Heated Rivalry has probably been the most talked about product in media at the end of 2025 and the start of 2026. But did you know this tv series is an adaptation from a book? Yes? Good. No? It is, the book is called Heated Rivalry and is the second book in the “Game Changers” series by Rachel Reid, and got first published in 2019. Do I agree with this hype or was it, again, not for me?
About the book
Series: Game Changers #2
Published by Carina Press on March 25, 2019
Pages: 368
ISBN: 9781335534637
Genres: Contemporary, New adult, Romance
Rating: 2/5
The epic enemies-to-lovers hockey romance from USA TODAY bestselling author Rachel Reid—book two in her fan-favorite Game Changers series.
Nothing interferes with pro hockey star Shane Hollander’s game.
Now that he’s captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won’t let anything jeopardize that—definitely not the sexy rival he loves to hate.
Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov is everything Shane’s not. The self-proclaimed king of the ice, he’s as cocky as he is talented. No one can beat him—except Shane. Publicly, they’re enemies. Privately, they can’t stop touching each other.
The smart thing to do? Walk away, once a few secret hookups turn into a struggle to keep their relationship out of the press. The truth could ruin them both. But for Shane and Ilya, secrecy is soon no longer an option…
My review
Before reading
When I first heard of this hype, I wasn’t too eager to find out what it was all about. Admittedly, I first heard about it on social media and I figured it was a TV series, something I really don’t care about as I often find those a waste of time. My curiosity got sparked however, when I found out that this adaptation was based on a book, even a romance. Although my romance era has fizzled out a bit, I still enjoy this type of books as they, despite their deeper layers and often more serious themes, are easy reads. Furthermore, the glowing reviews fueled my curiosity even more. Finally, it’s a m/m romance, and let’s face it, these are hard to find. The literary landscape is getting more diverse, but romance seems a bit harder to find when you are seeking diverse books. All these factors led to high expectations for this reading experience. Unfortunately, I can’t share in this enthusiasm and the hype.
Characters
The biggest reason why I can’t jump on the hype train is the characters and how they are elaborated. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rosanov are evenly matched rivals on the ice skating rink. They both play in the NHL, Ilya for Boston and Shane for Montreal. As these two teams play matches against one another on numerous occasions in the competition, it’s unavoidable that these two rivals have to encounter each other a lot. Both men are gay, something that is quite tabooed in sports. They get to know each other as teenagers and whereas there is rivalry on the ice, off the ice they are attracted to one another. This attraction gets translated into quick, sneaky and meaningless sex, stealing every moment they possibly can. Unfortunately, this makes them come off as superficial, even though Reid uses very frequent POV switches in order to help you getting to know both of them. Gradually, more details about these characters get revealed, which makes them slowly more interesting to read about. Otherwise, they are as interesting as a cardboard box. Still, one is elaborated more in depth than the other, but this mainly has to do with his backstory. I will get back to that in a bit.
Writing
I wasn’t the biggest fan of the writing style either. As mentioned before, this book is heavy on POV switching, which actually is necessary in order to get to know the characters as best as possible. However, the timing of these switches pulls you out of the story quite often, as these occur in the middel of a chapter, or even in the middle of a scene. I therefore was quite confused sometimes. Besides, the repetition of the specific characters’ name in nearly every single sentence of those scenes got on my nerves a lot. This improves gradually, but I just couldn’t get past it. The positives of this book’s writing and narrative, is the build-up of the story. The novel starts with a prologue set in 2016 and jumps back in time to summer 2008, when Ilya’s and Shane’s paths first cross. From then their story is told chronologically, up until it reaches the point of the prologue. Afterwards, it picks up chronologically and addresses the events following that prologue. This makes this book intriguing though.
Plot
Unfortunately, this intrigue doesn’t translate to the actual plot, which is honestly paper thin. Or at least, the first half is. This book is heavily focused on smut, which is a bit too much for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy smut whenever it’s meaningful and adds something to the plot. Here, it was a bit annoying, disturbing even. The first half of this novel therefore feels pretty shallow and superficial. This drastically improves when aforementioned background story for one of the characters is revealed. This happens around the halfway mark. The relationship between Ilya and Shane intensifies here and the focus shows a significant shift. Their relationship moves from smut territory into getting to know each other for real and connecting on a personal and deeper level.Reid touches upon serious themes here, which brings some depth to this romance. However, it cannot disguise the actual aim of this book including the poor plot and characters, despite all the effort. It still made me curious enough to finish this book and do some reading sprints.
Final thoughts
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid was a huge hype, which seems to have fizzled out already. Unfortunately, this is yet another hype that truly missed the mark for me. Hypes and I often don’t go hand in hand, but I always want to give them a try anyway. In this case, most elements of this novel didn’t work for me. The writing annoyed me most of the time, the characters weren’t too interesting until a certain point in the book and the plot was paper thin despite the effort of adding moer serious themes as well as a backstory. I was unable to connect to this book entirely, although I managed to do a reading sprint once the story gets more interesting at the halfway mark. Still, this ice hockey romance didn’t captivate me and neither piqued my interest to pick up the other books in this ” Game Changers” series.
