Never mind the title, feel the heat!

Reviews for the three books in my Love By Design trilogy — Awakening Love, Seduction, Checkmate are hotting up. Visit Fools Paradise to see Payton L Inkletter’s last review — of my Seduction! (a previous publication was known as Seduction By Design)
You can read it here but you miss the animation — you’ll laugh your socks off!

Also posted here is a review by Andrew O’Hara (Andy is deeply involved with the Badge Of Life. Visit the BOL site, for eye opening revelations about their work.)

Go to my author site Hobsons Books for more reviews

SEDUCTION BY DESIGN

Seduced by design. Designed for seduction!

“Seduction by Design” is a triumph. Entertaining, wild, erotic (sheesh :), and full of enough twists and turns to keep the reader engrossed. A great piece of reading, written with Gladys Hobson’s very typical skill! (Longer one below)
Andy O’Hara

Seduction By Design

I was keen to sink my teeth into this novel, ‘Seduction by Design’, Gladys Hobson’s second in her ‘Designed For Love’ series, because she had me hooked with her first, ‘Desire’ (known in the UK as Awakening Love).

These are no ordinary romance novels. They are written by a mature age author, whose abundance of wisdom invests the chapters with a fragrance rare. A young person simply could not achieve this, and the gems of insight Ms Hobson scatters throughout her story delighted me.

As for the characters, my dislike of the arch bastard Robert Watson magnified in this instalment, while my love for the beautiful June Rogers nee Armstrong was tempered – Ms Hobson portrays just what a flawed woman she is despite her enormous and rare talent for couture design; and to make matters more arresting for me, I am tarred with many of the same brushstrokes as June, if I want to be honest.

Thus I was not only entertained by this engrossing tale, I was a tad convicted.

It is the early seventies, the setting having jumped a couple of decades from that of ‘Desire’, and my word how well Ms Hobson has integrated the plot from that instalment!

The thermostat regarding eroticism has been turned up a few notches in ‘Seduction…’, and that’s saying something, and yet, as with her first, there is nothing dirty or obscene in her explicit portrayals, and I tip my hat to her for this achievement: sexually charged encounters aplenty, without impurity – trashy romance writers take notice!

Something rare for me: I was actually mesmerised in places as I consumed this believable story involving an assortment of characters that would exist in any big town and city. And as in my previous review, let me reiterate that, as a writer, I continued to be informed and educated regarding effective technique to convey and captivate.

Well done Ms Hobson, and when is the final novel, ‘Checkmate’, going to be finished for me to learn what happens to these characters, who have become such a part of my imagination?
Payton L. Inkletter (writer, thinker, humorist)

SEE INKLETTER’S ANIMATED REVIEWS AT Fools Paradise!

Seduction by Design (about to be published by Turquoise Morning Press as ‘Seduction’ by G B Hobson)

Here’s a book that carries the reader right along in a smooth, continuous delight of romance, erotic adventure and well woven suspense. Author Gladys Hobson kicks right off with a bang, introducing us to the sensual June Rogers. A fashion designer by trade, June is grieving the death of her husband, Arthur, and begins to take readers on a tangled journey of love and hate with the attractive Charles and the ever despicable Robert–and is he ever!

Trite as that might sound, Hobson truly brings these three main characters (and a surrounding cast of delightful cast members) to vivid life in her “Seduction by Design.” This book keeps the reader on one’s toes as misfortunes lead to twisted plots and motives, and then to one misunderstanding after another that almost lead to tragedy and final heartbreak and yet, in the end — well, the writer sums it up best as, “Deja vu,” which you will have to find out by reading this delightful piece of work!

Gladys Hobson is a well practiced writer, spinning a tale smoothly and naturally. She is economical and yet she is capable of painting entire scenes and montages with dialogue, a quick glance, the sparkle of an eye or the dart of a smile so quickly that a reader doesn’t even know it’s happening. This is a rare talent and a delight.

“Seduction by Design” is good reading. It’s flat-out entertaining, suspenseful, erotic, fun, and heartwarming!

Andrew O’Hara (editor of The Jimston Journal, author of prize-winning The Swan, Tales of the Sacramento Valley) lives in the USA and now runs the Badge Of Life.

Please note: My trilogy and Smouldering Embers will now be published by Turquoise Morning Press and my The Dark Mirror (previously published as When Angels Lie) is being published by Storm Moon Press

Of Life and Death

Beautiful Lake District

We have just returned from a wonderful relaxing (if strenuous) holiday just 50 miles away. We have been staying in our caravan parked not far from the lovely Ennerdale. We managed a great walk to the top of Whinlatter, a more gentler one in Ennerdale, and various others taking in some of England’s finest scenery. We say new life grazing in fields — lambs, foals, calves and pretty little pigs. One little piggy followed us along the country lane!

Gentle mum with her baby.

One little piggy followed us, then went all the way home!

