Here are the Rachel Reid books in order: seven Game Changers novels, two standalones, and five free Shane and Ilya extras sitting on the author’s own blog that are not on Amazon and that most readers never find. Heated Rivalry is book 2, not book 1, which is the thing that surprises everyone arriving from the show.
The short version if you only care about Shane and Ilya: Heated Rivalry (book 2), then The Long Game (book 6), then Unrivaled (book 7, now out in June 2027). Everything else is optional. The full order, and what each book is actually about, is below.
Game Changers: The Rachel Reid Books in Order
Books 1 to 5 each follow a different couple. Books 6 and 7, The Long Game and Unrivaled, go back to Shane and Ilya. You can read them out of order without getting lost, but the original order pays off in small ways.
BOOK 1
Game Changer
BOOK 2
Heated Rivalry
BOOK 3
Tough Guy
BOOK 4
Common Goal
BOOK 5
Role Model
BOOK 6
The Long Game
BOOK 7
Unrivaled- Game Changer · Scott x Kip · 2018
- Merry Christmas, Scott & Kip · novella 1.5 · no longer available anywhere
- Heated Rivalry · Shane x Ilya · 2019 · the one the show is based on
- My Dinner With Hayden · novella 2.5 · free on the author’s site
- Tough Guy · Ryan x Fabian · 2019
- Common Goal · Eric x Kyle · 2020
- Role Model · Troy x Harris · 2021
- The Long Game · Shane x Ilya · 2021
- Unrivaled · Shane x Ilya · out 1 June 2027
Plus two standalones outside the series, Time to Shine and The Shots You Take, which you can read at any point.
Reading in order is the version I’d recommend, but it isn’t required to follow anything. Each book resolves its own couple, and the previous ones come back as friends, teammates and background noise rather than unfinished business.
What’s in this guide
- → Why I love what Rachel Reid writes
- → Every book, one by one
- → Back to Shane and Ilya (books 6 and 7)
- → Unrivaled, and why it moved to 2027
- → The free Shane and Ilya extras on the author’s site
- → The standalone novels
- → Where to start, depending on your mood
- → Book vs show, the novellas, and other questions
- → Read next
Why I Love What Rachel Reid Writes
If Heated Rivalry worked on you, it was probably the mix: real tension, real feelings, and two people you end up caring about far more than you planned. Rachel Reid writes MM romance that keeps a certain softness even when the story hurts, and the hockey sits in the background as a setting rather than swallowing the book. You do not need to know or like hockey to read any of this.
The other thing I like is that the couples are genuinely different from one another. An anxious enforcer and a musician who hates hockey. A retiring goalie in his forties and a broke student in New York. A player with a public image problem and the team’s very out social media manager. It never feels like the same book with new names on it.
If you’re coming from the show: the books go further. More time inside their heads, a much longer timeline, and the intimate scenes are considerably more explicit than anything television was going to give you. The adaptation is excellent, but it is a condensed version of a relationship that runs for over a decade on the page.
One more thing, since it explains the tone of everything below: I’m French, I blog about MM romance in French, and I read most of my books in English, because the French catalogue is a lot smaller than yours.
I have read this series in both languages, and I have to admit that I prefer the original English. I still bought the French paperbacks, though, and for a reason that has nothing to do with the translation: each French cover is one colour of the rainbow flag. Not every book has been translated yet, so my shelf is still missing a few stripes. When the last one comes out, I will finally have the complete flag lined up.
About the two novellas in the list: one of them is still free on the author’s blog, alongside four other Shane and Ilya extras, and the other has quietly disappeared. I explain both cases further down.
Game Changer
Scott x Kip. Scott Hunter is the captain and the face of a New York hockey team, adored by the public and still firmly in the closet. His very controlled routine falls apart when he meets Kip Grady, who works at a smoothie bar and is not remotely impressed by any of it. What starts as an easy attraction turns into a secret relationship, and the press and the career pressure force Scott to decide how much he is willing to hide.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
Merry Christmas, Scott & Kip
Scott x Kip. A short holiday novella with the couple from book 1. No plot to speak of, just the two of them being together after the events of Game Changer.
