Heart of the Game Review: Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A heartfelt butch-femme romance between a baseball-obsessed sportswriter and a wary single mother of two boys — a genuine love letter to the game with wonderful kids, but so saturated in baseball metaphors, and so repetitive in its conflict, that many readers struggled.

Best for: Baseball lovers, readers who want a single-mom romance with great child characters, and anyone who enjoys a butch heroine who wins over a whole family.

Heat level: Not rated (romance.io has no steam rating)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.5/5 — a 3.81 Goodreads average across 645 ratings)

Tropes: Butch and femme, single mom, sportswriter, work versus love, second-act breakup, found family, baseball.

Heart of the Game is Rachel Spangler’s 2015 contemporary lesbian romance from Bold Strokes Books. All Sarah Duke ever cared about was baseball, and she has finally earned her shot as a full-time sports writer covering the St. Louis Cardinals — one of very few women ever to get into that world. Then she meets Molly Grettano and her two sons at the ballpark. Molly wants someone softer, more feminine and, above all, steady; she and her boys have been abandoned before.

It holds a 3.81 average across 645 Goodreads ratings, with 63% of them four or five stars, and 3.45 across 116 StoryGraph reviews. On Amazon it averages 4.4 stars across 274 ratings. Several of Spangler’s fans rank it among her best; others say it is her least satisfying.

What Is Heart of the Game About?

This is a sports romance about someone in love with a sport, not someone who plays it. Duke first meets Molly’s elder son, a young fan scoring the game in a notebook near the dugout, and gets off to a bad start when Molly finds him wandering off with a stranger. Duke keeps showing up, the boys adore her, and Duke slowly slips past Molly’s defences — even as Molly tries dating the kind of woman she thinks she should want.

Once they are together, the conflict is Duke’s job. A baseball writer’s season is relentless, and Molly has vowed never to put her boys in the position of being left again. The book asks whether Duke’s heart has room for anything besides the game.

What Makes This Baseball Romance Work

The boys: The most praised element. Joe and Charlie are distinct, funny and vivid, and one reader called Duke’s scenes with them “pure gold”.
A love letter to baseball: Readers who love the sport found the writing about it exquisite, and some non-fans said it made them want to watch.
Duke: A warm, enthusiastic butch heroine many readers adored.
Friendship first: Readers liked that the two start as friends before anything more.
A real conflict: Some readers praised a conflict grounded in real life rather than miscommunication.

Book Synopsis

Sometimes baseball is just a metaphor for life, and sometimes it works the other way around. All Sarah Duke ever cared about was baseball, and she has finally earned her shot as a full-time sports writer. She loves the work, she loves being one of the few women ever to gain access to a man’s world, and most of all she loves the game.

When Duke meets Molly Grettano and her two sons at the ballpark, she connects instantly with the young family. But Molly is not sure Duke is ready for something more. Molly wants someone softer, more feminine and, more importantly, steady. She and her boys have been abandoned before, and she has vowed never to put them in that position again.

If Molly were ever to trust anyone, it would have to be someone fully dedicated to her and her children. Duke has a lot of heart, but neither woman is sure there is enough room left in it for anything other than baseball.

My Review

The best parts of this book are the ones at the ballpark with the boys. Duke’s bond with Molly’s sons is funny and touching, and it is the most convincing argument the book makes for why she belongs in their lives. Spangler clearly loves baseball too, and when she writes about the game — the rhythms of a season, a little girl at her first game with her father — it is lovely.

The trouble is proportion. Readers who adore baseball still said the metaphors hammered them on almost every page — one devoted fan called the baseball “suffocating”, and another counted a baseball reference even after the first sex scene. The romance also loops: once together, Duke works, Molly is hurt, they make up, and several readers got tired of the same fight. The reunion convinced some and not others, with one reader arguing none of the reasons for the breakup had changed.

