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The Advantage #3
Beyond The Line
Some love stories begin with a spark.
Theirs began with trust.
Oliver “Oz” Shah and James Harrington have spent years side by side at the highest level of professional rugby—training together, fighting for the same goals, relying on each other in ways that feel essential and unspoken. What they have is solid. Proven. Safe.
Until it isn’t.
What neither of them planned for is the slow, devastating realization that what binds them isn’t just loyalty or leadership, but love—quiet, undeniable, and impossible to ignore. When the truth finally surfaces, James steps down as captain to protect the team he loves. Oz responds by choosing James, publicly and without apology, even when it means setting his own future on fire.
The fallout is immediate. The scrutiny relentless. But in the wreckage of reputation and expectation, something far more fragile takes a life they might be allowed to choose for themselves.
This is not a story about scandal—it’s a story about devotion. About two men learning that love doesn’t always arrive loudly, but when it does arrive, it demands honesty. About choosing each other in a world that would rather they stay quiet. About deciding whether legacy is something you inherit—or something you leave behind.
Tender, intimate, and emotionally rich, this novel is a slow-burn romance set against the unforgiving machinery of elite sport, where love is both a risk and a refuge, and the bravest act isn’t winning—but staying.
Theirs began with trust.
Oliver “Oz” Shah and James Harrington have spent years side by side at the highest level of professional rugby—training together, fighting for the same goals, relying on each other in ways that feel essential and unspoken. What they have is solid. Proven. Safe.
Until it isn’t.
What neither of them planned for is the slow, devastating realization that what binds them isn’t just loyalty or leadership, but love—quiet, undeniable, and impossible to ignore. When the truth finally surfaces, James steps down as captain to protect the team he loves. Oz responds by choosing James, publicly and without apology, even when it means setting his own future on fire.
The fallout is immediate. The scrutiny relentless. But in the wreckage of reputation and expectation, something far more fragile takes a life they might be allowed to choose for themselves.
This is not a story about scandal—it’s a story about devotion. About two men learning that love doesn’t always arrive loudly, but when it does arrive, it demands honesty. About choosing each other in a world that would rather they stay quiet. About deciding whether legacy is something you inherit—or something you leave behind.
Tender, intimate, and emotionally rich, this novel is a slow-burn romance set against the unforgiving machinery of elite sport, where love is both a risk and a refuge, and the bravest act isn’t winning—but staying.
315 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 24, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 30, 2026
Great book
Another great book from V. K.
I could not put it down and love that while you can read it as a stand alone characters from the first books crossover
Another great book from V. K.
I could not put it down and love that while you can read it as a stand alone characters from the first books crossover
June 26, 2026
Beyond the Line by V.K. Alenko absolutely consumed me. It pulled at my heartstrings. It felt more like it wrapped itself around my heart and squeezed until I was nothing but a puddle of feelings on the floor. Oz and James had me in a complete chokehold from the very beginning, and by the end I was completely, hopelessly obsessed with them both 🥹 I am not ok!! 🥹💙
The connection between these two was so intense it practically bled off the page. This wasn’t just chemistry, this was years of longing, restraint, devotion, and feelings so deeply buried they were practically woven into the fabric of who they are. Every glance, every quiet moment, every bit of tension between them felt loaded. And I was screaming YESSSSS BABES👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻.
You could feel how much they meant to each other long before either of them could say it, and that made every single interaction hit ten times harder. It was tender, painful, intimate, and so emotionally charged that I felt like I was intruding on something very private!!
James Harrington??? I just picture this man being drop dead gorgeous 😍 I mean they both are but I don’t know something about him absolutely ruined me 😩 I know I can’t have him…but I can look 🤣🤷🏻♀️ There is just something about a strong, emotionally repressed man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders while quietly loving someone with his entire soul that will destroy me every single time. We need more men in the real world like this 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Where you at? 👀👀
The way he sacrifices, the way he protects, the way he would burn down pieces of himself before ever letting Oz take the fall alone… I was UNWELL. He had me clutching my chest, staring into space, and questioning why fictional men continue to set the bar so offensively high!!
What really got me was Oz choosing him back just as fiercely. Because this wasn’t just a love story, it was a story about choosing someone and REALLY choosing them when it would be easier not to.
Choosing them when the world is watching.
