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- Menage, Contemporary, Erotic Romance, MMF
- Word Count: 37,800
- Heat Level 4
- Published By: Evernight Publishing
What if you met your soul-mates on the beach and didn’t realize it? How many chance encounters would it take before you risked everything and let yourself fall in love with not one, but two men?
For Carrie, losing her bikini top in the ocean leads to an erotic encounter with two gorgeous guys. For Eric and Zeke, the steamy kiss they share with her is an amusing interlude on a sunny, summer day, but when the three of them meet again at the art museum, attraction turns into passion. Zeke and Eric realize their feelings for each other are just as potent as their desire for Carrie. Will they risk everything and choose love? Will Carrie be willing to take that leap with them when loving two men means goodbye to her safe, conventional existence?
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What are people saying about Risk Is A Four-Letter Word?
A NIGHT OWL REVIEWS BOOK REVIEW | Reviewed by: Terri
Carrie Haake was franticly trying to find the top to her bikini. It was some where and she needed to find it and get it back on. There was no way she was leaving the water and go on shore at a public beach with no top especially with her nieces and nephew right there. Her sister wasn’t going to be any help as she was sleeping under the umbrella. When her top shows up though, Carrie is looking at two of the best looking guys she’s ever seen, Zeke and Eric.
Zeke and Eric have been best friends since childhood. They currently live together and make top end furniture. They also both appreciate Carrie and hope to be able to get a date with her. But when one of Carrie’s nieces grabs her attention, both guys disappear.
The three bump into each other again at an art museum in New York. There the attraction they all feel is once again felt. This time, they go a bit further than they did at the beach though the guys still haven’t got Carrie’s phone number! However, they do find out that the attraction they feel towards Carrie extends to each other.
They continue to bump into each other when they don’t expect it like at the Emergency Room or during a blizzard. Each time the attraction becomes harder to resist until they don’t.
But while these three may be wanting to explore this attraction, they have families and not everyone is as accepting or open minded as to accept that Zeke and Eric might be a couple much less adding Carrie into the mix. What to do?
This story is absolutely awesome. It grabbed me from the first scene where Carrie is trying to find her top and kept my interest until the last page where I truly didn’t want it to end.
The characters are superb. Carrie isn’t a daring person. She’s serious, industrious and very family orientated. She seldom dates and most of her dates turn out bad. The thought of one good looking guy dating her is a foreign thought much less two. Zeke and Eric balance each other. They aren’t the same person. While one is easy going, the other is a bit intense. One’s father is an alcoholic and abusive while the other is from a loving home. Each loves their families but they are their own men. And, neither was willing to test their friendship to explore the sexual feelings they had towards the other.
The emotional pull is outstanding. Eric and Zeke are guys. They don’t talk about feelings so when a not so accidental kiss deepens into something more, they aren’t sure where the other stands or what they feel. They are forced to talk about their feelings which makes them uncomfortable. Carrie loves her sister, Olivia. Olivia thinks Carrie is going to date two guys, not two guys together. Still, she will support Carrie no matter what she does. The love is strong and it comes across. Putting Carrie into the mix of Zeke and Eric makes things muddy but the emotions that come through are strong, even if they are confused!
All those emotions make the hot sex even hotter. No matter who is involved the sex is graphic, intense and will make you horny. There are scenes with just the guys and others with all three. Each and everyone is written so you feel as if you are participating. Expect to be turned on and needing to be cooled off when reading this story.
Erin M. Leaf is a new author to me but I’ll be looking for more of her work. This story was over way too quickly and I didn’t want to leave this relationship. Still, the story was complete, just too short. (There is only around 100 pages.) I fell in love with the characters, appreciated the touches of humor and felt my heart tug with all the emotional drama. I couldn’t ask for anything more in a story.
Bottom line: If you like contemporary ménage, read this story. It is one of the best stories I have read in a while and I can’t wait to find more stories by Erin M. Leaf.
May 03, 2012
*****
MR Review
Rating: 
Reviewer: Alberta
Review:
Carrie meets two hunks at the beach, and is attracted to Eric and Zeke, but over the next few months, she can’t seem to get together with them. In the meantime, Eric and Zeke realize that although they have been friends since childhood, neither knew the other was bisexual. They embark on a homosexual relationship, but both want Carrie to complete them and become a family. By the time they manage to get together, all three are already in love with each other to some extent.
Lots of conflict in Risk is a Four Letter Word, as the two men aren’t sure how to continue their lives together or with a woman in the mix. All three of their families are somewhat less than supportive of their lifestyle choices, so they spend a lot of the story tending to the conflicts. The sex is really, really hot, and the men seem to be very empathetic and so nice you have to wonder if they are for real. Carrie takes a chance on them, and we see a HEA for now ending.
I’m seeing lots of stories about gay men hooking up with the woman of their dreams lately, and I’m not entirely sure this would ever happen in real life, but it makes for great sex and interesting stories.
*****
More Than This: Menage and Polyamory Reviews
4 stars
Reviewed by Carrie Ann
I took a chance and picked up this book by an author that I was not familiar with, just because I liked the title. Well and the fact that the main female character shared my name.
