Books › The Long Game
The Long Game
479 pages
A deeply intimate, hard-won victory lap for a beloved couple navigating the heavy toll of a decade-long secret.
What it feels like
This deeply intimate sports romance feels like a long, slow exhale after holding your breath for a decade. It trades the fiery, combative sparks of a new rivalry for the profound, aching vulnerability of a long-term couple buckling under the weight of a massive secret. The mood is tender but heavy with emotional exhaustion, pulling readers into the quiet, domestic corners of a relationship that is fiercely loving yet fundamentally fractured by the closet. The prose is accessible and sharply observant, balancing witty locker-room banter with devastatingly raw depictions of depression and anxiety. It is a steady, character-driven journey that will thoroughly reward readers who crave high-angst, high-reward queer romance and the catharsis of watching two people finally choose each other over the world.
- Mood
- intimate
- emotionally charged
- bittersweet
- triumphant
- Tone
- earnest
- tender
- angsty
- vulnerable
- wry
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the burden of secrecy · long-term commitment · mental health struggles · coming out · unconditional love
- The writing
- Accessible, character-driven, and emotionally resonant, balancing witty banter with profound internal vulnerability.
- The arc
- Moves from the suffocating weight of long-held secrets and emotional exhaustion to a hard-won, deeply cathartic public declaration of love.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love high-angst, high-reward queer romance and are deeply invested in the long-term emotional evolution of beloved characters.
Content notes
- depression
- homophobia
- anxiety
- secret relationship stress
About the book
That’s how long Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov have been seeing each other. How long they’ve been keeping their relationship a secret. From friends, from family...from the league. If Shane wants to stay at the top of his game, what he and Ilya share has to remain secret. He loves Ilya, but what if going public ruins everything?
Ilya is sick of secrets. Shane has gotten so good at hiding his feelings, sometimes Ilya questions if they even exist. The closeness, the intimacy, even the risk that would come with being open about their relationship...Ilya wants it all.
It’s time for them to decide what’s most important—hockey or love.
It’s time to make a call.
Description from Open Library.
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