Heated Rivalry Author Unveils New Shane & Ilya Book Ahead Of S2 & I’m Off To The Cottage
If Heated Rivalry has you listening to “All The Things She Said” on repeat, watching endless Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov TikTok edits and dreaming of a cottage getaway, you’re not alone.
The sports romance series exploded into a global phenomenon at the end of 2025, with stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie officially crowned the internet’s new celeb crushes and fans eagerly awaiting a second season.
While series creator and executive producer Jacob Tierney has already confirmed season two likely won’t arrive until 2027 (boo), author Rachel Reid has announced a new novel in her Game Changers series to keep Hollanov fans fed.
Rachel Reid announces new Game Changers novel
In case you’re not across BookTok or haven’t gone down a Heated Rivalry wormhole late into the middle of the night (yeah, me neither…), the TV show is based on the first two novels in Reid’s Game Changers series.
Book one centres around Scott Hunter and Kip Grady (my faves), book two focuses on Hollander and Rozanov, and books three, four and five follow different hockey players’ love stories.
The sixth book in the series, The Long Game, was released in 2022 and returns to Hollander and Rozanov’s steamy romance. The forbidden lovers have been secretly dating for 10 years, but face challenges when Ilya finally wants to hard launch their relationship.
Now, Reid’s upcoming novel, Unrivalled, will see the hockey rivals-turned-lovers out, married and playing on the same team — but, of course, not everything is going smoothly.
The book’s synopsis reads: “They’ve gotten a lot of love from fans who are thrilled for them. But some people in the hockey world are still reeling from their relationship reveal, and the backlash — led by popular hockey podcast Top Shelf and the #TakeBackHockey movement — is getting louder.
“Ilya and Shane are finally able to stand together in the light, the way they’d always wanted. And now they might be facing their biggest challenge yet.”
Unrivalled is set to be released September 29, 2026, so you have plenty of time to read (or re-read) the rest of the books in the series before then.
What will Heated Rivalry season 2 be about?
It’s already been teased that the second season of Heated Rivalry will adapt The Long Game, so chances are that Unrivalled will serve as the basis of a yet-to-be-announced third season.
Williams and Storrie hinted in HBO Max’s announcement video in December that season two will be “hotter, wetter, longer” — as if you needed any more convincing to tune in.
“Start reading The Long Game if you wanna spoil it for yourself,” Storrie said.
If you can’t wait until then, it was recently announced that the show’s stars have teamed up with erotic audio app Quinn for its original series, Ember & Ice. The three-part series follows the steamy, intimate, tension-fuelled relationship of Dane and Finn, two fae princes from rival kingdoms, Solari and Lunare, voiced by Williams and Storrie. That’s hot.
And if that’s STILL not enough for you, feel free to watch the duo’s horny AF Golden Globes cameo on repeat.
