I read Heated Rivalry – the book is better than the TV show

As a rule of thumb, whenever I see a compelling story being adapted for the small or big screen, I try my best to read the novel too.

Over the past few years, I’ve devoured Hamnet, Project Hail Mary and the Odyssey; wiled away the hours consuming One Hundred Years of Solitude, Sunrise on the Reaping and Wuthering Heights; and added Death of Bunny Munro and Bridgerton to my ever-growing TBR (I’ll get there!).

So when I saw the hype for Heated Rivalry reach a feverpitch across the pond in December, I decided to put the month-long wait before the show arrived in the UK to good use and secured myself a copy of the steamy Rachel Reid ice hockey romance.

So, as I travelled home for the holidays, I clicked play on the nine-hour audiobook and buckled in. 

For those who need a quick crash course on the plot: Two hockey prodigies, Canada’s Shane Hollander and Russia’s Ilya Rozanov, are dubbed arch-rivals at the start of their promising elite careers.

But behind closed doors, it’s a very different story as they strike up a steamy fling that will change the course of their lives.

Now, of course, there are inevitable differences between the written version and how that’s interpreted for TV – that’s showbiz, baby!

Where the prose can paint a detailed picture of the colour of the lamp on someone’s bedside table, TV shows need to find concise and inventive ways to tell the same story. It’s a fine art, and one I certainly don’t envy.

The stark differences between the Heated Rivalry book and show, however, are clear from the very first scene.

Where the books spend some time in Shane and Ilya’s lives in the lead-up to their meeting, offering an insight into their psyche and why we should care about them, the show opens up on their very first meeting.

The almost cold-opening drops you in the deep end, making the stakes of them pursuing an affair (the crux of the whole plot) more difficult to grasp from the get-go.

Another aspect that seemed more richly explored in the novel was their professional rivalry.

There was more time to linger on the impact of being pitted against one another, and actually show that there really was a competitive streak between the two.

We got to see Shane truly feel wound up and determined to knock Ilya down a peg on the ice, bounce off Ilya’s penchant for purposefully riling Shane up.

Needless to say, hockey plays a significantly smaller role in the show.

As for the speedy timeline, even the book flies through the months to make it through a whole decade by the end, but the TV show is moving so fast it’s difficult to catch your breath.

Especially in the case of Heated Rivalry, the internal monologue of both characters provides vital insight into their evolving romance, their fears, their insecurities, and the very interior of their lives.

Sadly, a lot of this is lost in translation. For example, in the famed phone call between Shane and Ilya, where our brooding Russian athlete shares his innermost thoughts in Russian to an oblivious Shane, the best part is his sheer panic afterwards.

What if Shane Google translated it? Why can’t he be closer to him? Oh my god, his feelings are deeper than he even realised.

We do get a sense of that in the show, but it is nowhere near as layered.

And, of course, the book has an entire extra chapter where the credits start to roll on the TV show. If you are desperate for more Ilya and Shane, then it is worth at least reading the very end to feast on more content.

This isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the show, however. As someone less keen on the smutty parts of the book, the show’s explicit sequences are (somehow) shorter and have plenty of interactions interspersed.

Also, it’s always fun to watch scenes you liked in the book play out on screen, especially with solid performances that evoke the emotion of the novel – the cottage is done exceptionally well.

Finally, the show made the wise choice to incorporate Kit and Scott’s entire book into one episode, saving me another read, while still offering the main highlights (although it could have been slightly better handled).

All in all, as someone who had fun watching the TV show, I’m glad I read the book beforehand to get a sense of the depth of these characters. It definitely enhanced the experience.

It’s why I’m sure that if you are obsessed with the show, then there’s every chance you’ll be even more obsessed with the book.

Heated Rivalry is available to stream on Sky and NOW.

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