Molly divides readers too. Her insistence on wanting a feminine partner, and some of the ways she frames her attraction to Duke, struck several readers as uncomfortable, and a few could not see why Duke was so taken with her. One reviewer argued that plenty of real sportswriters have families and that the book treats the job as a more impossible obstacle than it is.

My honest note: If you love baseball and want a family romance with a big-hearted butch lead, this is a charming read. If you are lukewarm on the sport, the metaphors may wear you down.

Element	In Heart of the Game
Central relationship	Sarah Duke & Molly Grettano — butch baseball writer and a femme single mother of two boys
Core tropes	Butch and femme, single mom, work versus love, second-act breakup, found family
Setting	St. Louis and Busch Stadium during a Cardinals season
Heat level	Not rated — romance.io has no steam rating
Series	Standalone — couple ends up together
Content notes	Past abandonment, a breakup, sexual content

How Spicy Is Heart of the Game?

We have not scored the heat, because romance.io has no steam rating for Heart of the Game. Readers mention sex scenes — one wished the first one had not been followed by a baseball reference — but heat is rarely what they talk about.

The content to know about is Molly’s history of being abandoned and the mid-book breakup. For more single-parent romances, see our single mom lesbian romance list.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you love baseball, you want a butch-femme single-mom romance, and you enjoy strong child characters. It is on our sapphic sports romance and single mom lists.

You may want to skip it if: sports metaphors grate on you, you dislike second-act breakups, or repeated fights frustrate you.

In short: A big-hearted baseball romance that loves the game a little too much.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)

This is a Bold Strokes backlist favourite with a solid readership, and a web search surfaced no Reddit threads. On Goodreads the split is 26% five stars, 37% four, 27% three and 8% two or one; StoryGraph readers tag it emotional at 80%. It was not in Kindle Unlimited when I checked, and I found no audiobook on Libro.fm.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The boys first. Second, the love of baseball. Third, Duke. Fourth, a romance that makes readers laugh and cry.

What readers argue about and complain about: Too much baseball, above everything. Second, the repeated fight and second-act breakup. Third, Molly’s ideas about femininity. Fourth, an abrupt, unconvincing ending.

The standalone question worth asking first: Heart of the Game is a standalone. For more Rachel Spangler, The Long Way Home is also reviewed on this site.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need to like baseball to enjoy Heart of the Game?

It helps a lot. Baseball is almost a third character, and even readers who love the sport found the constant metaphors too much. Several readers who know nothing about baseball enjoyed it anyway, but others said the book demands you love the game.

Is Heart of the Game a butch-femme romance?

Yes. Duke is a butch sportswriter and Molly is a femme single mother who initially believes she wants a softer, more feminine partner. Her journey towards accepting what she actually wants is a big part of the story.

Does Heart of the Game have a breakup?

Yes. The two break up over Duke’s demanding job before reconciling. Several readers found the repeated fights and the late reunion frustrating or unconvincing.

How spicy is Heart of the Game?

romance.io has no steam rating for it, so we have not scored it. There are on-page sex scenes, but readers talk far more about baseball and family than about heat.

Does Heart of the Game have a happy ending?

The couple ends up together, but a few readers found the ending abrupt, wished for an epilogue, or were not convinced the problems that split them had been solved.

If You Loved Heart of the Game, Read These Next

For more Rachel Spangler, try The Long Way Home. For another sports romance with a single mom in the mix, see Calling the Shots, and How You Get the Girl pairs a coach with a guardian of a teenage player. For more, browse our sapphic sports romance hub, the single mom lesbian romance list, or the full Book Reviews archive.

The Bottom Line

Heart of the Game sets out to tell a love story in which baseball is a metaphor for life, and it succeeds in heart: the boys are wonderful, Duke is lovable, and the writing about the game is often beautiful. What holds it back is how relentlessly it leans on that metaphor, a looping conflict, and a heroine some readers could not warm to. For baseball lovers, it is worth it. Check Heart of the Game on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Heart of the Game ranks as a fair-to-good sports romance — warm in its family and its love of baseball, held back by overused metaphors, a repetitive conflict and a divisive heroine.