January 28 2026, 08:15 
Zohran Mamdani told New Yorkers to go to the cottage — and it seems they listened.
Actually, at a Saturday press conference, the New York City mayor advised folks in the Big Apple to stay home during this weekend’s major winter storm, but recommended they use their downtime to delve into author Rachel Reid’s 2019 novel Heated Rivalry.
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“The snow is coming down heavily across our city,” Mamdani said, “and I can think of no better excuse for New Yorkers to stay home, take a long nap, or take advantage of our public library’s offer of free access to Heated Rivalry on e-book or audiobook for anyone with a library card.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani tells New Yorkers to stay home and read "Heated Rivalry" as a dangerous winter storm struck states across the US.
— CNN (@cnn.com) 2026-01-26T16:01:31.375755441Z
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The novel, which is the basis for the surprise hit series from Canadian streamer Crave — streaming on HBO Max in the U.S. — about the torrid affair between two rival professional hockey players, has exploded in popularity in recent weeks. Following the series’ premiere, The Cut reported in early December that the book was sold out pretty much everywhere and that all copies available via the New York Public Library system had been checked out.
More recently, a similar scenario appears to be playing out with another LGBTQ+ book. Adam Mars-Jones’s Box Hill — the basis for director Harry Lighton’s new film Pillion starring Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård — is currently sold-out at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org, with a 15-week wait for digital copies on the Brooklyn Public Library’s app.
But as the New York Times reports, over the weekend the New York Public Library made an unlimited number of copies of Heated Rivalry — as well as the others in Reid’s “Game Changers” series — available to download through its app. Downloads of e-books and audiobooks through library apps are usually limited to specific numbers, leading to long wait times for popular titles. According to the Times, prior to Saturday’s announcement, 3,000 people were waiting to access Heated Rivalry through the NYPL’s app.
NYPL spokesperson Lizzie Tribone told the Times Monday that Heated Rivalry has been downloaded more than 5,000 times since Saturday, a 529 percent surge following Mamdani’s recommendation. And the library only expects that number to continue growing.
The Heated Rivalry promotion also led to 2,000 people across New York state applying for new library cards, which NYPL chief librarian Brian Bannon said was about double the number that applied this time last year.
As for Mamdani, a spokesperson for the mayor told the Times that while he has not read Heated Rivalry himself, he was “very excited to see so much enthusiasm about using the resources of the public library.”
The idea of making an unlimited number of copies of the book available “hits a number of different notes,” Bannon told the Times. “It is freezing cold outside, there is a snowy quality to the books with the hockey theme, so stay inside and read. We figured we’d give it a shot, and it really worked.”
The promo is set to run through February 14, and with forecasters tracking another major winter storm headed for the east coast, New Yorkers may have plenty of time to read Heated Rivalry again this weekend.
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