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Man Advantage 9: Full Spoiler Guide
Dima is working the cloakroom at a winter benefit when a fur-collared auction coat moves on its hanger. There is a kitten sewn into the lining. Two hockey captains, each six and a half feet of bad temper, hold the seam while she cuts. The shop owner who fired her for asking about his fur labels tries to take the animal, and Rami catches his wrist. Man Advantage 9 is Lady Heartswell’s MMF college hockey romance with a faith thread at its centre: a closed triad, a chosen baptism, an abusive father, and a trail of cats that leads to a fire.
What it is
Thirty-two chapters, rotating POV between Dima, Rami and Tarik, winter to August at a New England college. Dima is twenty-one, a comparative literature senior, petite, broke, and finished apologising for wanting things. Rami is the captain and centre, baptised last April, a silver cross at his throat. Tarik is his partner of three years and his enforcer, grey-eyed, quick to hit, and not a believer yet. The kitten is called Moth.
Who will love it
Readers of why-choose hockey romance who want an established male couple that stays in love while both pursue one woman. Readers who want protective giants, a wanted pregnancy and two fathers. Readers open to a Christian conversion storyline sitting beside the heat, treated with respect by all three leads. The antagonist violence is real and sudden.
Tropes
- MMF closed triad; established couple adds a third; two captains
- Rescue animal meet-cute; a hidden motive confessed; she walks out and comes back with the documents
- Faith conversion and baptism; abusive, controlling father
- Wanted pregnancy; proposal with three rings; both men as fathers
- Villain exposed; animal rescue raid; conference final
- Wedding and baby epilogue
Heat
Site heat level: Open door. Six scenes: chapters 10 (the two men), 11, 14, 16, 27 and 31. Dima starts or escalates each of hers and says what she wants. Light power exchange, wrists held, the men leading. Less graphic language than Books 1 to 8.
Content notes
A parent’s physical abuse, past and on the page; religious coercion and family rejection; homophobic insults; a firearm attack in which the heroine is shot; the heroes beating an armed man with hockey sticks; animal cruelty, with cats kept for an illegal fur operation; a fire; pregnancy and childbirth.
Full plot, with spoilers
At the emergency vet Rami makes a private decision: keep Dima close, because she knows things about Gareth Skeffington’s shop, and Gareth keeps needling him about a rent loan his mother already repaid. Tarik goes along. Both admit they also want her. Over breakfasts and a game she tells them she believes in Jesus, and Rami tells her about April. On a video call she tells her father she wants to be baptised. He says, “Do not make me come and get you.” Tarik holds her while she cries.
She finds green repair thread from Gareth’s sample room on the coat, a faulty sample she had marked for return herself. He threatens her future employment. She tells Tarik her father hit her last summer, and Tarik kisses her. She is baptised, her mother texts that she looks happy, and Rami kisses her on the church porch. The men spend a night together under their new lamp and agree they want her home with them.
At the midpoint a shipping label leads to an empty warehouse, and the freight company’s owner turns out to be the donor who lent Rami the money. Rami cuts ties and confesses the first motive. She leaves. She comes back when she holds every document, still angry, and still chooses them. She is pregnant from their first night. Both men say they are the father. They propose with three rings and see a lawyer about parentage and wills.
The ending (spoiler)
Outside the rink her father slaps her, grabs her, and draws a gun. He fires at the men and the shot hits Dima in the chest. Rami and Tarik put him on the ground with their sticks. Rami lifts his for one more blow and stops when Tarik says her name. At the hospital the bullet is found in the blue Bible she was holding against her chest, her name still legible inside the torn cover. The baby is alive on the scan. Her mother finally says aloud what her father did.
A former co-worker identifies the fur workroom. During the rescue a fire starts, Tarik is cut on a rack, and Rami lets Gareth run so he can keep carrying cages. Dima’s count reaches twenty-seven, with Moth’s mother and one small orange kitten found last. Gareth is arrested. Tarik is baptised in March. He passes up a fight in the conference final and makes the assist on the winner. There is a June graduation, a three-person wedding in a garden, and a daughter in late August. On the lawyer’s paperwork Tarik writes, “equal fathers, unequal forms.” Biology stays unknown. Fatherhood does not.
Where it sits
Book 9 of Man Advantage, a standalone trio. Series guide: Man Advantage. Start of the series: Man Advantage. For the pen, see the Lady Heartswell guide.
Reader Questions
Is Man Advantage 9 a faith romance?
Faith is central. Dima chooses Christianity and is baptised in chapter 9, one hero was baptised the previous April, and the other is baptised near the end. The book is also an open-door MMF romance.
Who is the father in Man Advantage 9?
The book never says. Both men declare themselves fathers, a lawyer drafts the papers, and they choose to leave biology unknown.
How explicit is Man Advantage 9?
Open door, moderate. Six scenes from chapter 10, one of them between the two men. The language is less anatomical than the rest of the series.
Book page: Man Advantage 9. Author guide: Lady Heartswell. Browse the full catalogue at Centuria Books.
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