{"id":491880,"date":"2026-03-24T03:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/491880\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T03:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T03:13:08","slug":"heated-rivalrys-rachel-reid-on-shane-and-ilya-and-their-group-chat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/491880\/","title":{"rendered":"Heated Rivalry’s Rachel Reid on Shane and Ilya and their group chat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just a year ago, Rachel Reid<\/a> was a niche author whose books were mainly available as e-books. As a hockey fan, she wanted to tackle the toxic nature of the sport and create a world that emphasises love and mutual understanding without trivialising reality.<\/p>\n

Now, her book Heated Rivalry<\/a>, book number two in her seven-part Canadian novel series Game Changers, is a global smash of a TV show. With it, Reid\u2019s books and Reid herself, are in the spotlight, with no sign of the fanfare slowing down.<\/p>\n

Journalist Anna-Lena Malter spoke with the New York Times bestselling author about developing her lead queer characters Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), her in-depth chats with Hudson and Connor, and the rapid advancement of queer literature.<\/p>\n

PinkNews: Hi Rachel! Let\u2019s talk writing Heated Rivalry. Did Shane and Ilya develop differently during the writing process than initially planned?<\/p>\n

Rachel Reid: I think so. At first, I think in the early drafts of Heated Rivalry, Ilya was much more of a jerk. I think he was much meaner. The things he said to Shane were more, I don\u2019t know, just meaner. And I think he was maybe more of a stereotypical bad boy, I guess. And then I softened him a bit as I went back and wrote more. I\u2019d say Shane didn\u2019t change that much. He was always kind of like the main character, kind of in my head for that first book. So he was pretty much the same. I\u2019d say right from the beginning. But yeah, Ilya, I think changed a lot. Just as I dug deeper into him.<\/p>\n

If Ilya and Shane weren\u2019t pro athletes, what do you think they would do instead?<\/p>\n

Oh, well, I feel like Shane would just be like a personal trainer or physiotherapist or something pretty basic [but] still fitness. And I don\u2019t know, Ilya would probably\u2026 I mean, he\u2019s too tall to be a race car driver, but he\u2019d want to be. I think he\u2019d do something dangerous. I don\u2019t know, maybe he\u2019d be a pilot. Maybe be a rock star. Who knows? He\u2019d do something. Definitely something with dogs. He loves dogs.<\/p>\n

\"TORONTO,Rachel Reid attends the premiere of Heated Rivalry in Toronto, Ontario. (Getty)<\/p>\n

Q: Did you did you intend to write a Shane as an autistic character?<\/p>\n

Rachel Reid: Yeah, I did. When I wrote the first book, it was more about his overall personality. But I\u2019ve talked about before, how in the time between Heated Rivalry and The Long Game, my own child was getting assessed for things like ADHD and autism. I learned a lot over those few years, and then I was like, \u2018Oh yeah, Shane is autistic.\u2019 By the time I wrote The Long Game, I was like, yeah, that\u2019s what it is.<\/p>\n

Jacob knew right away. Jacob told me I think in the very first Zoom call, he was like, \u2018Well, Shane\u2019s autistic.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Yeah, yeah.\u2019 He\u2019s definitely approached the character that way. And when I talked to Hudson about it, he said the same thing. He was like, \u2018Well, Shane is very autistic.\u2019 We\u2019d have a discussion about something where Connor might say something about Shane and I heard Hudson be like, \u2018No, no, [he\u2019s] doing that because he\u2019s autistic.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018Yes, yes.\u2019<\/p>\n

I think because of that, which unfortunately is also common of people with autism, the things that Shane does and says get misunderstood, sometimes by characters in the book and sometimes by readers who are like, \u2018Well, that was a terrible thing to say or do.\u2019 And it\u2019s like, well, he\u2019s not great at reading social cues. He\u2019s got a lot of internalised anxiety. He\u2019s very particular about certain things. Things bother him that don\u2019t bother other people. I\u2019m glad that everybody involved with the character understands that and I didn\u2019t even have to explain it. Jacob got it. Hudson got it. I think most readers get it too. Lately I\u2019ve been trying to just make it clear that, yes, he\u2019s an autistic character.<\/p>\n

You said that you, Connor and Hudson are in a group chat together. What is the funniest message that you\u2019ve gotten from them?<\/p>\n

Rachel Reid: Oh, man, there\u2019s been a lot. Those guys are nuts.<\/p>\n

What kind of messages do you guys send each other?<\/p>\n

Rachel Reid: Well, sometimes it\u2019s very sweet ones. Lately it\u2019s none because they are so busy. We\u2019re all really busy! I also think suddenly they have, like, [millions of] Instagram followers or something. We switched over to text because we\u2019re all getting buried in our Instagram messages. One day Connor changed the group chat name to \u201cShilya and the creator\u201d, which I thought was really cute. I can\u2019t even find that group chat! It\u2019s buried so deep now, but they\u2019re just funny. I think when I got to see the episode, I got to see the rough cuts of the episodes and they didn\u2019t, any time I mentioned anything, they would just get really mad at me and jealous! They were just like, \u2018Shut up, Rachel!\u2019<\/p>\n

Oh! Well\u2026<\/p>\n

They\u2019re funny together. They tease me sometimes and I kind of tease them too, but I just really like them. I\u2019m really grateful that they auditioned. I\u2019m grateful that they got the parts and that they want to talk to me. And it\u2019s lovely to hear them talk about the books and stuff in interviews. It\u2019s nice that they mention me at all. I think there\u2019s a lot of authors [who] wouldn\u2019t get mentioned by actors or the director or anybody. But this is a good group. It\u2019s really nice.<\/p>\n

\"HudsonHudson Williams, Connor Storrie and Rachel Reid (Instagram\/rachelreidwrites)<\/p>\n

When we look back into what counts as mainstream in literature, only a few years ago, queer characters were the side characters, the sidekicks with tragic endings. And now, finally, mainstream publishing has picked up on the sense that everyone deserves a happily ever after. What was it like for you to see the process of queer stories progressing from a niche genre to a mainstream romance genre?<\/p>\n

It was great. I feel like definitely the big turning point was Red, White & Royal Blue because Heated Rivalry came out in March of 2019. I believe Red, White & Royal Blue came out in May or April. It was right after, and that was one of the first books that was like a love story between two men that I saw get that kind of marketing push, like it was in stores everywhere. I remember it was [at] airports, you know, it was everywhere.<\/p>\n

I think a lot of us who were writing queer romance at the time were like, \u2018Holy smokes! This is going to change everything.\u2019 And it kind of did, because before that queer romance just wasn\u2019t in stores, it wasn\u2019t in the romance section, it was nowhere. You could special order it, maybe if it was even in print. But most of them were e-book only or self-published, and you could buy them directly from the author. But it was almost like a secret underground thing. Then suddenly it became a much bigger thing. Now there\u2019s tables and big booksellers that are just queer romance right at the front of the store. It\u2019s very, very different.<\/p>\n

My books were never in print until pretty recently, the Game Changers books were printed in the trade paperback format in November of last year for the first time, and it\u2019s only just now since the show that the big booksellers like Barnes and Noble are carrying them. So even when they were in print, they weren\u2019t getting ordered by the by the big booksellers. Just in the short amount of time that I\u2019ve been writing these books, the change has been huge and it\u2019s been really exciting.<\/p>\n

Heated Rivalry is streaming now. Rachel Reid\u2019s Game Changers novel series is available to buy now.<\/p>\n

Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a year ago, Rachel Reid was a niche author whose books were mainly available as e-books. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,124347,173791,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-491880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-heated-rivalry","11":"tag-rachel-reid","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}