Author Rachel Reid teased upcoming short stories exploring off-page moments and characters from her bestselling Heated Rivalry universe during an appearance that followed a massive 12,000-person theme night at Fenway Park on August 31, 2026, celebrating the global romance phenomenon.
Fenway Park Transforms Into a Hockey Romance Phenomenon
On August 31, 2026, the home of the Boston Red Sox underwent an unusual transformation. Fenway Park was overtaken by the world of Rachel Reid’s bestselling queer hockey romance series, drawing 12,000 fans through special-event and VIP ticket sales. The ballpark hosted a celebration for the hockey stars Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, whose romance captured a global audience after being adapted into a television series for Canada’s Crave and HBO in the United States.
Jerseys bearing the names Hollander and Rozanov filled the stadium concourses during the Red Sox game against the Seattle Mariners. VIP ticket holders received an exclusive Heated Rivalry hat riffing on the series’ iconic I’m coming to the cottage
line, with the word cottage crossed out and replaced with Fenway. The venue featured a makeshift Club Hollanov and a fourth-floor Samuel Adams rooftop bar labeled as The Cottage, alongside themed food, drinks, and a pregame DJ set from UK artist-producer Harrison.
The event was a collaborative effort involving Fenway Park, Harlequin, and HarperCollins Canada, becoming the baseball franchise’s biggest theme-night promotion to date. Craig Swinwood, CEO of HarperCollins Canada and Harlequin, noted the unprecedented scale of the response, stating that 12,000 tickets sold in just a few days, including 2,500 VIP passes that disappeared within minutes.
Rachel Reid Teases New Short Stories and Off-Page Scenes
While currently working on her upcoming book Unrivaled—slated for release on June 1st, 2027—and visiting the set of the television adaptation’s second season, Reid has indicated plans to expand the literary universe with fresh bonus content. Fans hoping for additional vignettes focusing on peripheral characters or gaps in the timeline can expect new narrative pieces.
Reid explained that she intends to finish and publish fun little scenes from different characters’ points of view, specifically targeting figures who did not receive standalone books. Much of her existing short fiction centers on Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov from Heated Rivalry and The Long Game, featuring published online vignettes such as Ilya’s perspective of their Las Vegas hookup, his first Halloween in Ottawa, and the fan-favorite dinner party narrative My Dinner with Hayden,
which explores a tense gathering between the couple and Shane’s best friend.
The upcoming short stories will also address narrative gaps that occurred off-page in the original novels. Reid noted that there’s things that happened off-page in the books that weren’t on page, basically just because I never knew if another book was coming out or what was happening with the series, prompting her to revisit those untold moments.
Television Adaptations and Personal Milestones
The convergence of publishing success and television development has brought new visibility to romance tropes. Swinwood observed that romance is a big tent, emphasizing that while readers have always been diverse, publishers are increasingly recognizing that breadth. He credited Reid with blazing a trail for contemporary romance authors.
For Reid, the Fenway Park event held deep personal resonance. Growing up a Red Sox fan, she first visited the stadium with her family at age 11, later bringing her own children while her father maintained a lifelong allegiance to the franchise. The celebration culminated when Reid and her father threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game.
Meanwhile, television production continues to catch up with book canon. Show creator Jacob Tierney confirmed that Shane’s coming out to his Montreal teammates—a development mentioned only retrospectively in the epilogue of Heated Rivalry—will be depicted in full during the second season. Reid expressed excitement over seeing her work realized on screen, noting that her original literary vision was always Shane doing it in a pretty low-key way, just like, quick one and done.