Customer Reviews

Strange Attractions (Berkley Sensation)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

You never quite know what to expect from Emma Holly, which is obviously her intent. She is a writer that continually fascinates me. I don't choose erotic fiction as a matter of routine, because honestly, most of it fails to deliver on the one level I want most - makes me care about the characters. Recently in a debate about the levels of sexuality in Romance in general, some came down on the side of sizzling hot, some for chaste Regency Romances. I said, "Frankly, I don't care which road you ask me to travel; tell a good story, and I will enjoy it." And for me, that is so true. I enjoy Sandra Heath Regency tales as much as I enjoy Angela Knight or Emma Holly, two of the red-hot sizzling writers of today. Why Holly continually leads me down roads I'd travel less is she starts with the most important ingredient: characters. She creates very human, very alive people, reaches in and grabs your heart, and then proceeds to push emotional and physical boundaries like no other writer around.

Once again, with her newest work, Strange Attractions, Holly delivers up a spicy, but emotional dish. An O.T.T. scientist is obsessed with knowing the why of everything. And the most elusive why to him is emotional response and feelings. When he is not being this era's Albert Einstein, Grantham unwinds by playing games with people - his very own human Kens and Barbies, trying to figure out what makes them react as they do. A one man Think Tank, B.G. Grantham very selectively chooses his candidates, looking for people that are strong willed, but flawed. His right hand is Eric Berne - Grantham's Man Friday and Ken doll rolled into one. It's time for Grantham to unwind from his more earth-saving pursuits, so he sends Eric out to find a new subject.

Eric has chosen sexy, wisecracking Charity Willis. Charity immediately wins the readers over. She is a gal who loves being a woman, short skirt, tight tops. Coming from a less than spotless background of a mother who moved about, and "uncles" who moved in and out of Charity's life with the regularity of the Navy, Charity has learn to protect herself. She is wound, yet resilient; she won't take gruff from people who mistake her delight in being sexy as a come on to any Tom, Dick and Harry. But life has not given Charity any breaks. She means well, but she's been fire from more jobs than she had "uncles". She's bright, but little applies herself, because what's the point?

Charity has seen Eric around the offices where she works, Future-Tech, even had the strange sensation he was following her on several occasions. She is attracted to the sexy man, but feels that a man like him would be interested in a girl like her for only one reason. When she's called to the personnel office, she at first fears getting fired for perpetually being late. She is ushered into the office by Eric who says he has a proposal for her. Charity steels herself for the usual, and is ready to put him in his place. Instead, Eric tells about his employer, how he likes to study people, their pleasure, what makes them tick and offers her the job of being Grantham's personal Barbie Doll for a period, after which they will pay for her college education, see she gets a good position with a job that has a future. After hearing the terms of the contract, Charity agrees feeling life has never given her a chance to get ahead before. Since the contract spells out that anytime she feels uncomfortable with Grantham's requests, she just has to say the word, they will bring her back to her home and the contract will end, Charity thinks she has nothing to lose.

So begins the journey of education of this touching brave young woman, that leaves the reader spellbound, with Eric as her guide. A modern twist, a cross between Svengali and My Fair Lady, done as only Holly can do. She strongly, flawlessly uses Multi-POV (point of view) to keep the reader attuned to all her characters inner emotions. Simply put, Emma Holly told me a good story and I enjoyed it. Her brilliance, her open-mindedness, and her willingness to test the envelope mark her as the brightest star in fiction - par none!

2004 Reviews International Organization Award of Excellence Finalist and 2nd Place Winner

I have always been an Emma Holly fan. She and MaryJanice Davidson rank highest priority whenever I'm in the bargain for a good romantica. Everyone who has read Holly's novels, especially her Black Lace offerings, is familiar with her uninhibited, no-holds-barred approach to erotica, and said approach is evident in Strange Attractions. Charity Wills is a man-eating high school dropout who jumps from one dead end, boring job to another. But things take an interesting twist when she is approached by the gorgeous Eric Berne. He's noticed her sharp intelligence and great potential, so he makes an offer she cannot refuse: the opportunity to get an Ivy League education in exchange to being the plaything of one B.G. Grantham -- an eccentric physicist with a penchant for exotic sexual games. Eric and B.G. have a rather close relationship, so to speak, and things take a delicious turn when intense feelings between Eric and Charity ensue. What transpires is a delectable story of the most sensual, erotic, mind and body games ever imagined...

