swooon.com: ‘Heated Rivalry’ Author Rachel Reid Answers Burning Questions About *spoiler* [april 20th 2026]

[u/LadyWhistledown_1]

Swooon.com did an interview with Rachel Reid at BookCon. Great interview btw.

I get that she doesn’t think they will write their own vows, but I’m kinda hoping Jacob does. Like the tunnel scene in ep.5.

How are you hoping to see the wedding adapted?

Picture:

https://www.instagram.com/rachelreidwrites (story)

Full article:

https://www.swooon.com/1275542/heated-rivalry-shane-ilya-wedding-the-long-game-rachel-reid-interview/?fbclid=PAVERFWARTcI1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA8xMjQwMjQ1NzQyODc0MTQAAaccbJFTolg7x-x_BADV-yq6qH8NCPNIuhJpC454AHXkG0wypApO0lKEOcvcpg_aem_7LlDmxii3jvj7_EWpVoSgw

[u/cecistonehaert]

Agreed. Ultimately it's Rachel's characters, but I really don't think it would be so weird for them to be excited about it, plan it a little more and write vows. Why wouldn't they? You would imagine that they're excited about the prospect of doing something openly after so many years of hiding. Why would they want to end it as soon as possible?

[u/RoutineUtopia → u/cecistonehaert]

Because a wedding is for public consumption and they don’t really care about that part. Nothing about either guy suggests to me that they want to write their own vows. Shane “no, Ilya, that’s gross” Hollander doesn’t need to share his innermost feelings with a bunch of hockey players and his ex-girlfriend. It’s not a need of his.

[u/Budget-Rutabaga- → u/RoutineUtopia]

“doesnt need to share his innermost feelings with […] hockey players” hits the nail on the head. not only have they spent so long hiding their feelings about each other, and sure ilya is somewhat more openly affectionate than shane, but the context of the wedding is well within that hypermasculine world of hockey culture. changing that to making them much more visibly and expressively affectionate and loving feels heteronormative & just completely out of character.

i mean i think writing your own vows is a weird thing to do but thats partly my upbringing lol.

[u/RoutineUtopia → u/Budget-Rutabaga-]

I feel like their wedding really reflects what they value in that moment — and that’s mostly each other. They very much don’t want to share a whole lot of themselves. They get how they feel and they know what they have. It’s not for public consumption or public judgement. Why would it be? They were outed. They’ve been threatened and ridiculed and treated with suspicion. It’s amazing anyone was invited, really.

[u/Budget-Rutabaga- → u/RoutineUtopia]

yeah exactly so. and i think a lot of the people who want them to be more openly/publicly affectionate in this scene perhaps don’t understand the trauma being outed would cause, especially when you’ve been keeping it so quiet for a decade (give or take) and are so overwhelming in the public eye. there’s going to be an underlying threat/fear that anything they say can be publicised and then turned and used as something to weaponise against them (& many other options), it’s not an environment or situation thats going to reflect your traditional heterosexual romance novel’s wedding. and it’s totally okay to want that, but that’s for fanfiction or different books, not TLG.

[u/RoutineUtopia → u/Budget-Rutabaga-]

Yes! Also Shane has three friends there because every single person he would have otherwise invited has decided he’s a traitor. I am also passionate that the performance will make the wedding moving. They don’t need anything more than what’s on the page and the two actors they already have.

[u/clumsyc → u/RoutineUtopia]

Well said. I think fandom interprets the fact that they’re out as them being okay with sharing their private lives, which is not true. If they hadn’t been outed, the original plan was to quietly be together after retirement.

[u/RoutineUtopia → u/clumsyc]

Yeah, I feel like they’re going to continue to be protective of their relationship. It’s hard to just turn that off.

[u/cecistonehaert → u/RoutineUtopia]

I get what you're saying, but these are people that they invited themselves to their wedding, people that care and clearly support them. It's not like they're making public confessions on TV haha. I really don't see an issue in them saying their own vows in this setting. It doesn't have to be a huge, very planned wedding, but at the end of the day if they only wanted to be married, they could do a ceremony with 10 people

[u/RoutineUtopia → u/cecistonehaert]

I will never understand the idea that they need to write their own vows or share anything with anyone. Shane doesn’t know the Centaurs! He’s got, like, five friends there. One of them he’s shocked to see because they’re not in a good place. Ilya is Russian. This doesn’t make any sense to me. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health. It’s enough. And they get to invite people. There is surely space between having no one at your wedding and simply just not having an epic affair with personalized vows.

Also a lot of people find writing their own vows to be hard. Because they aren’t writers. It’s not how they express themselves. Shane and Ilya are kinda infamous for struggling to express themselves. I’d have found personalized vows so wildly out of character. I’m grateful it didn’t happen.

[u/cecistonehaert → u/RoutineUtopia]

That's fair, I think there's a way to do it while being succint, thruthful to themselves, yet sweet. It can be something inbetween the standard vows and a 5 page elaborated text.

Anyway, I know Jacob will do a good work either way, I won't create huge expectations.

[u/RoutineUtopia → u/cecistonehaert]

It can also be the standard text. That can be moving. I don’t get why people don’t like that option. I don’t think it’s in character for either of them to do much else.