The Long Game

A Novel

By: Elena Armas

Narrated by: Frankie Corzo, Shane East

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A disgraced soccer exec reluctantly enlists the help of a retired soccer star in coaching a children’s team in this small-town love story in the vein of It Happened One Summer—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Spanish Love Deception.

Adalyn Reyes has spent years perfecting her daily routine: wake up at dawn, drive to the Miami Flames FC offices, try her hardest to leave a mark, go home, and repeat.

But her routine is disrupted when a video of her in an altercation with the team’s mascot goes viral. Rather than fire her, the team’s owner—who happens to be her father—sends Adalyn to middle-of-nowhere North Carolina, where she’s tasked with turning around the struggling local soccer team, the Green Warriors, as a way to redeem herself. Her plans crumble upon discovering that the players wear tutus to practice (impractical), keep pet goats (messy), and are terrified of Adalyn (counterproductive), and are nine-year-old kids.

To make things worse, also in town is Cameron Caldani, goalkeeping prodigy whose presence is somewhat of a mystery. Cam is the perfect candidate to help Adalyn, but after one very unfortunate first encounter involving a rooster, Cam’s leg, and Adalyn’s bumper, he’s also set on running her out of town. But banishment is not an option for Adalyn. Not again. Helping this ragtag children’s team is her road to redemption, and she is playing the long game. With or without Cam’s help.

Critic reviews

"Narrators Frankie Corzo and Shane East fully immerse listeners in this small-town enemies-to-lovers soccer romance. After an altercation with the Miami Flames’ soccer team mascot goes viral, Adalyn Reyes is banished by her father, the Flames’ owner, to a North Carolina backwoods town to turn around a struggling youth soccer team for girls. Her first encounter with the Green Warriors' coach, Cameron Caldani, a broody retired professional goalkeeper, is anything but pleasant. Corzo and East flawlessly transition into various character voices. Also, Corzo’s inflections shine in her portrayal of Adalyn’s witty banter and emotional longing. Plus, East’s charming British accent and smooth delivery of swoony heartfelt words will have listeners pining for Adalyn and Cameron to find their happily-ever-after."

It’s good. It’s ok .

It’s good ., not that bad. It was ok. Overall nice story and the plot makes sense .

Absolutely phenomenal

I would quite literally read everything this woman writes 😍👌🏽🫀 I cannot wait for the next installment 🤞🏽

Just ok.

This was just ok. I could have just stopped listening to it at any point and not thought about it again.

Spoiler Alert







The way the author wrote the sex scenes gave me the ick. Women don’t orgasm just because a man tells her to. 🙄

Overall, not my favorite

It took a while to get used to the man narrator’s melodramatic reading style, and the main character saying “I…” at least twice in each chapter. Writing wasn’t as strong as in other books by this author and I felt that the character building wasn’t enough to make me feel attached enough to finish.

5 ⭐️

Absolutely amazing narration! I enjoyed the story line. We need more soccer books! Darling, definitely read this book!