While Heated Rivalry the series continues to grow in popularity, the show’s material is officially getting a new installment.
Rachel Reid, the New York Times best-selling author of Heated Rivalry, is releasing the seventh book in her Game Changers series, her publisher officially announced Monday. Screenshots of a Barnes & Noble product page had been floating around over the week, but nothing had been officially confirmed.
Unrivaled will be a sequel to Heated Rivalry and The Long Game, which both focus on hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, rival professional players turned lovers (sorry, Shane).
Spoiler alert for any show-only fans ahead, but Unrivaled will pick up following the events of Heated Rivalry’s sequel The Long Game, which found Shane and Ilya, earnestly in a relationship, dealing with their relationship becoming public, their marriage and the news that Shane would be joining Ilya on his hometown team, the Ottawa Centaurs.
“For the first time in their professional hockey careers, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander have nothing to hide. For more than a decade, they kept their love a secret, but now they’re out, married and even playing on the same team. The support is incredible. Most of the time,” the book’s official synopsis reads.
The synopsis continues: “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.”
Reid’s novels received a massive bump in popularity following the released of Heated Rivalry, the Crave produced series, which airs on HBO Max in the U.S. Heated Rivalry and The Long Game recently became New York Times best sellers, several years after their initial publication. Game Changers, the first book in the series, was featured during episode three of the series.
Crave renewed Heated Rivalry, starring Hudson Williams as Shane and Connor Storrie as Ilya, for a second season and HBO Max confirmed it will continue to air the series. Tierney, who wrote and directed the show’s entire first season, has confirmed that he’ll return to direct the series, but told THR ahead of Heated Rivalry’s finale that he was considering the possibility “that other writers will come in to help” him out but that he wasn’t sure yet.
Unrivaled is currently available for pre-order and expected to be released on Sept. 29.