the long game – GoodeyReads

Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 432 pages
Author: Elena Armas
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: July 30th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Josie Moore has given the opposite sex—and love—plenty of chances. Four exactly, if you count all her failed engagements, and five if you include the absentee father who kept her existence a secret until very recently. So when her father decides to announce his retirement with a splashy magazine piece about the family, Josie realizes her romantic history is a complicated PR issue.

Matthew Flanagan is in the mud, literally. Not only has he been fired from his job, but also the tires of his car are stuck in the muck after taking a wrong turn as he enters Green Oak, North Carolina. So, he grabs a duffel with his essentials and goes in search of a place to crash until he gets his life back on track. But instead, he finds his best friend’s sister, Josie, greeting him as her fiancé.

What starts as a big messy misunderstanding quickly turns into an arrangement with Matthew playing a new role as doting fiancé. A fifth engagement—and a stunt, at that—makes Josie’s stomach turn, but every dilemma requires a choice between equally undesirable alternatives, and Matthew doesn’t seem to mind becoming one more number in a colorful list of grooms-that-never-were. Despite the ring on her finger, Josie knows this is only temporary, even if the rest of the small town believes that the fifth time’s the charm.

Thank you Simon Audio for the gifted audiobook.

BLESS MATTHEW.

Matthew single handedly held up this book. He had that epitome of a book boyfriend vibe that I couldn’t get enough of. He was swoony and hot and did all the right things that I love in a romance.

Josie was a struggle for me. I don’t necessarily mind a more chaotic, doesn’t have it all together FMC, but this felt forced. There was too much effort involved in the base of her character and it didn’t feel authentic. I do think as the book progressed, things mellowed and I enjoyed her more.

BUUUUUUT. I STILL don’t understand why Josie left FOUR fiancés??? Even with the explanations I had a feeling I wouldn’t be cool with it and I wasn’t.

I enjoyed this a lot more than The Long Game and it made me hopeful to continue reading Elena Armas books. The Spanish Love Deception is still my absolute favorite.

Overall audience notes:

Contemporary Romance
Language: moderate
Romance: 3+ open door

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Rating: ★★★★
Audience: Contemporary Romance
Length: 384 pages
Author: Elena Armas
Publisher: Atria
Release Date: September 5th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

A disgraced soccer exec reluctantly enlists the help of a retired soccer star in coaching a children’s team in this smalltown love story in the vein of Ted Lasso and 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.

WELL.

If you know anything about me, it’s that The Spanish Love Deception is one of my all time favorite romance reads. I love Elena Armas books. Buuuut I will say this one missed a few marks for me. Still recommend, still good, just not everything I hoped for.

The second half was MUCH better. I thought the chemistry finally combusted and you got to see both characters together a lot more without as much contention. I know this had an enemies to lovers vibe and it kind of worked? The soccer girls were real cute and I love all things small town romance. There’s some realllllllly great swoony lines that had me in a puddle and I ended up loving Cam. Doing all of the little things paints a big picture.

The first half though was definitely missing something. I didn’t feel that connection between Cam and Adalyn and the plot wasn’t going much of anywhere. And with the third act, it didn’t make me wildly angry, BUT I did see a clear route it could have gone and I think would have been even better. And it happened at NINETY PERCENT? That’s too late. Adalyn could have really used a karmic retribution moment. I wanted to see a few people in her life actually suffer the consequences of their actions. She was left out to try way too many times.

I still enjoy the writing and story telling style. It’s not a bad book, just missing some of those key aspects that I was hoping to find.

Overall audience notes: