Eight years after Game Changer, the first book in Rachel Reid’s male-male hockey romance series, was published by Harlequin imprint Carina Press, sales of all six books in the series show no signs of abating. 

Reid’s books found an “avid, growing fanbase” almost from the beginning, says Stacy Boyd, executive editor at Carina Press, but since the unexpected global pop-culture success of the television adaptation of Heated Rivalry, the second book in the series, sales of the books have skyrocketed so dramatically Boyd says it is accurate to call it an explosion. 

“It has been unlike anything I have ever experienced in publishing,” says Boyd, who has worked at Harlequin for almost 25 years. 

As of March 24, the books in the Game Changers series have sold more than 3.7 million copies in North America, up from 3.5 million copies in early March. Sales are so consistent that the figures are being updated almost weekly.

“There may be other publishers who have books at this level, but for the Harlequin team that Carina is a part of, this is unprecedented,” Boyd says. “[Heated Rivalry] is in a category by itself – it is the only book that we are updating every week, it’s the only series that is at this level, which is pretty exciting.”  

Sales have given indie booksellers an unexpected midwinter boost, selling copies during what is usually a quiet time of year. Reid’s books are a constant presence on bestseller lists, and Harlequin is capitalizing on the continued demand for copies by announcing forthcoming special editions: a deluxe hardcover of Heated Rivalry with sprayed edges, full-colour endpapers, and new character art is slated for publication on Sept. 29, and deluxe trade paperback editions of all six books in the series are to be published on Oct. 27. Pre-orders opened in February and have been doing well, though Boyd was unable to share numbers. 

“People don’t seem to be tired of it,” Boyd says. “They want different versions, they are excited about book number seven, they want to talk about season two [of the Crave series] – they are into this universe that Rachel has created, which I think really speaks to the details that she brings, the characters that she has created and this world, this almost alternate reality of what hockey and sports and relationships can be like. People like it and want to live there. They just want to keep coming back.”

In late February, Reid announced that the seventh book in the series, Unrivaled, the third book to deal with the relationship between on-ice rivals turned lovers Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, will be postponed to June 2027. The publication date had been slated for September 2026, but Reid, who has Parkinson’s disease, said the delay was necessary in part because of her health. Boyd said the decision to postpone the book, when Reid asked for more time, was an easy one that has been well-received by fans. 

“[Reid] has high standards and she wanted to be able to meet them, and at the end of the day that’s the most important thing,” Boyd says. “We’ve got a lot of people who care very much about what comes next, and so we want to make sure that they get something amazing.” 

Beyond the unabating sales of Reid’s books, other books in the Carina Press backlist have seen a Heated Rivalry–related bump since the show debuted in late 2025 and took hold of the collective imagination. 

“Sales are going up across all kinds of queer romance,” Boyd says. “We have sapphic hockey romance and male-male contemporary romance that doesn’t have any hockey and it’s all seeing a lift because people are discovering this and enjoying it.”

As for what exactly it is about Reid’s books that is drawing so many readers and viewers, there is no definitive answer. 

“One theory is that this is a different portrayal of masculinity, a masculinity where the two characters are equal, they’re on equal terms with their level in the sport, with their wealth, with their influence, and so the gender dynamics can be dismissed – you can just enjoy the love story for what it is,” Boyd says. 

Boyd, who is based in the U.S. at Harlequin’s New York office, also sees the books appealing to American readers as a counterbalance to the current political picture there. “In the U.S., there’s a lot of political sentiment that goes against what is being appreciated in the Game Changers series; there’s a lot coming down from our government, and so this is like a breath of fresh air – it is an antidote to a lot of the darker news that we get.”