Choosing them when it could cost everything.
Choosing them when the fear is suffocating and the consequences are real and doing it anyway because life without them would hurt more.
THAT is the kind of romance that absolutely destroys me!!!!!
The fact that someone is going to choose you over all of the obstacles that could potentially come your way is the purest form of love I have ever witnessed!
Whether it is in a book or in real life!!! Love is love babes
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
It’s not just I love you, but I love you enough to stand beside you when it’s hardest. I love you enough to stop hiding. I love you enough to risk everything!!! 🥹😭😭
This book is aching, intimate, and devastating in the best way. It gave me that soul-deep, all-consuming kind of romance where the love feels bigger than words, bigger than fear, bigger than everything standing in its way. And by the end I wasn’t okay, I was fully emotionally attached, in love with both of them, and left staring at my ceiling trying to recover from the fact that these fictional rugby men now own a piece of my heart💙❤️
James Harrington officially ruined me for emotionally tortured sports romance men, and Oz and James as a whole have permanently raised my standards for devotion, tension, and heartbreak. I’m obsessed. I’m emotional. And I’m never shutting up about them! ❤️💙
The connection between these two was so intense it practically bled off the page. This wasn’t just chemistry, this was years of longing, restraint, devotion, and feelings so deeply buried they were practically woven into the fabric of who they are. Every glance, every quiet moment, every bit of tension between them felt loaded. And I was screaming YESSSSS BABES👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻.
You could feel how much they meant to each other long before either of them could say it, and that made every single interaction hit ten times harder. It was tender, painful, intimate, and so emotionally charged that I felt like I was intruding on something very private!!
James Harrington??? I just picture this man being drop dead gorgeous 😍 I mean they both are but I don’t know something about him absolutely ruined me 😩 I know I can’t have him…but I can look 🤣🤷🏻♀️ There is just something about a strong, emotionally repressed man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders while quietly loving someone with his entire soul that will destroy me every single time. We need more men in the real world like this 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Where you at? 👀👀
The way he sacrifices, the way he protects, the way he would burn down pieces of himself before ever letting Oz take the fall alone… I was UNWELL. He had me clutching my chest, staring into space, and questioning why fictional men continue to set the bar so offensively high!!
What really got me was Oz choosing him back just as fiercely. Because this wasn’t just a love story, it was a story about choosing someone and REALLY choosing them when it would be easier not to.
Choosing them when the world is watching.
Choosing them when it could cost everything.
Choosing them when the fear is suffocating and the consequences are real and doing it anyway because life without them would hurt more.
THAT is the kind of romance that absolutely destroys me!!!!!
The fact that someone is going to choose you over all of the obstacles that could potentially come your way is the purest form of love I have ever witnessed!
Whether it is in a book or in real life!!! Love is love babes
❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
It’s not just I love you, but I love you enough to stand beside you when it’s hardest. I love you enough to stop hiding. I love you enough to risk everything!!! 🥹😭😭
This book is aching, intimate, and devastating in the best way. It gave me that soul-deep, all-consuming kind of romance where the love feels bigger than words, bigger than fear, bigger than everything standing in its way. And by the end I wasn’t okay, I was fully emotionally attached, in love with both of them, and left staring at my ceiling trying to recover from the fact that these fictional rugby men now own a piece of my heart💙❤️
James Harrington officially ruined me for emotionally tortured sports romance men, and Oz and James as a whole have permanently raised my standards for devotion, tension, and heartbreak. I’m obsessed. I’m emotional. And I’m never shutting up about them! ❤️💙
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 7, 2026
I really enjoyed the previous books, but this one took me longer to get through simply because the writing was so….repetitive. The same lines or sentence structures used REPEATEDLY. I could tell the author really likes this type of sentence: “Not because of X, but because of X.”
There were also a lot of short sentences. Broken up. Like this. For dramatic. Or stylistic. Effect. While I can appreciate stylistic choices like this, when it’s the vast majority of the book it personally gets exhausting to get through. Which was confusing for me as there were clear parts of the book that flowed better simply because the sentences were actual sentences and not chopped up so much. I enjoyed those parts of the book immensely because it flowed better. For me personally, the choppy parts of the book were doing more “telling” than actually SHOWING the reader what was happening. I personally enjoy more showing than telling in books—- don’t just tell me the moment wasn’t awkward but special or how a relationship had built over years of playing rugby together, show me WHY that is!
