‘Heated Rivalry’ at BookCon 2026: All the Season 2 Scoop From Rachel Reid & Jacob Tierney

Heated Rivalry took over BookCon 2026, kicking things off as the first panel of the weekend. Author Rachel Reid and show creator Jacob Tierney took to the Main Stage to talk the creative process behind adapting the hockey romance for the screen. While most of the April 18 discussion revolved around insights into how Heated Rivalry Season 1 came to be, they also shared some details about what’s to come, including scoop on Reid’s next book, Unrivaled, and Tierney’s Heated Rivalry Season 2.

Moderated by Teen Vogue’s Versha Sharma, the duo teased what’s next for Shane (Hudson Williams) and Ilya’s (Connor Storrie) romance on the page and on the screen. Tierney has already started writing the script for Season 2, which is based on Reid’s The Long Game sequel. As for Reid, she’s working on her third book about the couple, which has a June 2027 release date. Keep scrolling for the biggest takeaways from the panel.

Heated Rivalry Season 2

Don’t expect Season 2 to look drastically different than Season 1. When Sharma asked about a budget increase, Tierey confirmed not much would change on that front. The creator said that the topic came up when discussing casting new actors. “It’s like, here’s the thing: We might make you famous. We’ve done that. The good folks at Peleton will make you rich,” he said, referring to Williams’ recent ad with the fitness brand.

Tierney also discussed his new cowriter for Season 2, North of North‘s Michael Goldbach “I’m really excited to have him on board helping out,” he said. “With the time frame that got crunched the way it did, I needed help, and he’s just great at what he does. And he loves the show, he loves the books. He’s a fan, too… He loves to talk about these characters, and he loves to talk about their relationship.”

The showrunner, who says he reads a part of The Long Game every day and has read the rest of the books six or seven times each, also spoke to the challenge of adapting the sequel, which broaches “more serious territory.” He added, “There’s lots of flirting and lots of sex but it’s like this kind of danger, this kind of hotel room, adolescent sex stuff is largely gone, and so, it presents really new challenges.”

“Part of the reason you start with Heated Rivalry as far as adapting the book is because you want to get to The Long Game,” he continued. “Because The Long Game is an emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously.”

Crave

Tierney said that one of his favorite scenes he’s read in the past five to 10 years is Shane and Ilya’s “breakup scene” in The Long Game. “Well, not really a breakup,” he clarified. “That fight at Christmas. What do you do after the rush of danger is gone and now you have to live in a relationship where you still aren’t communicating properly, as much as you would like to? You can still say you love each other, but as adults know, there’s so much more than that to making a relationship a success. And that’s what they’re learning.”

That’s why Reid’s books are “a cut above,” Tierney said. “It’s because it’s not just here to titillate or give you the happy ending or make you swoon. In The Long Game, you’re like okay we’re here to ground this. It’s something that feels very real.”

Tierney also views Troy and Harris, another couple that appears in Reid’s series and has their own book called Role Model, the same way. “Parts of Role Model are going to be in The Long Game, to the surprise of absolutely nobody,” Tierney said in the panel, though he also confirmed that Ilya and Shane will remain the “heartbeat” of the show as the world expands.

“There’s an easy, kind of facile way of looking at Role Model,” the showrunner explained. “It’s very grumpy-sunshine. It’s very apple orchard. Troy’s a really damaged guy and Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we’re digging into that even harder. Because that’s what’s interesting. And that’s all there in those books. That’s why it’s such a fertile playground for me as a creator to have fun with.”

Unrivaled

Though the conversation was mostly adaptation focused, Reid did speak a bit about the third Shane and Ilya book. When a fan asked where she thought Troy and Harris would be 10 years into the future, Reid said, “You’re going to see quite a bit of them in Unrivaled. Unrivaled is taking everyone’s relationships a little bit further… It won’t be 10 years in the future, but I wanted to give you an idea of what their lives are going to be like.”

She also spoke to writing in the wake of the show’s massive success. “I thought The Long Game was pressure, but this feels like way, way bigger, but I’m still determined to try to just stick to what I’ve always done when I’m writing: Pretend that I’m just writing for me, and I hope other people like it,” Reid said.

Tierney’s new show tie-in book

Tierney also teased what fans can expect from I’ll Believe in Anything, his upcoming book of annotated Heated Rivalry script. There will be some “fun other stuff with it,” he confirmed, including “a wonderful introduction by a certain someone else.”

“I didn’t want to just publish nonsense, so we’re trying to make sure that it’s something you guys wold like and really want to keep in your collection should you choose to buy it,” he said. “There’s some photographs you’ve never seen before and stuff like that.”