Tough Guy

Tough Guy is the third novel in Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series. The series includes seven books: Game Changer (2019), Heated Rivalry (2019), Tough Guy (2020), Role Model (2021), The Long Game (2022), Common Goal (2024), and the forthcoming Unrivaled (2026). While all the titles in the Game Changers series are set against the backdrop of professional hockey, they each function as standalone contemporary LGBTQ+ romance novels. Main characters from one book will reappear as secondary or minor characters in subsequent titles—creating threads between the companion titles. The Game Changers books also have thematic overlaps, particularly in regard to their presentation and exploration of LGBTQ+ identity, belonging, acceptance, and love.

The first book in the series, Games Changer, follows Scott Hunter and Kip Grady’s forbidden romance. The two hide their relationship because Scott is still reluctant to come out publicly, while Kip longs for a more serious, public commitment. The second book, Heated Rivalry, traces Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov’s relationship. The two have been notorious hockey rivals for years, making their attraction an enemies-to-lovers romance that they feel compelled to keep hidden for professional reasons. Their characters appear in the margins of the subsequent title, Tough Guy, which traces NHL star Ryan Price and Fabian Salah’s relationship and explores themes of vulnerability, toughness, and intimacy. Reid expounds upon these themes in the subsequent novels, too. Her 2021 book Role Model follows another professional hockey player, Troy Barrett, as he struggles to accept and claim his sexuality while pursuing a relationship with a social-media influencer named Harris Drover. As in Game Changer and Tough Guy, the novel explores the dynamic between a professional hockey player and his lover—all characters who are not embedded in the world of NHL. In The Long Game, Reid continues the story of Shane and Ilya, developing their story from where it left off in Game Changer. This sequel more closely explores the characters’ conflicts within the hockey league and in their personal lives. The Long Game tackles issues related to mental health, much like Tough Guy. Forthcoming in September 2026, Common Goal will continue Shane and Ilya’s story following the revelation of their secret relationship.

In all seven Game Changers books, Reid presents LGBTQ+ couples who find themselves straddling athletic and artistic worlds. The characters’ unlikely romances ignite the series’ thematic explorations of fear and isolation, mental stability and self-care, purpose and meaning, and love and tenderness. The novels embrace many expected contemporary romance tropes—both narratively and stylistically—but recontextualize these tropes within the LGBTQ+ experience and community. Reid writes with care, heart, and compassion—crafting characters who are deeply in tune with themselves and each other and devotedly pursuing growth and connection.

The Game Changers novels are in conversation with other sports-romance novels like Liz Tomforde’s The Right Move, Tessa Bailey’s Fangirl Down, and Elle Kennedy’s The Deal. Tomforde’s, Bailey’s, and Kennedy’s sports romances similarly explore how professional sporting worlds might inhibit or deepen romantic connection. Reid’s novels are also in conversation with other LGBTQ+ romance novels like Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue, Mason Deaver’s I Wish You All the Best, and Kacen Callender’s Felix Ever After.