Fans of Heated Rivalry who are dying to read the continuation of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s love story are going to have to wait a bit longer.
Season two of Heated Rivalry won’t premiere until next year, and now author Rachel Reid — who wrote the Game Changer series the show is based on — has announced that the next book about everyone’s favorite queer rivals-to-lovers couple will be delayed.
Reid took to Instagram to post a video announcing that the third book about Shane and Ilya and the seventh book in the series, titled Unrivaled, was moved from its planned release on Sept. 29 of this year to June 1, 2027.
The author said she knows fans may be disappointed, but the delay is necessary because her life has gotten "very, very busy and overwhelming" as the show has become a cultural phenomenon, and she’s also been struggling with health issues.
She called the experience "beyond a dream come true," but said that her "life has gotten very different in the last couple of months, and although it's all good, it's also taken away my ability to have quality time to write. And there's nothing more important to me than Unrivaled being the best book it can possibly be."
Reid, who has Parkinson's disease, shared that her symptoms have gotten worse lately and that has slowed down her progress on the gay hockey romance novel.
"My Parkinson’s symptoms have gotten a bit worse and it’s made it difficult physically to write," she said. "So I’m definitely a lot slower, and that’s just something I need to learn how to navigate and kind of face instead of ignoring."
This comes after fans flocked to social media earlier today when they noticed that their pre-ordered special editions of Unrivaled had been moved to a Nov. 1, 2027 release date.
The release of the book may be more than a year away, but Harlequin has already put out a plot synopsis for the next entry in the Shane and Ilya saga.
"A line has been drawn — and the hockey world is divided," the official synopsis reads. "For the first time in their professional hockey careers, Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander have nothing to hide. After more than a decade of keeping their love secret, they’re out, married, and even playing on the same team. The support has been incredible. Most of the time. While fans celebrate them, others in the hockey world are still reeling from the reveal. A growing backlash—led by the popular hockey podcast Top Shelf and the #TakeBackHockey movement—is making its presence felt. Standing together in the light was everything Shane and Ilya ever wanted. Now, they may be facing their biggest challenge yet."
To "soften the blow" of having to wait even longer for the next book, Reid hinted that "some announcements" are coming later this week that she thinks "people will have been hoping for."
She finished her video by thanking fans for their support: "Thank you, and yeah, I hope you like the book."