I also had a harder time following the perspective switches in this book than the others. I kept getting confused about how much time had passed.
All of this sucks to write because I think the core theme of this book is how much queer representation in male-dominated sports matters, and also further how male athletes are pressured by these sport institutions to conform into the stereotyped macho, straight athlete.
There were also a lot of short sentences. Broken up. Like this. For dramatic. Or stylistic. Effect. While I can appreciate stylistic choices like this, when it’s the vast majority of the book it personally gets exhausting to get through. Which was confusing for me as there were clear parts of the book that flowed better simply because the sentences were actual sentences and not chopped up so much. I enjoyed those parts of the book immensely because it flowed better. For me personally, the choppy parts of the book were doing more “telling” than actually SHOWING the reader what was happening. I personally enjoy more showing than telling in books—- don’t just tell me the moment wasn’t awkward but special or how a relationship had built over years of playing rugby together, show me WHY that is!
I also had a harder time following the perspective switches in this book than the others. I kept getting confused about how much time had passed.
All of this sucks to write because I think the core theme of this book is how much queer representation in male-dominated sports matters, and also further how male athletes are pressured by these sport institutions to conform into the stereotyped macho, straight athlete.
July 6, 2026
I never leave bad reviews.
Or any reviews really. Books are subjective, and if something doesn't work for me, I usually assume it will work for someone else. No need to yuck someone's yum. If I don't enjoy it, I just move on.
This is the first book that has inspired me to write a review out of pure bewilderment.
I honestly cannot convince myself that this book was meaningfully edited before publishing. If it was, then I have many questions for both the author and the editor.
The premise isn't even the problem. There are genuinely good ideas buried in here. With a substantial rewrite, this could have been an enjoyable romance.
Instead, it's one of the most repetitive books I've ever read.
If you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time someone or something "settled" into something, or every time the sentence structure "not this... but that..." appeared, you would be more shitfaced than a raccoon in a distillery dumpster by the end of the second chapter.
Words settle under ribs. Expressions settle. Tempo settles. Characters settle into chairs. They settle back in chairs. They settle deeper into chairs. At one point I was genuinely concerned that if James settled back in his seat one more time in the same scene he would fall through the furniture.
And the way things land - realizations land, the answers land, words land, awareness lands, decisions land, thoughts land, authority (?) lands, gestures land, apology lands, image lands, the laugh lands, the kiss lands, this lands, that lands, it lands harder than it should, it doesn't land as it should, it lands differently....
The busiest of the airports would have trouble keeping up with all the landing going on here.
Then there's the dialogue. There is actually very little dialogue here for a romance, but what is there doesn’t make you wish for more of it. It’s stilted, unnatural and often makes no sense.
For example:
What... are we talking about?
This happens constantly. Characters exchange lines that sound like they're supposed to be meaningful, but they don't actually communicate anything. It reads like AI trying very hard to imitate emotional dialogue without understanding why people speak, or two people having completely different conversations.
Another example:
Gravity? What does gravity have to do with anything? And no, the context doesn't help.
The book also has a habit of switching POV in the middle of paragraphs, making it difficult to know whose thoughts you're reading. Scenes often become impossible to imagine because locations seem to change without explanation. Parents are downstairs... then upstairs... then downstairs again in the same uninterrupted scene.
Can’t not mention the sudden appearance of a character named Rajiv in the middle of a scene. It’s supposed to be Oz, his parents and Hannah in the room. Suddenly Rajiv says something and you're left wondering who the hell is Rajiv and where did he come from? Only a couple pages later it’s explained that Rajiv is the father’s name.
Even major plot points become difficult to follow. There were multiple moments where characters would finish an important conversation and I realized I had no idea what had actually happened. Were they reprimanded? Supported? Did someone apologize? Were there consequences? I really couldn't tell without going back to reread and filling in the blanks.
The prose seems to aim for poetic minimalism, but too often it becomes long stretches of words that create the illusion of depth while conveying almost nothing. Entire paragraphs pass where a lot is said without anything actually being communicated.
I kept reading out of morbid fascination just to see if it improved.
Well, it did not improve. It somehow got even more confusing.
