Heated Rivalry was an emotional rollercoaster - frustration, yearning, jealousy, desire, need - and The Long Game felt like slowly being stitched back together. This is everything I felt, everything I lived, and the quotes that will never leave me.

Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry and The Long Game, both part of the Game Changers series, deliver one of the most unforgettable slow-burn romances in sports fiction. Through NHL rivals Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, Reid crafts a relationship overflowing with yearning, tension, heartbreak, healing, and profound love. These novels don’t just tell a story—they pull you straight into the emotional intensity of two athletes fighting for both their careers and each other.

For me, characters don’t arrive politely. They show up like trouble — loud, messy, magnetic — and immediately start arguing with me about who they are. I don’t build them from a checklist. I meet them. A spark, a contradiction, a desire they can’t hide — that’s all it takes. From there, it’s pressure, emotion, and chaos until they sharpen into people who feel real enough to walk off the page and demand I write them right.

There’s something addictive about slipping into a romantic story the moment your heart whispers, I need something that ruins me a little… in a good way. Whether it's on my Kindle at midnight or a Bookstagram recommendation I wasn’t emotionally prepared for, these are the places I go when I want stories that make me blush, melt, and occasionally rethink my standards for real-life men.

There’s nothing better than curling up with a romance that leaves your pulse misbehaving and your cheeks a little too warm. But with an ocean of books out there, how do you find the ones that actually get you? The ones that crack you open, tease you, tempt you, and tug at every soft spot you’ve got? That’s where good romance reviews become your secret weapon — the whispered intel that leads you straight to your next obsession.