Rachel Reid is opening up about the progress of the seventh book in her “Game Changers” series, “Unrivaled.”
The author has been writing the delayed upcoming novel, which will be the third book centered around fan-favorite characters Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov in their married life and being on the same team.
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“I’ve been writing it for about a year now. I was working on it secretly right up until January, when it was announced. I like it. I’m very happy with it,” she told Entertainment Weekly at BookCon. “I’m giving myself some time coming up in the next few months to just really focus on that and nothing else to make it as good as it can possibly be before it goes to my editor, because it’s really important. I feel like more than any other book I’ve written, this one needs to be really good. I hope I’m giving people what they want out of this. I hope what I want is what other people want.”
“I still am making decisions about the plot with some things. I rewrite a lot,” she added. “There’s parts of the book I’ve rewritten and changed so many times. But hopefully I’ve made the right decisions and, generally, it’s going well.”
Rachel also talked about how Troy Barrett and Harris Drover from “Role Model” were a big impulse for her to write the new book.
“‘Role Model’ — that’s one of my only books that doesn’t have an epilogue, because I knew ‘The Long Game’ was going to continue their story a little bit. Then I still felt like their relationship is quite short. It’s only set over a few months, so I wanted to dig a little deeper,” she dished. “I also just think it’s interesting that Shane and Ilya are on a team together with this other player who’s also dating somebody who works for the team. So they’re not alone. It’s like, how does all of this work together? I really like Ilya and Troy as friends. I also really like the idea of Shane coming into that friendship, because I think Shane’s very different from Troy and it’s almost like having two Ilyas in the space now, but then Harris is very different from all of them. So those four characters together I find very fun.”
Speaking of Troy, Rachel reacted to rumors Jack Innanen could be joining the Heated Rivarly season two cast, and his pleas to be a part of it.
“I mean, he’s very handsome, he’s very funny, he’s a great actor. I don’t know if he’s gonna be Troy or not, but he seems to want it. I wouldn’t hate it. I sometimes wonder if he’s too famous. He already has a pretty big fan base, it seems, because I hear people tell me every day that he should be Troy,” Rachel said. “One of my favorite things about season 1 is how we made stars out of so many young actors, and I would love to keep doing that, but I also wouldn’t be mad about it if it was him. I’d like to meet him. I’d like to be friends with him.”
If you missed it, the show’s creator, writer and director Jacob Tierney also talked about Heated Rivalry season two at BookCon!