Books Like The Long Game by Rachel Reid — 10 MM Pro Hockey Secret Relationship Reads (2026)
The Long Game is the emotional payoff to years of secrecy between Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov. Heated Rivalry establishes the private hotel rooms, public competition, and relationship neither man knows how to name. The sequel asks the harder question: what happens when secrecy is no longer merely inconvenient, but actively hurting the person you love?
Rachel Reid keeps professional hockey central to the conflict. Careers, teams, media expectations, family, nationality, and mental health all shape what coming out could cost. The recommendations below prioritize MM sports romance, established secret relationships, closeted athletes, public rivals, and emotional payoff earned over a long timeline.
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What Makes a Great Long Game Readalike?
- Sports careers with genuine consequences. The league, team, media, and locker room must affect the relationship.
- A secret that becomes emotionally unsustainable. Privacy should protect the couple at first and then begin to isolate them.
- Characters with different relationships to visibility. One may be ready to change while the other still fears what change could cost.
- Mental-health and family stakes beyond the romance. Love does not erase depression, grief, identity conflict, or professional pressure.
- A coming-out arc that belongs to the characters. The payoff should feel chosen rather than forced for spectacle.
5 Traditionally Published Books Like The Long Game
1. The Long Game — Rachel Reid
Shane and Ilya have spent years building a relationship in stolen time. Their public rivalry remains useful cover, but the emotional cost of living separately and pretending constantly becomes impossible to ignore. The sequel offers what many secret-relationship romances end before showing: the sustained work required to turn a hidden love into a shared life.
Find The Long Game on Amazon →
2. Heated Rivalry — Rachel Reid
Read this first. Shane and Ilya meet as young professional-hockey stars and begin a secret physical relationship that stretches across seasons, international competition, and growing emotional dependence. The book supplies the history that makes every decision in The Long Game matter.
Read our full Heated Rivalry readalike guide →
Find Heated Rivalry on Amazon →
3. Role Model — Rachel Reid
A disgraced, deeply unhappy hockey player is traded to a team where the social-media manager refuses to be intimidated by his reputation. The romance is quieter than Shane and Ilya’s, but it offers another closeted athlete, a supportive team environment, and a strong arc from isolation toward accountability and openness.
4. Tough Guy — Rachel Reid
A professional enforcer whose public image does not match his anxious private self reconnects with an openly queer musician from his past. The novel is especially good for readers who want sports masculinity examined rather than merely celebrated, with anxiety, medication, sexual expectations, and tenderness treated seriously.
5. Him — Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy
Former best friends reunite at a hockey camp after years of distance caused by one confusing night. Their renewed friendship becomes a relationship while one man prepares for professional hockey and the other reconsiders assumptions he has never needed to question. Choose it for hockey, bi awakening, shared history, and a relationship threatened by the future each man imagined separately.
5 Hotter Indie Alternatives from Fractal Enigma
6. Straight Until Overtime — Chase Power
Best for: NHL teammates, bi awakening, roommates, one bed, secret relationship.
A disciplined defenseman with a carefully maintained straight identity is forced into closer contact with his openly bisexual teammate. Shared housing and travel remove the distance that made denial possible, while the realities of professional hockey make acting on the attraction feel dangerous.
7. Rookie Roommates — Chase Power
Best for: college hockey, veteran/rookie, roommates, bi awakening, grumpy/sunshine.
A veteran player needs one final successful season to secure his future. His loud, fearless rookie roommate becomes both a distraction and the first person able to see how much pressure he is carrying. Their private relationship develops inside a team environment neither can ignore.
8. Overtime Minutes — Chase Power
Best for: college hockey, age gap, mentor/rookie, forbidden professional relationship.
An older mentor expected to guide a younger player’s career becomes the one person whose approval matters too much. The attraction threatens authority, reputation, and the younger man’s professional future, creating a different kind of secrecy from Shane and Ilya’s league rivalry.
9. Straight Until Checkout — Milo Hart
Best for: closeted executive, late-blooming coming out, public image, class difference.
A corporate executive has spent decades performing the life his career and family expect. A connection formed far from his usual world forces him to confront what honesty could cost—and what continuing the performance is already costing him. It is the non-sports choice for readers most interested in the emotional burden of the closet.
10. The Rancher’s Vow — Milo Hart
Best for: widowed rancher, late-blooming sexuality, grief, rural isolation.
A man who has built his identity around marriage, loss, and the ranch begins wanting a future he never imagined for himself. The story replaces public sports pressure with small-town scrutiny and internal conflict, but it shares the same question: how long can love survive when one person believes it must remain unnamed?
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read Heated Rivalry before The Long Game?
Yes. The Long Game is a direct sequel centered on the same couple and assumes the reader understands their years-long history.
What book is most like The Long Game?
Heated Rivalry is essential for the same couple. After that, Role Model is the strongest Rachel Reid choice for another closeted athlete moving toward a healthier public life. For a hotter teammate romance, choose Straight Until Overtime.
Is The Long Game spicy?
Yes. It contains multiple explicit scenes, but its central focus is the emotional and practical future of an established couple.
Is The Long Game part of a series?
Yes. It belongs to Rachel Reid’s Game Changers world and directly continues Shane and Ilya’s story from Heated Rivalry.
Where should MM hockey readers go next?
Continue through Rachel Reid’s Game Changers books, then try Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy for college hockey. For a larger high-heat catalog covering NHL, college, coaches, rookies, and rivals, browse Chase Power.
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