My God is this ever a slow burn. Luckily the mmc is Uber hot. Like ex-pro soccer player....say less.

How is it that Elena Armas manages to write such swoon-worthy male characters? I've loved each of her leading men, but Cameron Caldani might just take the cake. Armas is definitely a master of the slow-burn romance!

There’s something so heartwarming about the level of vulnerability in this book, from both Adalyn and Cameron. They each have their own insecurities as well, and it colours how they approach life. Neither character is perfect, and I think that’s what makes them so relatable. They real and honest with one another, and it was beautiful!

What I especially adored was that Cameron was able to see Adalyn for exactly who she is, and not who those closest to her always assumed she was.

Some memorable quotes:

“I wonder who made you believe you don’t deserve to be fussed over.”

“I don’t intend on slaying your dragons for you. Not because I don’t want to, believe me, I do. But because you would hate it, and you don’t need me to.”
“I wouldn’t hate it if you were the one slaying dragons for me.”

Did not finish, couldn’t like the characters or story. Tried to finish but I just couldn’t finish it

Something about this just didn’t draw me in. I didn’t feel like the characters had enough chemistry and I didn’t find myself rooting for them to be together.

3.5 stars

My experience with The Long Game by Elena Armas was a bit of an interesting one. And truth be told, I encountered some hurdles along the way that dampened my excitement, especially considering my anticipation since the buzz around The Spanish Love Deception. Two main factors contributed to my struggle—the female lead, Adalyn, and the pacing, which I found a tad slow for my taste. But bear with me, as I’ll go over what I liked as well!

Adalyn’s personality and decision-making didn’t quite click with me, creating a disconnect that affected my engagement with the story. Additionally, the pacing, although deliberate, made my progress through the book slower than is typical for me with contemporary romance novels. However, amidst these challenges, there were elements that managed to hold my interest, preventing me from entirely putting the book down.

One of the saving graces was the male lead, Cameron, who I found rather likable and wanted to learn more about and spend more time with. The cast of side characters—including the kids and also animals—injected vitality into the narrative, keeping me invested and intrigued despite my struggles with certain aspects. Despite my difficulties, the book’s overall storyline did have its charms, especially toward the conclusion where everything came together. I do wonder, since I read an uncorrected proof, if some things that didn’t click for me—particularly regarding Adalyn—were changed by the time The Long Game made it to print. I will have to look into that if I get my hands on a finished copy.

And I will say that some of her struggles I did click with, and did end up rooting for her—I don’t even know if I could say that I disliked her, but rather that I didn’t like her enough? While my experience with The Long Game wasn’t seamless or as positive as I’d anticipated (having heard nothing but praise for Armas’ books thus far), I still hold interest in exploring the author’s other works including The Spanish Love Deception and The American Roommate Experiment both of which I bought for myself, as well as the sequel in the Long Game series, The Short List which I just added to my Goodreads TBR (even though it doesn’t yet have a description).

I was so lucky to have received an ARC for this book!

One thing about me is that I love Elena's books! I have ate up TSLD and TARE and so I was so excited to read this and when I found out I could read it early, I was ecstatic

Elena has a way with her characters and words that screams comfort to me, I have always found her books to be comfort reads and this didn't disappoint!

A small town romance with Cam who's trying to conceal his previous celebrity life and Adalyn who's been sent there to fix her media "scandal", they find themselves in a situation and having to work together, and despite their differences whats one thing that brings them together? A youth girls soccer team.

I will DEVOUR small town romances and especially when you give me that rivalry, slow burn, and tension? I'm up!

The slow burn was realllly burning but I loved Cam and Ada and by the end I was one happy girl 🤍

4.5 STARS!!!!!

I'm finally back. After a long few months of me being in a SLUMP, and not being able to finish or read a SINGLE book, I finally read one. I was so lucky to be able to receive an ARC for this book, it was just what I needed to get me out of my slump. I ATEEEEE THIS BOOK UP. I always love Elena's books and I knew I was going to love this too so when I got the email for it, I was stoked! I seriously loved Cam and Ada, their banter, the younger girls, the plot, I was obsessed with it. If the epilogue is hinting at what I think it is, I AM READYYYYY. I need more.

Do you enjoy books that center around sports?

I quite enjoy them. I played a ton of sports growing up, and I feel like I understand most of them. (Maybe not Rugby though…😂)

Straight up honesty: I initially wanted to read The Long Game by Elena Armas because of the cover. Cats! A Goat! Bearded guy in a green pullover! What’s not drawing me in?! Then I read the synopsis. A first meet where she hits him with a car. Sold!

