The Long Game

Game Changers, Book 6

By: Rachel Reid

Narrated by: Cooper North

Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

Shane and Ilya’s story, first seen in Heated Rivalry, continues in this long-awaited hockey romance from Rachel Reid.

"Everything you could want from this magnetic couple! A passionate, sexy, emotional sequel that grips your heart! Shane and Ilya forever!" —#1 NYT Bestseller Lauren Blakely, author of Hopelessly Bromantic

To the world they are rivals, but to each other they are everything.

Ten years.

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.

Game Changers
Book 1: Game Changer
Book 2: Heated Rivalry
Book 3: Tough Guy
Book 4: Common Goal
Book 5: Role Model
Book 6: The Long Game

©2022 Rachel Reid (P)2022 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

The. Absolute. Best.

I loved the story of Heated Rivalry but found Tor Thom’s narration jarring and not at all suited to the characters’ ages and backgrounds. Enter Cooper North, who SLAYS the narration of book two here, hitting all the right notes with Ilya’s turmoil. This one is a repeat listen for me, even though I still want to shake some sense into Shane every time! The steam is here (Rachel Reid never lets you down in that regard!) but it’s the depth, the complexity, the freaking heartbreak of loving someone in secret — so hard and for so long — that does me in. On each listen, when Ilya tells his therapist that he’s loved Shane in the shadows for 10 long years, it breaks me. One of the best, most touching MM romances out there.

love a happy ending ❤️

omg this couple is gonna live rent free in my head for years to come. I love them so much. Shane was pissing me off for a bit but he turned around and made up for it. Overall had a great story, and amazing spicy scenes. It had a nice balance between the story line and the spice. I'm not a fan of all spice (there is fanfiction for that). I like my spice with a story line and this delivers. Also liked how it wrapped everything up to satisfaction. Think I'm gonna go buy the physical copies of these.

Couple goals!

Cooper north did a fan-fing-tastic job with Illyas Russian accent and differentiating between the many voices and races.

🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🔥

I can’t get over how much I am obsessed with Ilya and Shane! They are true couple goals. I love how Shane is so uptight but he can’t resist when Illya is an idiot and makes him loosen his tight hold on things and they end up laughing.

Plus illya is super funny. I love his dry sense of humor and how he is confident in his ability to distract people in order to gain the upper hand in any situation.

There are some dark parts of about
Mental health and the generational trama that each race carries around that I respect and relate to deeply.

10/10 love this book and illya and Shane will hold a special place in my heart.

Great Series

At first the Narrator change was jarring, but power through! I like to think that Ilya just got better at speaking English as he spent more time with Shane. That's really the only one I noticed. I'm going to miss those two, hope there is a third book! Maybe they can adopt?

Beautiful Happily ever after

This book is a beautiful ending to the Hollander/Rosanov story. They get their happily ever after and we get to delight in it! I much prefer this narrator to the one in the first 3 books.

Regret that I waited so long to listen to this

I put off listening to this book because of some of the reviews. I want to say that I have listened to Cooper North and have enjoyed him on other books. The problem here is with Cooper doing Ilya. Biggest complaint is that he was not consistent. At times Ilya would go from a Russian accent into an American accent with no reason for the change. I never lost track of Ilya, but it would take me out of the story sometimes because it was jarring. With that being said, his Russian also made Ilya sound like Gru from the Despicable Me Movie. Once that hit my brain I could not stop grinning. I found it very funny after that. I really enjoyed the story and the ups and downs of the book. We all knew it was not going to go smoothly, but I appreciate the author making sure that we get the story ending we all wanted for this couple. I also appreciated the cohesiveness with the timeline from previous books. I can only imagine how difficult that was for the author. I am imagining lots of plot boards with yarn intersections Give this a try. It was very hot and very romantic at times as well.

Loved!!!

Great book! I’m sad to have it end. The depth, humor and love between the main characters and others was so enjoyable to be a part of. Bravo to Rachel and Cooper!

Why did you change the narrator?

Thank goodness for Ilya and Shane, we live them so, and this story continues the epic story. But wtf? You changed the narrator! This dude sucks compared to the other guy. You get used to him after a while but his Russian accent is way different as are all his characters. Sometimes continuity is a good thing

The Long Game

I am so glad I didn’t listen to some of the earlier reviews. This was my favorite book in the series.

Great Story

I’ve read many MM romances, this whole series, especially Shane & Ilya are my favorite. Would love just one more to see if they win the cup!!