John B. Thompson was one of the most distinctive voices of mid-century paperback fiction, writing candidly about desire, violence, social hypocrisy, and people struggling against the restraints imposed upon them. Often marketed as “sleaze,” his novels were sharper, darker, and more observant than their lurid packaging suggested. This third collection brings together nine complete novels, including two written with bestselling author Jack Woodford.
The collection opens with TABASCO and ranges from the rural passions of THE EAGER ONES, where three women defy small-town morality, to the wounded veteran and forbidden attraction of SPLENDORS OF LOVE. In NYMPH IN NEED, a solitary woodsman is drawn into violence, buried secrets, and an urgent romance. GIRL IN THE MIDDLE follows a brilliant, alcoholic nineteen-year-old caught among predatory desire, clinical curiosity, and manipulation. PASSIONATE ORPHAN introduces Cyri, a fiercely independent woman who refuses shame, obedience, or ownership, while BAYOU GIRL turns a Louisiana refuge into a humid crucible of awakening, jealousy, and obsession.
Two provocative novels co-written with Jack Woodford carry desire beyond conventional society. SAVAGE EVE takes men and women to a remote Pacific outpost where familiar rules fall away. WITH THESE TWO HANDS follows a wealthy businessman, his family, and his candid young secretary on a South Seas voyage to an island where restraint disappears.
Bold, candid, and complete, these nine vintage novels capture the dangerous freedoms, hypocrisies, passions, and hungers beneath respectable mid-century life—and expose the high price of desire.
Jack Woodford, John B. Thompson /
Anthologies, Sexy Fiction