The Good:
This book was fun. It was cute and flirty and had some good banter that had me laughing out loud! I loved the small town vibe. Everyone wants to connect, whether it’s a good or bad connection. And there is always that one person who knows everyone and is owed favors by literally everyone. And as promised by the cover there were moments with both the cats and goat. I also enjoyed how the book ended on a positive note.

The Bad:
As cute as some of the moments between Adalyn and Cameron were, I also felt like the chemistry was a little off. His over use of the term ‘Darling’ right from the get go was a little annoying. And Adalyn just felt like spoiled brat most of the time. Yes, she had things done to her that were crap, but she expected everything to be given to her, when she’d done so little to deserve it.

The Mentionable:
Trigger Warnings to be aware of - Panic attacks, Cyber bullying, PTSD from home invasion, language, open door sex scenes, death of parent & grandparent mentioned, alcohol consumption, toxic workplace, manipulation, gaslighting and car accident.

All in all it was a quick cute read, and worth checking out if you’re not looking for anything too in-depth or ground breaking.

Thank you to @simonschusterca for the gifted E-arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I ended up DNF’ing this one at about 35%. I was ultimately very bored by the plot and found both main characters to be lacking in substance.

I have a hard time reading romance when i’m not rooting for the romance to happen. Also by the time I put this one down I wasn’t even feeling the tiniest hint of chemistry.

I love a slow burn romance but I need some swooning and pining and I really didn’t feel any of that in the first 30% hence the DNF.

I loved the Spanish Love Deception but I haven’t enjoy the authors previous 2 releases sadly.

Elena’s Armas can have my whole soul. I knew I would love this book. The spanish love deception is one of my faves but this one definitely takes the cake. 😭 Small town sports (ish) romance, a bit of grumpy x grumpy going on… chefs kiss 🤌

Do you ever just want to fight a mascot? And then be sent away to a random location in the middle of nowhere where you have to train children in a sport? Now let's make it crazier by setting you up in a very random and lousy cabin BUT on the plus side there's a cute stranger next door (even if you guys do start off as enemies)!

This is a fun enemies to lovers slow burn romance from Elena Armas. A soccer executive gets in trouble when she blows up and fights a mascot and ends up in a small random town where she has to train a children's soccer team with the help of a retired soccer player. I was super excited for it when I heard about it. I loved her two first books with The American Roommate Experiment being my favourite.

This book was pretty good. It did start off a little slow with a bit of a struggle since the characters are so messy and it made it harder to enjoy them all. I was glad whenever we got their backstory details since it made them a lot more interesting and understandable.

Overall, I did enjoy the book, but there was something that didn't make me want to scream an undying love for it (which The American Roommate Experiment did). I think reading the previous books gave it a bit of an unfair disadvantage because of how much I liked those books though since it was actually really fun. I'm not sure what it was that doesn't leave me as excited, but I'm thinking it was likely just how hard it was to like the characters in the beginning. It ended up impacting the book for me more than I was expecting. I only had about 29 annotations which is about half the reactions I've had previously for books and there were massive sections where I didn't really react so that really just tells me that I wasn't as excited as I normally am.

The romance was cute, but it took a long time for me to be excited about them. There was a moment at the beginning that had me excited because of the banter and the dislike was blossoming, but it wasn't until a little over half way that I actually got excited to ship the couple. When the romance picks up, everything becomes so much better and more enjoyable, and the leads become a lot more likable.

The side characters were so good and I loved spending time with all of them. The town is filled with so many different people and really brought the book to life with that small town feel.

I also loved how the book spent so much time with the actual soccer training for the kids. I'm sure there could have been more, but I was pleasantly surprised with how we got to know about how things were going for the team and the background efforts that Adalyn and Cameron needed to provide. So often I find that romance books will gloss over information like that so I was delighted being able to hear about the work they were doing.

The climax was so good with this book, and I loved the plot twist and reveals that came from everything. I was waiting for so long of the book to see what would happen for Adalyn with the team she was working with in the beginning so I was super excited for everything to happen and then the twists come and I was so shocked. I ended up even rereading the reveals a couple times (although there was one reveal that I don't think I entirely caught the intentions for but it wasn't really the big reveal anyway).

It's already been announced that there will be a sequel to this book, and it features a romance that was hinted at near the end of the book. It features a couple of characters that I loved so I can't wait for it to be released.

