Bylines and Sidelines

Sive Ní Chathasaigh runs her training ground like a promise: clear rules, hard work, and nothing published that puts her girls at risk. When a reporter arrives with a notebook and manners-too early, too steady, too willing to listen-she doesn't soften. She sets boundaries.

Niall Daly has made a career out of getting the story right without stealing people's lives. He's learned what headlines can do to a town-and what they can do to a girl with talent and no protection. Sive's rules aren't a nuisance to him. They're a relief.

As the season tightens and the spotlight sharpens, Sive and Niall find themselves building something bigger than a profile piece: a way of doing sport, media, and community with decency intact. But truth has a cost, and so does love-especially when the past still knows your name and the future needs you brave.

Bylines and Sidelines is an Irish, emotionally layered contemporary romance with women's sport, journalism, found family, and a slow-burn intimacy rooted in consent, care, and the daily choice to show up. 1