Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

Timy reviews Heated Rivalry, the second book in Rachel Reid‘s romance series, Game Changers.

About the Book
The Sound of Madness
Book Blurb
Review
Our Judgement

Possible fit for The Sound of Madness Reading Challenge 2026 prompts:

Joker prompt that goes with anything: Freefall

Nothing interferes with Shane Hollander’s game—definitely not the sexy rival he loves to hate.

Pro hockey star Shane Hollander isn’t just crazy talented, he’s got a spotless reputation. Hockey is his life. Now that he’s captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won’t let anything jeopardize that, especially the sexy Russian whose hard body keeps him awake at night.

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. They’ve made a career on their legendary rivalry, but when the skates come off, the heat between them is undeniable. When Ilya realizes he wants more than a few secret hookups, he knows he must walk away. The risk is too great.

As their attraction intensifies, they struggle to keep their relationship out of the public eye. If the truth comes out, it could ruin them both. But when their need for each other rivals their ambition on the ice, secrecy is no longer an option.

Unless you live under a rock, you probably heard about the wildly popular TV series based on Rachel Reid‘s book of the same title, Heated Rivalry. It’s the second book in a series of books that are loosely connected, they all have different MCs – except for book 6 and the upcoming 7th that are both focusing on Shane and Ilya again. Another info for context in case you only saw the series – book 1 focuses on Scott Hunter and Kip, they are only mentioned in this one. Personally I think the creators made the right decision to include their plotline more fully in the series. You don’t have to read the books in order (the ones with different MCs, that is), you probably not going to miss much. That said, I only read Heated Rivalry, so take all that with a grain of salt. And do your own damn research!

So that being out of the way, time to talk about the actual book. I’ve been getting into M/M romance stories in the past couple of years, but I haven’t come across Heated Rivalry until the TV series blew up. So of course I got curious. I really should have known better with my track record of highly popular media, but alas. I can’t even say I was young and dumb, because I’m nearing 40 for fuck’s sake. Which is the new 20, just so you know. Anyway. I didn’t hate this book, but certainly didn’t love it either, it fell more into the meh category, hence my final rating. But I had so many thoughts, that I was forced to write a review, which I don’t do much these days, so buckle up, my friend, because here we fucking go. No spoiler warnings for this one, because there is literally nothing to spoil here. You’ll see.

Heated Rivalry is the love story of Shane and Ilya, two rivaling hockey stars, who keep their involvement with each other in secret for the better part of a decade. The book follows them through all the years with a lot of time jumps, most of which only serves to allow the author to squeeze in as many sex scenes as she possibly can. I’m not even kidding, 97% of the time they are in each other’s presence, they fuck. And when they are not together, they either think of each other, or being reminded of the existence of the other in some way – interview, puff piece on the TV, whatever. I guess we are supposed to feel like we are watching them fall in love, but this book lacks depth in many ways.

First, we don’t really get the sense that they are, indeed, are falling in love. We are being told how they feel about stuff (life, stardom, occasionally each other), but it all feels a bit surface level. But until the last quarterish, we don’t *see* them actually have much feelings. Outside of sex, that is, because their interactions do show the shift in their relationship gradually, but I still would have liked something more.

Secondly, these characters barely have any personality, and even what they have is clichéd as fuck. Actually, they feel like cardboard cut-outs dressed up in tropes. Let’s take Shane, who gets points for ticking the person of color box for his half Japanese ancestry, he is the perfect poster boy, he is one of the best players, he gets along with his parents and as boring as it gets. Except, of course that he is attracted to men, which won’t do in a such a high profile sports league as the NHL. His whole personality is worrying about being gay, basically. Which is, an absolutely valid thing to do, it’s just that I couldn’t tell you anything about him besides that he loves hockey and he is into men. Fine, he has a best friend, but he can’t even remember his newborn baby’s name.

And then there is Ilya, the other star player who comes from Russia with a set of childhood traumas, who is the text-book bad boy, fucking anything and everything that comes his way and giving off tough guy vibes. To be fair, of the two of them, he is the more interesting character and therefore easier to connect with. Especially when he is struggling with expressing his thoughts/feelings in English – so relatable to me as someone whose first language is Hungarian. I just wish he was less stereotypical.

Look, I watched the series, so I didn’t have super high hopes, but I still expected the book to have more depth, somehow. A deeper look into their lives, relationships, fears and dreams. But instead it only just scratches the surface. Despite what my review suggest, I did not hate Heated Rivalry, nor did I think about DNFing the audiobook at any point, which is half a battle won as far as I’m concerned. And I mean, it had become popular for a reason. Even if I’m not quite sure what that reason might be.

If what you look for is a book with a lot of gay sex and an easy enough plot to follow, then feel free to give Heated Rivalry a go. If you think about reading it after watching the show, it probably won’t add anything more, but hey, again, be my guest. I maybe had too high expectations, and that’s on me, but I still think there are better M/M romance books out there for you to find.