This is Emma Holly's most interesting novel to date and the most daring one since Menage. This novel is not unlike the books she used to write for Black Lace. The plot is rather strange, but it works well with the sexual dynamics within the story. My favorite scene is the one with Eric, Maurice the chauffer and Charity and their little "stop" before arriving to B.G.'s mansion. I also like the encounter with Eric and Charity. There is of course a menage a trois in this novel. I can't help but notice that the men in Holly's novels are bisexual. The only novels that didn't have bisexual males in them were the paranormal ones with the word "Midnight" in their titles. Nicolas Craven, the hero in Beyond Seduction, my favorite Holly novel, hinted at having once indulged in bisexual escapades in the last chapters of said novel. Does Holly like the idea of two men together so much that she's centered most of her novels on said encounters? I like how sensual the aforementioned encounters are in her stories. I also couldn't help but notice that she is always precise with her research on the subjects she writes about -- or at least she makes said subjects sound very believable and convincing. Anyway, as said earlier, this is Holly's most unique offering to date. She has a wonderful imagination. Another winner from Emma Holly! This was the perfect book to read while nursing my flu. I cannot recommend it enough.

There's something about Strange Attractions that leaves you with a slightly gloomy feeling. Maybe it's because I prefer a real element of romance in my books, which I thought this book lacked. In spite of its categorization as an erotic romance, the book seems to suffer from a complete lack of emotion. The storyline is virtually non-existent, which is okay, I suppose, because we generally don't pick books of this genre for their intellectual complexity, but it bothered me that the main protagonists didn't at any point of time, act in a way that leads us to believe that they were in love. The sex scenes were very well written - Holly never suffers from a lack of imagination in this department - but it got boring after a while because that was all there was to the book - sex. The three main characters was incredibly drawn to each other sexually, but their relationship lacked emotional depth, which makes the ending hard to buy.
All in all, this book is pure erotica, and nothing more. If erotica is all that you're looking for, then Strange Attractions is definitely worth reading, but if you prefer a believable romance to go with the sex, you might give this book a miss.

Having read Emma Holly in the past I was fully expecting this to be a great read as well. What a disappointment!!

Charity Wills is selected to become the latest plaything of an eccentric loner with a fascination for the pleasures of the flesh. B.G., the brooding genius with too much time and money, develops a game wherein the selected female or male agrees to come to his mansion in the mountains to experience...well, hot erotic, mind blowing sex. All for his desire to discover the sensual lengths a person can be pushed before their passion consumes them. Eric is the handler who is employed by B.G., and often the implement device used to "torture", tempt, and tease the love starved guests. Everything from threesomes to bondage is promised....then you get to page 50...

Ready to hear more? Well too bad because the erotica...and game play promised to keep you awake at night with longing...ends right there. Literally you are on one page just waiting for the "game" to really get started and by the next page it's never mentioned again.

Charity is just completely unlikable. I realize Charity was uneducated, unsofisticated, and out of her league but Emma Holly chose to convey all those traits by making her the a dumb, white-trash flake with a vocabulary straight out of the '80s movie "Valley Girl". The first time I read "Oh Boy" during a moment of passion I just winced a little, by the 20th time I had cringed so much my jaw ached. It wasn't just the oh boys it was the cools, oh mans, and neats that had me wanting to crawl out of my skin. Even the men were talking like that! What woman submissive, dominant or in between has EVER gotten off by a guy exclaiming "OH BOY!" just as he's about to perform the most intimate acts imaginable?? I'm tellin' ya, it'd be like the Sahara Desert...during the dry season!

