NYC’s hottest club was the Heated Rivalry panel with book author Rachel Reid and TV creator Jacob Tierney at BookCon 2026 over the weekend and they certainly weren’t shy about giving us all the info when it comes to the highly anticipated second season of the series.

Fans waited in giant standby lines to see the two creative chat about the books—a new addition is on the way in 2027, while it was also announced that the show’s scripts with special annotations will also be published later this year—and the beloved TV series that took the world by storm late last year.

“It’s so funny as I was writing season 2, it is a reminder as we’re working, my co-writer and I, that the plot of this story is emotion,” Jacob Tierney said. “The traditional beats of this story, while they matter, don’t matter anywhere nearly as much the feeling that you’re left with.”

Jacob confirmed that the budget for the second season will remain the same as season one, probably surprising some people considering what a major hit the series was in its first release.

“The Long Game is an emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously,” Jacob continued. “Obviously, as I think you all know by now, parts of Role Model are going to be in The Long Game. But Shane and Ilya are the heartbeat of this series, of my show, it’s always going to be about Ilya and Shane.”

Also, stop now as the following contains spoilers if you haven’t read The Long Game:

“One of my favorite scenes that has stayed with me of any book that I’ve read in the past five to 10 years is…that big fight at Christmas. That is a hugely interesting, sophisticated, smart,” he said. “What do you after the rush of danger is gone and now you have to live together? You have to live in a relationship where you’re still not communicating properly. You can say you love each other, but as we as adults know, there’s so much more than that to making a relationship as success.”

Rachel added that she, “can’t wait to see that.” And we certainly have to agree!

As part of Role Model’s addition to the series, we’ll be seeing Troy Barrett, who Jacob notes, “is a really damaged guy and Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we’re digging into that even harder.”

When asked about the possibility of The Long Game being split into two different seasons, Jacob joked that “No, I’ll get into a lot of trouble. But, I will repeat that it is a lot of book.”

I mean, there’s still at least one more book on the way, so no doubt we can definitely count on some more of the series to come!