Heated Rivalry
Shane x Ilya. Shane Hollander is the flawless captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, built entirely around hockey, with no room for distractions and absolutely none for Ilya Rozanov, his arrogant and deliberately provoking rival. On the ice they go at each other without mercy. Off it, the attraction is impossible to ignore. What was supposed to stay a handful of secret encounters becomes something neither of them can name out loud, and the longer it lasts the more it threatens their careers and their carefully maintained control.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
My Dinner With Hayden
Shane x Ilya. This one sits just before the epilogue of Heated Rivalry, several months after the events of book 2. A quieter, more domestic moment with the two of them, away from the pressure of the rivalry.
The Middle of the Series, and Its Three Very Different Couples
Books 3, 4 and 5 are where people tend to stall, because they arrive for Shane and Ilya and find three other couples instead. I’d push back on skipping them. This is the stretch where the series proves it isn’t a one-couple show, and Common Goal in particular is the book I’ve recommended most often to readers who thought they were done.
All three are standalone in practice. If you only want to read one before going back to Shane and Ilya, take the one whose trope you like best.
Tough Guy
Ryan x Fabian. Ryan Price has a reputation as an enforcer on the ice, and off it he is dealing with anxiety and the weight of everything people expect from him. Newly traded to Toronto, he runs into Fabian Salah, an old crush turned musician who has nothing to do with hockey and no intention of pretending to care about it. Between the queer scene in Toronto and an attraction neither of them is hiding well, Ryan starts to consider a life that matches what he actually feels.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
Common Goal
Eric x Kyle. Eric Bennett is a veteran goalie at the end of his career, trying to work out what comes after hockey and finally starting to explore dating men. Kyle Swift has just moved to New York for grad school, is fresh out of a breakup, and wants something uncomplicated. What begins as a friends-with-benefits arrangement between two men at completely different points in their lives quietly turns into something neither of them planned for.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
Role Model
Troy x Harris. After a public disgrace, Troy Barrett is traded to a struggling team and arrives determined to become someone better. In Ottawa he meets Harris Drover, the team’s social media manager: sunny, talkative, openly queer, and about as far from Troy’s guarded image as a person can get. The friendship that follows forces Troy to look honestly at his behaviour and at the wall he keeps between himself and everyone else.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
Back to Shane and Ilya
Books 6 and 7 return to the couple everyone came for. The Long Game picks them up ten years into the secret, and Unrivaled carries on from there. If you are reading the series purely for Shane and Ilya, you can technically go Heated Rivalry straight to The Long Game, and plenty of people do.
One thing worth knowing before you start book 6: it is a heavier read than book 2. The rivalry was fun. The consequences are not always.
The Long Game
Shane x Ilya. Ten years into a secret relationship, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov reach the point where the arrangement stops working. Still rivals as far as the public is concerned, they have spent a decade protecting their careers and their place in the league by hiding what they are to each other. The compromises have piled up, and the silence has a cost. Between what they want and what they are prepared to lose, they finally have to decide.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
Unrivaled
Shane x Ilya. The seventh Game Changers book, and the one nobody was sure would happen. Rachel Reid is going back to Shane and Ilya after The Long Game, which makes them the only couple in the series to carry three full books.
The Free Shane and Ilya Extras on Rachel Reid’s Website
This is the part of the series almost nobody knows about, and it is the reason I’d send you to the author’s own site before you go looking for fan fiction. Rachel Reid has posted a handful of free short stories and deleted scenes on her blog over the years. They are not on Amazon, they are not in any of the books, and they are not listed on her books page either, which is why they stay invisible. I checked every link below in August 2026 and all five were working.
- My Dinner With HaydenSixteen months after Heated Rivalry, three weeks before the epilogue. Shane and Ilya have people over for dinner.
- Heated Rivalry: Deleted ScenesScenes cut from the novel, straight from the author. Start here if you finished book 2 an hour ago and cannot let go.
- Heated Rivalry: Las Vegas RemixA reworking of the Vegas section of the book.
- CountdownA short, and the author’s own description of it is “smutty”, so consider yourself told.
- Halloween With IlyaExactly what the title says, and it is short and silly and free.
There is one more, Merry Christmas, Scott & Kip, which was on the old version of her blog and did not survive the site being rebuilt. If it comes back I’ll add it here.
The Standalone Novels
Rachel Reid has also published outside the Game Changers universe. Both books below are self-contained, so if you want to try the author without committing to a seven-book series, this is the low-effort way in. There is still hockey. There is always hockey.
