Review: Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

17 April of 2019 by ButtonsMom2003

Reviewer's Rating: 5

5.0Overall score

Absolutely wonderful and so hot!

Heated Rivalry By Rachel Reid

Genre: Contemporary, Sports, Romance, Hockey, GLBTQ, MM

Released: March 25, 2019

Publisher: Carina Press

Series: Game Changers, Book 2

Synopsis

Nothing interferes with Shane Hollander’s game—definitely not the sexy rival he loves to hate.

Pro hockey star Shane Hollander isn’t just crazy talented, he’s got a spotless reputation. Hockey is his life. Now that he’s captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won’t let anything jeopardize that, especially the sexy Russian whose hard body keeps him awake at night.

Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov is everything Shane’s not. The self-proclaimed king of the ice, he’s as cocky as he is talented. No one can beat him—except Shane. They’ve made a career on their legendary rivalry, but when the skates come off, the heat between them is undeniable. When Ilya realizes he wants more than a few secret hookups, he knows he must walk away. The risk is too great.

As their attraction intensifies, they struggle to keep their relationship out of the public eye. If the truth comes out, it could ruin them both. But when their need for each other rivals their ambition on the ice, secrecy is no longer an option…

One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN. It’s a promise!

This book is approximately 66,000 words

Review

Reviewed by ButtonsMom2003

Absolutely wonderful and so hot!

I thought Game Changer, Rachel Reid’s first published book, was fantastic and I wasn’t sure how she’d be able to top it with her next book. Well, top it she sure did! Heated Rivalry is every bit as fantastic, and maybe just a bit more, than Game Changer. Both books are about hockey, and both books are kind of about coming out. But Heated Rivalry is so much more. It’s a great enemies to lovers story.

Heated Rivalry totally stands alone but characters from Game Changer do make brief appearances. It actually took me a little while to figure out that a lot of things that happen in Heated Rivalry are on a parallel timeline to Game Changer.

This book spans 9 years or so, beginning in late 2008. It’s a captivating story about two hockey players who are supposed to hate each other—and sometimes they do—but they also can’t fight the attraction they feel to each other. I enjoyed following Ilya and Shane’s relationship over this vast span of time.

Like Game Changer, Heated Rivalry hit me in all the feels. As the story went along, I kept waiting for their relationship to be found out (this was kind of expected because secret relationships almost always get exposed) but it sure didn’t happen how I thought it might, but it was perfect the way it all went down.

I do wish that the epilogue had given us more of Ilya and Shane’s relationship another year or so down the road. There’s no cliffhanger but I’m just one of those readers who always wants more from a book that I love. I searched around on the ‘net and found out that more books are coming in this series and that we haven’t heard the last of these two guys (hint: check out the author’s Goodreads page and the “Ask the Author” questions she has answered).