Normally I would say "this book just wasn't for me." I don't think that's the case here.
Whether this was written by a person or an unusually articulate toaster, it desperately needed another editing pass, or five.
#DNFShouldHaveHappened #JamesIsStillSettlingInThatChair #WhereAmI? #WhatAreWeTalkingAbout? #PleaseStopSettling
#HowDidThisGetPublished? #POVHasLeftTheChat
#InterestingIdeaCatastrophicExecution
#FirstDraftEnergy #WritingTookMeOut
Or any reviews really. Books are subjective, and if something doesn't work for me, I usually assume it will work for someone else. No need to yuck someone's yum. If I don't enjoy it, I just move on.
This is the first book that has inspired me to write a review out of pure bewilderment.
I honestly cannot convince myself that this book was meaningfully edited before publishing. If it was, then I have many questions for both the author and the editor.
The premise isn't even the problem. There are genuinely good ideas buried in here. With a substantial rewrite, this could have been an enjoyable romance.
Instead, it's one of the most repetitive books I've ever read.
If you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time someone or something "settled" into something, or every time the sentence structure "not this... but that..." appeared, you would be more shitfaced than a raccoon in a distillery dumpster by the end of the second chapter.
Words settle under ribs. Expressions settle. Tempo settles. Characters settle into chairs. They settle back in chairs. They settle deeper into chairs. At one point I was genuinely concerned that if James settled back in his seat one more time in the same scene he would fall through the furniture.
And the way things land - realizations land, the answers land, words land, awareness lands, decisions land, thoughts land, authority (?) lands, gestures land, apology lands, image lands, the laugh lands, the kiss lands, this lands, that lands, it lands harder than it should, it doesn't land as it should, it lands differently....
The busiest of the airports would have trouble keeping up with all the landing going on here.
Then there's the dialogue. There is actually very little dialogue here for a romance, but what is there doesn’t make you wish for more of it. It’s stilted, unnatural and often makes no sense.
For example:
Oz: "Morning"
James: "You're early"
Oz: "You're predictable"
James: "Someone has to be"
Oz: "That sounds like a warning"
James: "It is"
Oz: "Good to know"
What... are we talking about?
This happens constantly. Characters exchange lines that sound like they're supposed to be meaningful, but they don't actually communicate anything. It reads like AI trying very hard to imitate emotional dialogue without understanding why people speak, or two people having completely different conversations.
Another example:
Oz: "I hate this part. The waiting"
James: "You don't have to fill it"
Oz: "I know"
Oz: "You're allowed to be angry"
James: "I am"
Oz: "At them"
James: "I don't get angry at gravity"
Gravity? What does gravity have to do with anything? And no, the context doesn't help.
The book also has a habit of switching POV in the middle of paragraphs, making it difficult to know whose thoughts you're reading. Scenes often become impossible to imagine because locations seem to change without explanation. Parents are downstairs... then upstairs... then downstairs again in the same uninterrupted scene.
Can’t not mention the sudden appearance of a character named Rajiv in the middle of a scene. It’s supposed to be Oz, his parents and Hannah in the room. Suddenly Rajiv says something and you're left wondering who the hell is Rajiv and where did he come from? Only a couple pages later it’s explained that Rajiv is the father’s name.
Even major plot points become difficult to follow. There were multiple moments where characters would finish an important conversation and I realized I had no idea what had actually happened. Were they reprimanded? Supported? Did someone apologize? Were there consequences? I really couldn't tell without going back to reread and filling in the blanks.
The prose seems to aim for poetic minimalism, but too often it becomes long stretches of words that create the illusion of depth while conveying almost nothing. Entire paragraphs pass where a lot is said without anything actually being communicated.
I kept reading out of morbid fascination just to see if it improved.
Well, it did not improve. It somehow got even more confusing.
Normally I would say "this book just wasn't for me." I don't think that's the case here.
Whether this was written by a person or an unusually articulate toaster, it desperately needed another editing pass, or five.
#DNFShouldHaveHappened #JamesIsStillSettlingInThatChair #WhereAmI? #WhatAreWeTalkingAbout? #PleaseStopSettling
#HowDidThisGetPublished? #POVHasLeftTheChat
#InterestingIdeaCatastrophicExecution
#FirstDraftEnergy #WritingTookMeOut
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews