Small North Carolina town. Girls little league soccer team. Goats. Cute cover. Slow burn of an “enemies to lovers” between two out of towners tasked with saving the soccer team. I thought The Long Game by Elena Armas (Atria 2023) would be the perfect candy book. If you’ve been here any amount of time, you know romance isn’t my genre. I’ve never read anything else by Armas, and Tessa Bailey’s blurb on the cover means nothing to me. In short, my opinion on this book may mean nothing to you. (Abby Jimenez and Talia Hibbert have made me realize I do enjoy certain romance books – but this is not that.)
Adalyn Reyes has pretty serious daddy issues. Because of this, she’s pretty prickly. She’s been sent to North Carolina to manage a local little league soccer team that her father’s MSL team is sponsoring after a viral fall from grace when she decapitated the team’s mascot. Cameron Caldani is a retired professional goalkeeper who is hiding out in North Carolina after his retirement. He’s been convinced to coach the team by the town’s quirky mayor who knows him through a previous relationship with another soccer player. He’s a tough exterior but soft inside cinnamon roll.
Why Adalyn attacked the mascot, while a pretty serious plot point, is ridiculous. Why Cameron retired and is hiding out in NC, is also ridiculous. If both reasons had been further fleshed out and the characters built up more, it wouldn’t be ridiculous. Disappointing execution.
It was also frustrating to see the actual soccer team and their journey to a championship take a backseat to goat yoga, a barbeque, and sexual tension that seems hellbent on devouring any substance the novel could have had. SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME! Not to mention the overuse of “darling” and “deadpanned.”
It’s cute on a surface level, and if you don’t think about it too hard (or at all), you’ll probably enjoy it. It’s mindless candy that gets a little bit spicy at the end, but you don’t really want another piece once you finish. (And that is OK if that’s what you like.) But if you’re looking for Mighty Ducks or Hart of Dixie or even Part of Your World – you’re not going to get it here, but you will get a tattooed athlete growling “good job” to a sexually frustrated woman who craves praise.
A Girl Named Tommi 