I think I'd give this book 4 stars or somewhere between 3.5 to 4.5 stars. I have a hard time rating books, so it might change at a later date, but thats how I would rate it as of now. It was pretty enjoyable and fun overall, but the beginning bump puts a damper on the fun of everything and made it such a slow start. I get that it's a slow burn, but the slowness that made things so difficult wasn't because of it being a slow burn but more so because there was a lot of set up and the characters started off more unlikable than I would normally expect. I was able to read and review an e-arc version of this book thanks to Netgalley and Simon And Schuster Canada so I'd like to give thanks to them for that.

I had such high hopes for this book! I feel bad rating it a 2.5 stats but I don't know I wasn't really into it. While I did like the characters, their romance was... I just didn't feel like the had good chemistry and the story itself was ... not exciting.
Def will look at this authors other books though

This story was so cute, Armas did a great job of keeping the plot moving, and myself the reader engaged as this is a bit of a longer read. But it really didn't feel that long, the story was really engaging, and full of emotional moments.

I found the characters were really well developed, and they both had their own personal struggles and journeys to work on while getting to know each other. I loved watching as they slowly got to know each other and pull back the layers to discover who they really are.

The ending and overall plot line were fairly predictable, but that didn't really take away from my enjoyment of this story overall!

This book had me blushing and kicking my feet. Some of the things I personally really enjoyed about this book:
- Massive Hallmark vibes - we’ve got a badass (and a little spoiled), career driven city girl FMC who is sent to a small town by her (shitty) father to “repent” for her mistakes
- The MMC has hugeeee Roy Kent from Ted Lasso vibes (I didn’t know I needed this but I really really did)
- Grumpy MMC is coaching a 10 & under girls soccer team and it’s adorable and funny
- Trope central: Grumpy x Grumpy, Dislike to lovers, Slow burn, Forced proximity
- The spice 🥵
- There’s two cats, a goat, and a rooster

Overall, it was just a really fun and enjoyable book!

Read if you like: enemies to lovers, small town romance
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Adalyn loves working for the Miami Flames but after an unfortunate PR scandal, she is sent to the middle of nowhere to help out a struggling soccer team. There she meets Cameron, the coach and a former soccer star. The two butt heads, but the more they get to know each other, the more like spending time in each other's company.
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This book was really fun. I loved the tension between Adalyn and Cameron and I thought the enemies to lovers was done well! I kept wanting to scream at Adalyn that her father sucks and she needs to get away from him, and Cameron was the perfect supporter!

A cute & wholesome read, filled with the best tension, super slow burn, & banter that will keep you coming back for more!!

Like Elena’s other books, I enjoyed these characters! They were realistic, relatable, & I felt like I genuinely got to know them throughout 🥰 Adalyn was one smart, determined, & independent woman! I loved the energy she gave off, & I also enjoyed seeing her face her vulnerabilities 🤍 And Cameron was everything you would expect in a cinnamon roll character 🥰 he was quick witted, incredibly kind, & spent his time helping coach a children’s soccer team! What’s not to love?!?

I mixed between the audio & the ebook, enjoying both of them equally! I liked the narrators & felt they did a good job bringing these characters personalities through.

Other things to expect:
✨dual POV
✨forced proximity
✨grumpy/grumpy
✨slow burn
✨bickering & banter
✨enemies to lovers
✨small town setting
✨a children’s soccer team & all the fun that entails!
✨AND SO MUCH MORE!!!

Thank you so much @simonschusterca for sending me an early copy 💕💕💕

Definitely check this one out! And if you have, what did you think?

This was my first book that I've read by Elena Armas, but it won't be my last. If you love Roy Kent from Ted Lasso and Gilmore Girls (the Fall festivals! the kooky townspeople) then this might be the book for you. Cameron had STRONG Roy Kent vibes and i loved it. While the premise of a disgraced soccer exec being sent to a random small town to help out with a random girls soccer team is slightly ridiculous .I loved getting to know Adalyn and cheered for her when she was finally able to see/understand that she was worthy of love. I really enjoyed it.

Thank you to NetGalley, Elena Armas and Simon and Schuster Canada for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

This was so sweet. I loved the characters and how they end up in the same place. I love the small town vibes and cozy atmosphere. The tensions were high and this was spicy towards the end. I just loved it.

i loved Armas’s last book, but this time i couldn’t relate or like any of the characters. i had to dnf @ 50% because truly nothing had happened and it was starting to feel agonizing to pick up

I’m sorry for this one was not for me. I didn’t connect with either of the characters and it just dragged on and on with nothing happening. I didn’t find myself wanting to pick this up, in fact, it actually felt like a chore.


2 ⭐️