I can't even believe I finished this stupid book! For some reason I have a compulsion to finish any book I pick up though. Maybe I'm just jaded by the uber alpha males who always make my senses perk that even a slight sign that their dominance is artificial is just an immediate turn off. Save your money and your lust, this book isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Once again Emma Holly has written an intense story that involves some pretty hot sexual scenes. If you don't like a male to male love story, then this is not for you as it is featured prominently. There are of course other relationships in the story and they also engage in very hot, very specific sexual activities. I wish there was as much detail in the male/female scenes as there is in the male/male scenes. I must admit, it gave me new insight into male/male relationships.

I have two main comments about Strange Attractions:

1. I have read hundreds of romances, a decent amount of erotica - and I can honestly say that this is the first book of the lot to really give me ideas. Strange Attractions is more useful than most sex manuals.

2. It is incredible, yet true, that even though almost everything that happens in the book is explicitly sexual, the characters are fully fleshed out, three-dimensional, human. It's got a story, it's got emotional intensity, it's got complex and shifting relationships that go along with the complex and shifting physical contortions that spice up almost every last page.

I picked this book up because although I was a bit dubious about the whole menage-a-trois aspect, I have been very impressed with other Emma Holly books. Sure, threesomes are hot - but I imagined it would be really emotionally messy and unpleasant, or just...impossible to make emotionally satisfying. Boy was I wrong. The relationship between the three characters was perfect - loving, respectful, with different personalities, different talents and flaws, that strike a perfect balance as a triple rather than a couple.

A couple of things are a bit botched.

One is that Holly doesn't dwell on the part of the book where Charity agrees to the "game" and there's not much adjusting going on - one second Charity is offended that Eric is propositioning her, whatever the proposition may consist of, the next she is in up to her neck and her sexual inhibitions are ancient history. I didn't mind - I, too, was happy to jump straight to the fun parts & I'd frankly rather do without fifty pages wasted in whinging and feeble protestations. But, still, the transition was awkward.

The other thing is that B.G. is supposed to be a genius physicist and there is this kind of ridiculous subplot involving quantum mechanics and ghosts. Now, one of my best friends happens to be a bona fide theoretical physics super-genius-prodigy, and although I realize that all genius physicists are not the same, because of my knowledge of my friend & certainly what I've learned from him about his work, certain things about B.G.'s character (let alone his science) seemed really jarring and out of place to me. So if you are a scientist, know a lot of scientists, or just read a lot of science magazines - be prepared to heave a disdainful sigh or two. But read the book anyhow. It's totally awesome.

Along some of the same thematic lines of Menage (one of my all time favorite books by Emma Holly), this story is beautifully written and in particular, chronicles a woman's growing self-worth.

Friends and lovers B.G. and Eric make and interesting proposition to self-described heartbreaker Charity Wills: participate in an erotic "experiment" and her tuition will be paid to any college she wishes to attend. She accepts, and the games begin. This book is classic Emma Holly: interesting,romantic, and hot emough to peel the paint off the walls. I highly recommend this book.

This is the third Emma Holly I have read but by far my favorite. However, if you do not and can not handle boy-on-boy action, don't bother with this book.

She does a surprisingly good job of making what could have been a really dirty story a believable three-way love story. Of course, it's a lot dirty--and thank goodness for that--but I was invested in all of the characters except for the masseuse. I was actually rooting for everyone to end up together. Other reviewers have commented on Holly's ability with point of view storytelling--I would have liked to see a little more of B.G. in that aspect--but, all in all, well written. I especially enjoyed the fact that Eric, the main romantic male character, is actually a submissive--quite a change from the typical romance novel.

If you like your men sweet, your women honest, and think two guys kissing is a real turn-on, this book's for you.

Not really thrilled with this book -- I don't think it's the strongest example of how well Emma Holly can write.

Loved the story when it involved B.G. and Eric, but given the heroines she's created in other books, Charity is not so great. This is strictly personal opinion; obviously plenty of other people found alot to admire in this book. I'm keeping it, but only for the Eric & B.G. interactions.

Too bad Emma doesn't write a real love story strictly between two guys, because she really has a knack for those scenes. In this one, the Charity character was just interference.