.

4 Stars Elena Armas is a slow-burn romance queen! This enemies to lovers romance is full of fire and female rage, and I am here for it!

After an altercation with a team mascot goes viral, Miami Flames FC employee Adalyn Reyes is caught in a PR nightmare. The team owner—aka her father—sends her on a charitable assignment to rural North Carolina to get her out of the spotlight. There, Adalyn is challenged to turn around a local U10 soccer team, the Green Warriors. Strangely, former soccer great Cameron Caldani is also in this small town, coaching the team and staying out of the spotlight as well. Cameron would rather Adalyn just leave, but she’s determined to prove him and her father wrong so she can get back to Miami.

There was so much going on in this book, between the main characters, themes, and the fun side characters and stories. The real star here is the emphasis on female rage; how it’s denied, used against women to push them out of spaces, and how it is an absolutely valid feeling. Adalyn has been used and manipulated by those who were supposed to love and care for her. Finding that out would understandably make anyone snap, especially someone who is so used to keeping her feelings bottled up and in control. So when that rage is released, however brief, it’s used as an excuse for why she’s incapable of doing her job or eventually leading the FC. Adalyn’s story is an echo of so many other women’s stories and how their rage has been denied, instead of validated. Every woman can see herself in Adalyn and understands how good it can feel to let that rage go.

Adalyn and Cam were fantastic romantic leads. I loved the scenes of Cam caring for Adalyn and the small moments when he proved how he really saw her, just as she is. They were beautiful. My only criticism of this novel was that while the first half of the novel felt so fast, the ending felt somewhat rushed and like there should have been more of an explanation for her father’s actions. I thought this would be addressed in the epilogue, but it was not. Though the epilogue did set up what will hopefully be another book set in Greek Oaks, so maybe we will see more.

I have really enjoyed Elena Armas' books, and was really excited to jump into this one. However, this ended up being the least favorite of her books to me. I think this is because I'm not a fan of the small town romances, nor of this type of heroine. I think people who like this author or stories like this will enjoy it, but it just was not for me. I will still be ready to read the next book this author releases though!

Not her best book. There was obvious attraction but not so much chemistry it felt.

Things I didn’t like:
-Big reveal at the end felt like too much
- Not enough sports
-Too slow of a burn. First kiss at 76% !!!
-56 uses of the world “darling”
-50 instances of the word “goddamn”

Things I loved:
-The rural setting
-Maria (and all the supporting characters)
-Cam and his grumpy Ted Lasso vibes

I really enjoyed the Spanish Love Deception and the American Roommate Experiment, so I was excited to see a new Elena Armas book. This one was a departure from that universe but I liked it as much, if not maybe a tiny bit more. Adalyn Reyes is an ambitious, driven, and somewhat uptight member of the Miami Flames Football Club staff. After a video of her losing her shit on the team mascot goes viral, the team's owner (and also Adalyn's father) forces her to take a hiatus and do some philanthropic work on behalf of the team in a rural mountain town in North Carolina. The first person she runs into (literally) is Cameron Caldani, a legendary British footballer who is in the same town for reasons that are unclear, and who is renting a cabin on the same property as the tiny shack that Adalyn has accidentally reserved. They get off on the wrong foot, which becomes an issue when it turns out that they're both working with the local soccer team, the Green Warriors. What Adalyn didn't realize was that the team is not just a rec team but is also entirely made up of girls under 10. The girls are funny and cute (though, if I'm being honest, a bit too smart and witty to be believable as children) and the town has a very Stars Hollow kind of vibe. I liked the enemies to lovers dynamic and the chemistry between Adalyn and Cam, and I thought the small town, rural setting worked. I did feel like Adalyn's father turned out to be a little too bad of a dude, but, like the whole thing with the kids being a bit too smart/mature, it didn't bother me enough to take me out of the story.

Elena Armas is one of my favorite romance authors. I have read and loved both The American Roommate Experiment and The Spanish Love Deception.
I enjoyed reading The Long Game. I loved the slow burn and tension between Cameron and Adalyn. I will admit that I found myself skimming some of the soccer-y parts to get to the romance. This wasn't my favorite Elena Armas book, but I still think it's a cute read for summer that other romance readers will love!

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria books for the advanced copy!

Elena Armas is the queen of spicy romances! “The Long Game” is another addition to her many wins. A must read!

This is one of my most anticipated reads this fall. I absolutely loved her two previous books. But I truly struggled with this one. I found the plot to be painfully unrealistic. Her dad banishes her from her job at with a MLS team and now has to move to a cabin in the woods and “manage” a soccer team of 6 year olds. What? I’m sorry.. what? The romance felt unbelievable. It just didn’t work for unfortunately, which truly breaks my heart.

I read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you Atria Books for inviting me to read this! I absolutely loved it! Armas is definitely an auto-read author for me. Had a few late nights with this one.
There were a couple of unpredictable elements to the story, which was a nice surprise. None more so, than how perfect Cam was, 'sigh.' I loved the amount of dialogue Adalyn and Cam had; I felt like we got to know them to their core. The chemistry between them was hot as well.
The setting and the side characters made the story more authentic, and I liked that all of the issues had been sorted by the end of the book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this wonderful arc! I love a good enemies to lovers story, especially when they include a boat load of farm animals and hunky soccer playing broody men. I loved Cam’s character, his grumpy demeanor and his willingness to look past a tragic not so meet cute but I found Adalyn a little underwhelming. I felt like the conflict was a bit of a let down. It seemed like nothing really happened for a lot of the book and the love between Cam and Adalyn felt a little unearned, like they just randomly went from hating each other to being madly in love. That didn’t stop this from being an enjoyable book but it also didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I will definitely still read anything Elena Armas put out. 3.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of “The Long Game
A Novel” by Elena Armas. All opinions are my own.

When a moment of weakness becomes a viral sensation, Adalyn Reyes has no choice but to hide from public eye and move from her home in Miami to a small town in North Carolina. But it’s only temporary. Or at least that is what she tells herself. She’s here for business and to redeem herself quickly so she can get home to Miami, and to claim her position in the family business running the Miami Flames soccer team.

The only thing in her way is the girls soccer team she’s been instructed to turn around and the difficult (and hot) coach Cameron Caldani, retired soccer star. (Did I mention he was British and Italian?)

I have previously read Elena Armas’ other books, and this was by far my favorite. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves a good romcom.