Donated to release.
Amazon Synopsis
The story of two voices, his and hers. Two strangers who, having met on a telephone chat-line, switch to a private, one-on-one connection, and find it impossible to hang up.

Arrived today, I had actually forgotten it was coming to me so soon and so it was a very pleasant surprise. :)

This has been reviewed over on my book blog, all comments welcomed!

RELEASE NOTES:

Picked up at Leeds meet, will read.

I have only read one other Baker novel, The Fermata, a great idea fairly well done. Vox though, well it sounds as if it should be good, two lonely and randy people get talking on a phone chat room and then transfer their ever more intertwined erotic wordplay to a one on one conversation.

The thing is though, I'd like written erotica to actually arouse me, Nicholson managed this just fine in The Fermata, but his overly wordy characters in Vox just failed to get me going. I suppose everyone has certain triggers that get them going, I've never really liked phones, I can go for months without using my mobile and so the idea of an extended phone sex call doesn't do much for me.

Baker's characters are educated, intellectual and loquacious, and for me it's here that the book falls a little short of its promise. You understand from the off that the novel will build to a literal climax so it's just a question of whether all the bits along the way do it for you as well. The situations that the man and woman build through their oral interplay are well constructed and superbly described, over described even, but they just don't do a lot for me.

Vox is a good idea, and at 160 pages of large fonts and generous line spacing won't take up much of your precious time whether it stimulates you or leaves you unmoved.

RELEASE NOTES:

Picked up (as it were) at the May BC Meet in Leeds.

I've vaguely heard of this book and, since its subject is one I find absolutely (ahem) FASCINATING, it's a kinda 'must read' for me.

I actually started writing a short story (in my recent creative-writing class) that seems to be very much along these lines, so I'll be pretty annoyed if this is as good as mine COULD be !

well, the good news is that I reckon I probably COULD do better! It's a quick read, yes - and I did enjoy it for what it was. There were only one or two bits that were vaguely arousing to be honest - but the main problem was not so much its low eroticism quota... more the fact that the main characters seemed so insufferably pretentious and unconvincing (although this did lessen as the conversation went on). To me, for this sort of concept to work (and it IS a great idea, which I'm suprised hasn't been done more often), the dialogue has to have a degree of naturalism to the situation - and (maybe it's cultural differences) but this dialogue just didn't have it. The construction of the conversation felt very artificial at times - though the ending was nicely, er, 'handled'!

So, all in all, a frustrating book. A v.good idea that works at times (but all too often doesn't). This was written 13-years-ago and by an American (?) author - and the language of sex, like fashion, dates badly. I'd like to see a British contemporary version of this. Maybe I'll write it!

Still, a quick book you can easily toss-off in an evening! ;o)

RELEASE NOTES:

Let's see if any of the York crowd are up for it...!

They weren't - but I'll try again next time...

thought maybe this could try its luck at Leeds' special Valentine's Meetup...?

(it seems appropriate!)

RELEASE NOTES:

an arousing release for Valentine's Day...

Despite reading parts of this on a nudist beach in Spain, it failed to, ahem, 'inspire' me much. Probably just as well. Not a bad read, some good lines but I'd echo the sentiments expressed below.