How many chance encounters with your soul mates does it take before you realize that you’ve found what you didn’t even know you were looking for? And even when you realize it, is it possible for it to put convention aside and make it work?
Interior designer Carrie, first encounters high-end furniture makers, Eric and Zeke, when she loses her bikini top, and they come to her rescue by finding it. In payment they ask for a kiss. Two very hot kisses later, they part ways without ever exchanging anything beyond the kiss and first names.
During their second encounter in the Museum of Modern Art, where another scorching hot kiss is exchanged in a family restroom of all places, Eric and Zeke reach the epiphany that they aren’t just attracted to Carrie, but also to each other. Risking a 20 year friendship they realize that love has been in front of them all along. However, they aren’t quite ready to let Carrie get away.
Their third encounter finds them all in the ER, where the Eric makes Carrie very aware that they want her in between them, however they still haven’t even exchanged contact information at this point. The 4th meeting finds Carrie at their place of business with a client in tow, where they finally get Carrie’s number, and set up a date.
Each ensuing encounter causes the heat level to rise. Real life problems interfere. Eric’s homophobic mother, Zeke’s jealous teenage sister, along with misunderstandings, major freak outs and fear of the unknown seem pretty determined for things to not work out.
I really enjoyed Erin Leaf’s writing style, and her characters, although I felt that the supporting characters really could have been developed a little bit more, because for me often it’s the supporting characters that make the story. This was definely not the case here. The main characters were likable, with plenty of personality. I really liked the inner dialogue of the characters. I also really enjoyed the fact that they weren’t all in love by page 4 of the book. Each scene and location was beautifully described. I feel as though the timeline, and the situations were a lot more realistic than so many that are found within the romance genre. The relationship didn’t feel forced or rushed. The sex scenes were steamy but always progressed the story.
All in all this is a great read with a HEA ending. It was an easy read, with no major hangups for me, other than my ever present complaint that it could have been longer, and that perhaps some of the issues were resolved a little too quickly or not really at all, but I am definitely glad I took a chance on this one.
I will surely seek out other works by Erin Leaf.
May 22, 2012
*****
Just Erotic Romance Reviews — 4 stars!
review by: Silla Beaumont
In the stuff right out of a girl’s worst nightmare, Carrie has lost her bikini top in the ocean…with a crowded family beach right in front of her! Thank goodness two tall dark and handsome men have come to her rescue! Before she can get more than their names, Zeke and Eric have vanished, leaving Carrie with nothing but fantasies of the three of them together. While Zeke and Eric have finally come to terms with the newly sexual parameters of their relationship, they still can’t stop thinking of the delectable Carrie. Fate has the trio in its sites, as several random encounters thrust them together over and over again. Carrie’s got to be nuts for getting involved with TWO men, but she can’t help the way her pulse kicks up when they’re near her. The three finally give into destiny, but making it through their families angry and bigoted emotional battlegrounds will take a strength none knew they possessed.
Risk is a Four-Letter Word is the first book in the Four-Letter Word series by the terrific Ms. Leaf. I absolutely loved that Zeke and Eric went after their attraction after being in the “just friends” category for so many years, despite the risk to existing business and personal relationship. Carrie’s character is charmingly unsure of her feelings, and I enjoyed that she didn’t have any “bad” relationships that she was leaning on for emotional distance, but rather that she just didn’t know how she would fit in a ménage relationship with two guys. The sex in this book is insanely hot! Frantic and almost crazed, it’s like the three are drugged when they’re together! I love the stolen public kisses and sexual encounters, its’ so fun to read about this triad who don’t even try to fight their animalistic attraction to one another! While Risk is a Four-Letter Word isn’t all that groundbreaking, it is certainly enjoyable, and I will definitely be reading more in the Four-Letter Word series by Ms. Leaf!
*****
Rating: 4 stars
Rick is a Four letter Word(book 1)
Carrie, a single young woman, helping her sister at the beach with her kids. With the kids on the beach playing and her sister sleeping, she goes to the water, only to lose her top. Now in the water, no top and the surf the only thing hiding her half naked body, she has to decide what to do. As she is trying to figure a way out of the water without streaking the people on the beach, 2 gorgeous men come up to her, with her top. It had been floating down the beach and they came across it. Eric and Zeke, have grown up together, work together and live together. Now finding this beauty in the surf in a comprising situation…both are attracted to her. After helping her get her top back on and getting her name.they ask for one thing from her in return, a kiss. 2 scotching kisses later, Carrie goes back to the beach thinking “wow” and wondering where the 2 men went to.
Later, coming across Eric and Zeke in a mall, while she is waiting for a client, the heat is on. In a bathroom, the kissing becomes hot and heavy, only to be interrupted. Never getting Carrie’s number, and frustrated from the high sexual tension between the 3, the 2 men discover a secret they both have been keeping. After several chance meetings, they have to admit fate may be trying to put them together.With family issues on all sides and the fear of the unknown can the 3 make it work or are they destined to crumble?
This was a very entertaining story short, cute and sexy as hell. Adults only, MMF scenes. Loved the chemistry of the 3. They are meant to be. Fate keeps throwing the 3 together and who are they to fight it. Enjoyed the story, recommend the series, if you want a funny, sexy read!
Reviewer: Julie
