Although the wait is on for Season 2 of Heated Rivalry, series creator Jacob Tierney will have plenty of source material to work with.
Following the hit Crave/HBO Max series adaptation of Rachel Reid‘s Game Changer novels, the author is releasing the seventh book in her hockey romance, Unrivaled, on September 29 of this year.
Now available for pre-order as a Barnes & Noble exclusive, the synopsis for Unrivaled reads:
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“A line has been drawn—and the hockey world is divided. 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.
“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.”
Unrivaled serves as a direct sequel to the previous book The Long Game, which follows Ilya and Shane a decade into their relationship. Fans watched them fall in love during the first season of Tierney’s TV adaptation, which was based on the second book in the series, Heated Rivalry.
Tierney previously told Deadline that Season 2 will be based on The Long Game, the only other current book in the series that focuses on Ilya and Shane.
“I don’t have details. I have not started writing, so I’m not just trying to be evasive. I genuinely don’t know yet,” he prefaced. “I’m so lucky to have a whole world of books here to grab things from, to use, to add color, to add context, to add story. I can tell you I’m really excited to get back to writing. I’m excited to get back into this world with them, and I’m looking forward to it.
“I guess, here’s what I can say too, is that Heated Rivalry will always be centered around Shane and Ilya, this show. But we have a whole universe here, and so there’s loads of other things that we’re thinking about and that we’re gonna explore and that we’re gonna start to take more seriously now that we know that there’s an audience for it. And that’s pretty exciting, so I’m looking forward to really digging into this world,” added Tierney.