HEATED RIVALRY by Rachel Reid (2019, repub. 2023)

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ - Rachel Reid, ma’am. Ma’am. How DARE you write something THIS beautiful, wholesome, & precious??? This is truly a work of queer classic literature. My review is mostly gifs, jsyk…

Mar 13, 2025

∙ Paid

“Ilya gave in and reached for him. As soon as he had Shane in his arms, he was done for. He leaned forward and took his mouth. It felt different this time, as he wrapped his arms around Shane’s back and pulled him close against his body. Shane’s hands cradled Ilya’s face as he kissed him with the force of everything they had almost said out loud.”

title: Heated Rivalry

series: Game Changers, book two

author: Rachel Reid

published: 2019 (rewritten in 2023)

publisher: Carina Press

genre/subgenre: gay hockey romance

setting: 2008-present day across various NHL cities (Boston, Montreal, Ottawa), plus Miami, Vegas & Moscow

main themes/subjects: closeted queer professional hockey players, sports rivalry, language barrier, hotel-room hook-ups

representation: bisexual Russian MMC, gay mixed Asian-Canadian MMC, m/m romance

tropes: enemies/rivals-to-lovers, secret lovers, good-boy/bad-boy, one-true-love

“But there was Rozanov, bold as brass, calmly announcing his intention to do what maybe four or five rookies had been able to do? Ever? In history?
Ridiculous. Infuriating.
“Do you feel pressure to outperform Shane Hollander this first season?” the interviewer asked.
“Who?”
Fuck. You. Rozanov.
Rozanov looked directly at the camera, and Shane froze. He can’t see you, dummy.
He watched Rozanov wink at the camera and Shane’s eyes narrowed. He was going to shut this fucker up when their teams finally met.”

my thoughts:

Rachel Reid. Ma’am. MA’AMMMM. How DARE you write something THIS beautiful, wholesome & precious??? In THIS economy!? What am I supposed to do with this???

This book is about to become my entire personality that’s what I’m going to do with it. Heated Rivalry is a desert island, top-ten book of all time for me now. All I want to do is read this book over and over and over again. I want fifty books all about Ilya & Shane. They are my OTP. The scene with Ilya & the kids in the pool undid my whole entire heart. I literally can’t stop rereading just those three pages.

& then the PROLOGUE to the EPILOGUE at the VERY END. Like. Rachel Reid what are you DOING to meeee *melts off chair*. This book left me LIT. TRA. LEE. breathless. I’m not exaggerating. When I finished reading this book I was completely, emotionally spent.

Yeah & I have zero criticisms so… Hayden sucked. But he was supposed to suck, lol. & him being the best friend of someone like Shane was very believable especially in the hockey world. 😂

Shane probably would have annoyed me more if he wasn’t SO damn nice to, thoughtful towards, considerate of, & patient with Ilya. Especially with how Shane saw the like “real” Ilya that literally nobody else saw? I respected that so damn much. Shane loved Ilya because of who Ilya really was & regardless of Ilya’s feelings towards him & I thought that was so incredibly brave of Shane to be able to own that without any doubts or hesitation (you know, once he figured out that he was indeed very gay). Although apparently book 6 is the sequel to Shane & Ilya’s story so maybe I’ll get the chance to hate him in that book. 😅😬

& while I love a strong, confident, independent bisexual man, I also thought Ilya’s vulnerability was so damn precious & absolutely heart-breaking. Their conversation over the pool table towards the end of the book actually made me have to put the book down because I was crying so much.

i would recommend this book to readers who want to read what is truly a work of timeless, queer classic literature. I mean… Heated Rivalry is one of the most precious queer love stories I have ever, ever read, in case you didn’t get that from *gestures to above text*.

[Tangent:

And why shouldn’t Heated Rivalry be considered a work of classic literature?

I talk all the time about how I consider works of fantasy, sci-fi, spec-fic, & horror to be staples of classic literature… & it’s not just because those books are well-written—what an arbitrary metric that would be!—no, it’s because they add something fundamental to the universal, timeless, human literary forever-zeitgeist. That’s why “classic” literature is something that is taught—or at least you know hypothetically, theoretically, or it should be, etc. etc.—so yes, add Felix Ever After & Heated Rivalry to your classic literature shelves: they absolutely belong there.]

Anyway, this book is best read after reading book one in the series. YES you gotta read Game Changer first. Yes, Heated Rivalry is the superior book (I mean, it’s basically perfect) but, *that scene* in Game Changer happens in Heated Rivalry & a) knowing that scene is coming while the majority of Heated Rivalry is happening, & b) seeing the MCs of Heated Rivalry react to that scene from Game Changer is… well let’s just say it makes reading Game Changer first 1000% worth it. Basically I was sobbing at a part in the book where had I not read Game Changer I may have been mildly confused.

“Without warning, Ilya moved his hand until it was right next to Shane’s, and then he hooked their thumbs together. Shane’s first instinct was to pull away, but he resisted. Instead he closed his eyes, and tried not to hope for impossible things.”

final note: um. *clears throat* on that note… I do think I need to take just a small break from gay hockey romance novels though because… It is actually messing with my sleep schedule & maybe slightly distorting my grip on reality. 🙃😅 Plus they’re all starting to run together at this point… 😂

Edit: stop. the fucking. presses. In doing a bit more research for the “further reading” section of this review I discovered that book six in this series, is part two of Shane & Ilya’s story. SO. Quick pause on that plan to take a break from hockey romance novels while I go get that book from my library asap.

CW // abusive parent/family, suicide, death of parent/s, homophobia (incl. f-word slur), & lotsss of spicy hot seks

spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️—apparently I’m very, very into the PEERLESS combination of the enemies/rivals-to-lovers + good-boy/bad-boy + secret lovers + one-true-love tropes. 🥵 Very hot, very nice. 🤣🫦

season: hockey season, though there are some good warm-weather scenes too…

music pairing: definitely your favorite nightclub music mix… throw some Russian techno in there too…

Quotes, Notes, & Annotations…

(Just a heads up—my annotations are basically just all crying gifs for this one so… yeah…)

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HEATED RIVALRY by Rachel Reid (2019, repub. 2023)

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ - Rachel Reid, ma’am. Ma’am. How DARE you write something THIS beautiful, wholesome, & precious??? This is truly a work of queer classic literature. My review is mostly gifs, jsyk…

title: Heated Rivalry

genre/subgenre: gay hockey romance

“But there was Rozanov, bold as brass, calmly announcing his intention to do what maybe four or five rookies had been able to do? Ever? In history?

Ridiculous. Infuriating.

“Do you feel pressure to outperform Shane Hollander this first season?” the interviewer asked.

“Who?”

Fuck. You. Rozanov.

Rozanov looked directly at the camera, and Shane froze. He can’t see you, dummy.

He watched Rozanov wink at the camera and Shane’s eyes narrowed. He was going to shut this fucker up when their teams finally met.”

my thoughts:

[Tangent:

“Without warning, Ilya moved his hand until it was right next to Shane’s, and then he hooked their thumbs together. Shane’s first instinct was to pull away, but he resisted. Instead he closed his eyes, and tried not to hope for impossible things.”

further reading:

Click on the star ratings beside the titles I’ve read to read my reviews/thoughts about the book.

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““Since their rookie season,” Shane heard his mother say. “I can’t believe it.”

“Looking at them now, I kind of can,” his father said.”

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Quotes, Notes, & Annotations…

(Just a heads up—my annotations are basically just all crying gifs for this one so… yeah…)

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