Time to Shine
Landon Stackhouse is a quiet backup goalie called up to the main roster in Calgary, trying to find his place on the ice and off it. Casey Hicks is the opposite: a young, charismatic star who seems to do everything easily, including forming an instant connection with Landon. From improbable roommates to something considerably more, their relationship builds slowly across a season, in a warm romance about belonging and trust.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
The Shots You Take
Riley Tuck walked away from professional hockey and went home to a small town in Nova Scotia, leaving behind a career that broke and a heart in much the same state. Adam Sheppard, a former teammate and former friend with benefits, comes back unexpectedly, and everything they buried comes up with him. Between grief, regret and an attraction that never actually went away, both men have to deal with their past before a second chance is even possible.
Listen to it for free with the Audible trial, if you have not been a member in the past year.
Where to Start, Depending on Your Mood
You want the tension and the iconic pair
Heated Rivalry, then The Long Game
You want soft and comforting
You want the series properly, in order
You don’t want to commit to a series
You want to be emotionally destroyed
You want an older main character
Or do the simple thing: read whichever one appeals to you most right now, and pick up the order afterwards. Nothing here punishes you for it.
Rachel Reid Books: Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have to read the Game Changers books in order?
No. Each book resolves its own couple, and none of them end on a cliffhanger that needs the next one. The order adds context and small callbacks, nothing more. The one pairing I would keep in sequence is Shane and Ilya: Heated Rivalry, then The Long Game, then Unrivaled, in that order.
What are the differences between the Heated Rivalry book and the show? (no spoilers)
The adaptation is faithful to the spirit of the story, but it cannot show everything. The show captures Shane and Ilya while compressing a relationship that runs over ten years on the page.
In the novel you get:
- More interiority. Shane’s and Ilya’s thoughts are the centre of the book.
- A much longer timeline. The novel covers a full decade of their relationship.
- Scenes that did not make it in. Conversations, moments of intimacy, small turns.
- More heat. The book is considerably more explicit than the show.
On the adaptation side, a few secondary characters have slightly adjusted roles, some events are reordered for television pacing, and the tone is similar but less introspective. The show is a very good preview. The book is the full version.
Why read the book if I’ve already watched the show?
Because you have not actually seen all of it. Several key scenes and quieter moments exist only on the page, being inside their heads changes how their doubts and contradictions land, and the pacing is slower and more immersive. The intimate scenes go a good deal further without television constraints. And reading it opens up the rest of the series, which is where the story continues.
Where do the two free novellas fit in?
My Dinner With Hayden sits just before the epilogue of Heated Rivalry, so read it once you have finished book 2. It is free on Rachel Reid’s blog and has never been sold on Amazon, which is why so many readers never find it. There are four more free Shane and Ilya extras on the same blog, including deleted scenes from Heated Rivalry, and I’ve listed all of them here. Merry Christmas, Scott & Kip, the novella after book 1, was on the old version of her site and is no longer up.
How explicit are these books?
Explicit. These are adult romances and the intimate scenes are on the page, in detail, in every book in the series. Time to Shine is the gentlest of the lot and even that one earns its rating. If you came from the show expecting something similar, expect quite a bit more.
Why was Unrivaled pushed back to 2027?
Rachel Reid announced it herself, in a video posted to Instagram in February 2026. Two reasons: the show turned her life upside down and took away the quiet time she needs to write, and her Parkinson’s symptoms had worsened enough to make writing physically difficult. She was diagnosed in 2023, around the time the adaptation was first proposed to her. The book moved from autumn 2026 to 1 June 2027, and existing pre-orders carry over.
Is Unrivaled the last Game Changers book?
Nothing has been announced either way. Unrivaled is out on 1 June 2027 and returns to Shane and Ilya, which makes them the only couple with three books. Given how the series has gone so far, I would not assume it stops there.
Will there be more adaptations after Heated Rivalry?
Yes. The first season did well enough that more of the Game Changers universe has already been confirmed for adaptation. Details are still thin, but the show is clearly not stopping at one couple.
Amazon links on this page are affiliate links. They don’t change the price you pay, and they help me keep the blog running. Thank you!
New to the genre? Start with the map.
A small thing that makes long reading sessions easier
If you read on a Kindle, you know the moment: wrapped in a blanket, one hand tucked in where it’s warm, and you have to reach out every thirty seconds just to turn the page. This little ring remote clips onto your finger and does it for you, one click, no touching the screen. Just enjoy!
