All U Can Eat

I found this one in a box of books and after reading the back realized I had read it a few years back. It is erotic romance with a little more story than erotic romance generally has. There is a central mystery that is no mystery at all, and there is a central character having a lot of interesting sexual encounters. These are the people in her neighborhood, and there are more than a few Mr. McFeeley's, if you read me. It is dated, it is clunky, but it is also fun and sexy and is pretty much what you want when you delve into this sort of things. I will say, this is one weird town, and clearly someone is putting something in the water supply.

Emma Holly is on my must-buy list for a reason.

Troy, diner owner Frankie's boyfriend of 5 years, breaks up with her directly after sex. A week later, he and his new fiancee show up in her diner. Frankie starts getting over it when young ex-Marine Mike comes by, looking for work. She hires him as a cook, and decides to let him cheer her up, but as they're sleeping upstairs, they hear a noise and discover a dead body in the alley behind the diner--the best friend of Troy's fiancee, and Frankie's the prime suspect.

Police chief Jack West has had a thing for Frankie for a long time, and now that her boyfriend is out of the picture, he has a chance--except the murder got in the way. Both Frankie and Jack investigate from different angles, and show more find love along with the solution.

All U Can Eat is not one of Holly's more mainstream novels. Just FYI. If you read this expecting a straightforward romance, with the h/h having sex only with each other, and nothing more shocking than some oral, you're going to be... surprised. The sex scenes are many and varied. And they are, every last one of them, integral to the plot, show character development, and are full of emotion and sensual detail.

Take the first scene in the book, with Frankie and Troy, for example. You can tell that they genuinely like each other and enjoy their sex life, but that Frankie's settling, and that there's something Troy needs that he's not getting from their relationship. It's not spelled out--it's there in how they act with each other and in the few words they say. And it's clear before he tells her that Troy's ending the relationship. All that on top of hot, steamy sex.

It's all like that--Emma Holly is not an author whose sex scenes I skip, or even skim: I'd miss a lot of the turning points in her stories that way, besides which, they're never boring or repetitive.

The characters are all vivid and three-dimensional. Nobody's all good or all bad, and they all have believable motivations for their actions. One duo that was intriguing and I'd like to see more of is Dave and Pete, the Team Boys, of Dave and Pete's garage. They'd started out double dating, and end up bisexual. There's a bit of their emotional journey in All U Can Eat, but they're really not the focus of the story, so it's of necessity brief.

The mystery was clever and had a nice twist to it, and the romance was emotionally believable.

I don't know what else to say. It's so much easier to point out the things I don't like in a book. Emma Holly makes every word count. I have all her books; she's on my must-buy-as-soon-as-it's-released list; I'm a huge fangirl. show less

Holly is one of my favorite erotic romance authors because she can combine hot, spicy, explicit sex with a good plot and plenty of romance. So many of the erotic romances I have read are strong on the sex but weak in the plot or romance. Frankie Smith is the owner of a popular diner in California and unselfconscious about her sexuality. There are some very graphic sex scenes with a hot former Marine who she hires as her cook, and a pair of bisexual guys. Jack West is the chief of police of this small town and has a secret crush on Frankie. When Frankie finds a body behind her diner, she and Jack are thrown together. On the way to solving the mystery Jack and Frankie fall in lust and love and the pages sizzle with some delicious sex show more scenes. The tone was light and with a nice touch of humor. I enjoyed this one from start to finish. (Grade: A-) show less

I found this an erotic novel barely disguised as a romance and mystery. I didn't find the characters well-defined, couldn't see what the romance was supposed to be about and the mystery part was rather silly. I found the sex-scenes relatively well-integrated into the story - although the threesome stood out blatantly and didn't fit well at all, in my mind. I was annoyed at the constant 'his penis was huge... his penis was even more so... etc' - I find it rather pathetic that the men's sexual desirability had to be measured solely by their penis size.
Having said all that, I like that Holly integrated condom-use for the most part seemlessly, as well as had open dialogue during sex and that the lead wasn't shy about wanting to have sex show more just because she felt like it. I'm taking this as solely an erotic novel, as the romance aspect was, for me, shallow and ill-contrived. It's not the best I've read but it's also not the worst, thus I'm not sure how likely I am to read another of her novels. show less

Frankie Smith owner of the All U Can Eat diner is dumped by her boyfriend. He has moved on to Karen Ellis who is pregnant. A week later Frankie gets it on with a young cook she has hired (to get the old boyfriend out of her system). However, that same night a woman is murdered in the alley behind her diner and Frankie is the number one suspect. The Police Chief Jack West also has the hots for Frankie and despite the situation they get it on as well. Although it had an interesting murder set up, they fact that nobody could keep their pants on got pretty annoying.

People love Emma Holly and so I read her occassionally but she never quite works for me. But this is the best book of hers I've read in a long time. I mean the mystery is silly and not at all mysterious, but the hero is quite delicious. The heroine is a diner owner whose boyfriend of 5 years breaks up with her unexpectedly. So she had sex that night with a sexy stranger who she also hires. She then has sex the next day with 2 men who are more into each other than any of the women she sleeps with, and finally she has sex with the cop who hasn't had sex with anyone for years and they fall in love. So lots of sex. It starts too explicit for me (I need more foreplay ie character and setting, can't just walk into a sex scene and care about show more the characters) but once I got on board, it was a fun ride. show less

Surprisingly well-written erotic romance/crime novel with characters who you care about and believe. I can see why Emma Holly has so many devout followers. Her fiction is sexy, female-friendly, and entertaining.