Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Shared Secrets 
SERIES: His Best Friend’s Brother Book 4
AUTHOR: R. Cayden
PUBLISHER: self-published
RELEASE DATE: December 29, 2020
LENGTH: 185 pages
BLURB:
His brother’s two best friends, and an HEA worth fighting for…
I’ve had a crush on Blake and Casey since I first started getting crushes.
My older brother’s best friends, they practically lived at our house growing up.
And when I was an awkward tween, I truly believed they were the coolest people on this unworthy planet.
So it’s surprising and sweet when they offer to let me stay with them in Pittsburgh.
After moving to a new city, I suddenly lose my apartment, and Blake and Casey are my unexpected salvation.
Which is great, except that I have a cardboard box full of makeup and lingerie hidden beneath my bed, and a promise I’ve made to myself.
Now that I’m on my own, I’m going to live the way I want to live, and dress how I want to dress.
I just can’t imagine wearing lipstick in front of my brother’s intimidating, older friends.
I can’t imagine having the courage to share my secret with them, until I learn that Casey and Blake have some secrets of their own…
Shared Secrets is Book 4 in His Best Friend’s Brother! This is an M/M/M easy read, featuring a few guys who learn to form a family and lots of steamy fun. Enjoy it as a standalone, or read along with the rest of the series. Enjoy!
REVIEW:
Shared Secrets is a view into a closed MMM triad relationship between best friends Casey and Blake, and their best friend Peyton’s brother, Russell. This novella length book presented fertile ground for a more complex, intriguing story. However, the story told only delivered an insular romance lacking plot and emotional exploration beyond the superficial. It’s a quick, easy read with three endearing characters in a heartwarming relationship. Expansion of this story into a full blown novel would have provided opportunity to flesh out all of the intriguing elements that were left untouched in the periphery. As it was, while the HEA did in fact make me happy, so many questions lingered that this story left me wanting.
If you’ve read the prior books in this series, you’ll be expecting Shared Secrets to tie in to them. That really isn’t the case. This book is a true standalone. You don’t need to know anything about the other books because none of them come into play here. The exception is the appearance of River (from Book 2 Forbidden Friend) who instantly becomes friends with Russell over makeup discussions. The River in this book read differently than the River I remembered from Book 2. My feeling is that the author manufactured this tangential relationship, and massaged River’s character, to attempt to anchor this story into the larger series. Positioning this book outside of the series might have worked better; then, expectations regarding connections to prior books and characters would not have served as a distraction. Altering River’s character to force a connection disconcerted me.
What unfolds in Shared Secrets is less a story and more a look at the formation of a poly relationship between three men. Two of them, Blake and Casey, already have, and yet deny, some kind of romantic/sexual relationship. Enter Russell, the key to unlocking Blake and Casey’s true feelings and desires, and Blake’s acknowledgement of his sexuality. The needs of Casey and Blake that aren’t met by each other are filled by Russell. We don’t really understand what Russell gets out of the dynamic beyond Casey and Blake accepting him for who he is – wearing makeup and sexy lingerie. The struggle for the reader is understanding why this triad works.
The Blake/Casey/Russell triad develops on a chemical level – bone deep, undeniable, magnetic attraction to each other. But the author does not convey how this particular poly structure works for Blake, Casey and Russell. Actually, there’s a lack of clarity on exactly what the structure is other than that it’s a triad. What are the rules? Are there rules? Are they flexible? Who does what? Maybe that’s minutia to some readers, but, personally, I was interested in it particularly since it speaks to what each person needs and contributes to the MMM relationship to make it successful. The individual relationships between Blake and Casey, Casey and Russell, and Russell and Blake are not developed sufficiently, so the reader doesn’t know what each person sees in each other person in the triad. The complexity that is inherent in a healthy poly relationship is not adequately explored. Effective communication between the three men is not shown and that’s a crucial piece to an MMM relationship. How they deal with outside elements is treated in a cursory way, mainly in the epilogue.
My recommendation for Shared Secrets is two pronged:
I think you will enjoy this book if you are looking for:
- a short, sweet story about a MMM romance
- endearing MCs with some serious chemistry
- a straightforward, superficial journey to a HEA
- some attendant warm fuzzies.
I think you will be disappointed if you are looking for:
- emotional exploration of an MMM relationship
- MCs confronting realistic external challenges to the relationship
- development of the individual relationships between the three men
- communication between the MCs
I am just one solitary opinion, but for what it’s worth, I fell into the latter category. I enjoyed the story but was left wanting more and, therefore, was disappointed.
RATING: 
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