Review

I normally would not feel compelled to write this. I do read romance/erotica on a regular occasion. However, I rarely have much to say about it and also I don't know that I necessarily need to be horny on main. I suspect that the average Joe would be more interested in reading my review on actual book books and not romance novellas. I do have some not quite fully formed thoughts on the whole romance genre and how there's a bit of a missing middle between romance and erotica. Perhaps a blog post someday. Always found myself wanting more. But anyway... Heated Rivalry exploded everywhere like a hot sweaty mess so talk about it we shall.

I did, in point of fact, quite like it. I have not seen the TV show yet. Probably will at some point. But I quite liked the relationship between Shane and Ilya. Enemies to lovers is a thing for a reason. And the rough and bantery sex is 👍👍 from me. I was rather wary going in. I wouldn't say that I disliked Game Changer (the first in this series). But it ran into largely the same problems I have with many romance novels which is: everyone is perfect and we never do anything. As I was going through it, I couldn't help but wonder what in the hell people saw in the next one such that it would be worthy of getting a TV adaptation.

But I can see why now. We have a good central relationship and the book itself is largely episodic. Though I can't help but wonder how the show fills out the time. There are a not insignificant number of episodes where the events are they fucked. And I mean, go with God, but I do have somewhat higher expectations from a TV show than I do a romance book. I expect a little bit more to be going on events-wise.

My big disappointment, and I feel this way about a good proportion of romance is that it immediately becomes less interesting once we hit I Love You. That tends to be the part where we just don't have all that many things left to say. Which is a bit of a shame. Feels like we work towards that climax for much of the book and then have this disappointing little post-nut clarity at the end. It's not like a travesty or anything, just not really as interesting.

Might give some more by Reid a chance. As I said, I did feel this was a clear and obvious improvement from the first book in the series. Curious if it stays consistent, continues to improve or what.