Corina's Reviews > Heated Rivalry

Wow what a book!!

Epic, sexy, and one of the best MM stories so far!!

It's also one of the best enemies to lovers novels I ever read.

I finished Heated Rivalry in one sitting. Actually read until 1am, thanks to it being a Saturday and I didn't have to stop reading. I was hooked from the very beginning, actually vibrating with the tension and overall epicness of it all.

This book is to 90% about the two main characters, and it covers 10 years of their passionate, but also forbidden relationship. Most of the time it was about keeping whatever they had a secret. And I really enjoyed that the author did not go the usually route. Because I expected certain things to happen and was pleasantly surprised when cliches were circumvented.

But I also should mention, that they didn't have a real relationship until later in the book. So please don't except a white picket fence. Ilya and Shane start out with hook-ups, and continue that for a long time. They lived in different cities for 99% of the book, and rarely saw each other more than a few times a year.

Heated Rivalry had a good amount of sexy times. Teasing and banter were also very well done. But what I loved the most was how much those two were drawn to each other - from the very first time of meeting.

I thought the character of Ilya, a Russian native was incredibly well done. From start to finish there was a kind of otherness to him. His language skills grew, but small tidbits here and there always reminded me that he was still learning and not as comfortable with the English language as a native speaker would be. I thought that was something that really showed the author's skill of keeping it authentic and following a character's personality to the end.

The overall feeling I got from this story was amazing. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why this book was such a game changer for me. Maybe how the author structured the plot. Or that she concentrated most of the book on Ilya and Shane. The story had less outsider interference, and more character building. Heated Rivalry was the epitome of an enemies to lovers novel, and I must say I was enthralled.

The only thing that I felt was missing was a smidgen more tension in the last quarter of the book. It was rather low on angst - which I love - but it could have used a little BOOM at the end.