We also saw death in its most horrid form — a small lamb that had been attacked by crows. The sight was so shocking that tears ran down my face. A gentle creature that could not possibly do harm to others. Near by another lamb limped on three legs. Hopefully we saved it the same fate as when we told the farmer of what we had seen, he said crows will attack lambs that show signs of lameness. He intended dealing with both lambs right away.
To me that little lamb stood for all helpless creatures in the world — human as well as animal life — that are brutally treated and murdered by evil forces present in man and beast. The cries of many go unheard. We can only do what we can and pray for change. The farmer told us that the lamb’s fate was just nature. That only made it seem worse. I wanted to get a gun and shoot every crow in sight! Yes, I like to think that I’m a pacifist too!
I doubt I could have done it anyway, unless I saw a crow about to strike.
It set me on a chain of thoughts about wars. Can we stand by and watch murder on a huge scale? It is easy to turn our eyes away — or is it?

Sheep may safely graze? Are they ever 'safe'?

At least I had a welcoming Email waiting for me at home. Another great review for Seduction By Design but I’ll be posting that shortly.

View from Whinlatter Forest Park

CHECKMATE — G B Hobson

CHECKMATE is the third book of the Love By Design  series. The first book is called Awakening Love, The second book is SEDUCTION  and finally(?) CHECKMATE

A heated game of lust and envy v love and integrity

A pre-published review of Checkmate by Gladys Hobson
Reviewed by Geoff Nelder: award-winning author and co-editor of Escape Velocity magazine.

Gladys Hobson’s Checkmate is much more than a romance novel. It is a tour de force of the strengths and weaknesses between members of two powerful families. It is the English Lake District’s own Dallas only with more three-dimensional characters. The plot rotates around the conflict generated by Robert, whose sexual magnetism lures women and steers his business to the detriment of his arch-enemy. This reader felt an overwhelming desire to travel to Cumbria, find Robert and smash his face in. However, Gladys is too subtle to allow simple revenge. Instead the rogue is given a long leash… but suffer he does.
Although I mainly read and review science fiction and fantasy novels, the characters in Checkmate are so engaging you get to experience what each character thinks of each other: scheming men and women, the devoted and the deluded. Compelling reading.
As a romance novel, you’ll need asbestos gloves to read these fiery pages. It is far more than eroticism: it is a perceptive and insightful exploration of a family’s relationships, lusts and passions. In amongst the wily machinations there is humour. For example you’ll not keep a straight face reading a hilarious sex-in-a-car attempt.
Gladys Hobson is an experienced novelist and it shows in her masterful writing. Any reader of romance will be enriched by reading Checkmate, a must-read addition to their bookshelves.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BOOK AND THE OTHER TWO OF THE TRILOGY IS NOW BEING PUBLISHED BY TURQUOISE MORNING PRESS (USA) AND WILL BE AVAILABLE VERY SOON (BETWEEN SEPTEMBER AND THE END OF 2012)

Writing For Joy, my author and books site.
Magpies Nest Publishing

Nothing To Fear — humour/horror story by Gladys Hobson

Nothing To Fear

Dark morning in Lent

‘Anyone there?’
No answer, so what the ‘ell were the chancel lights doing on?
‘Huh!’ she said, locking the door of the west porch behind her and waddling up the centre aisle. ‘If I’d left them on there’d be the Devil to pay.’
Chuntering to herself, Doris made her way to the vestry, switched on the nave lights and took the vacuum cleaner and dusters from a corner cupboard.
‘They’ve ‘ad the kids in again,’ she grumbled when she saw the state of the floor near the outside door. ‘Blooming mud and rubbish all over the place. What the ‘ell are these nails doin’ ‘ere?’ She looked around the floor. ‘Whackin’ big hammer, and what’s this? Looks like a stapler. God knows what’s been goin’ on.’
She tossed the offending equipment inside the cupboard. ‘Vicar can sort it out. Must be somethin’ to do with Lent — God knows what.’
There was a tap on a window. Something shaped like a head draped with a sheet was being waved about outside.
‘Flippin’ kids; always tryin’ to scare me.’
She raised her fist in the direction of the vestry window.
‘Bugger off!’
She took off her coat and was about to hang it over the vicar’s surplice on a hook near the door: ‘Huh, that could do with a wash. And what’s ‘is clothes doin’ dumped on the floor? Vicar’s wives aren’t what they used to be: too busy doin’ their own thing. Mind you, Vicar’s no better. I don’t know — church’s goin’ to the dogs.’
Putting the offending clothes over a chair, she threw her coat inside the cupboard and took out a broom. Pulling on a wraparound pinny, she swept the mud into a pile and left it until she could sweep it outside. Then she noticed the vestry key was in the lock.
‘Good ‘eavens, the door’s unlocked. Must have been open all night. Huh! No wonder the place is in a mess.’
Opening the vestry door wide, she swept the mud outside. In the churchyard, the kids were playing with their skateboards — footing them along the steep paths, leaping on and off the fallen gravestones.
‘No respect for the dead. They need their ‘ides tanning,’ she muttered, waving her broom at them. Sighing and shaking her head in disbelief at the antics of modern youth she hurried back inside, locking the door behind her.
She dragged the vacuum cleaner out of the vestry into the nave.
‘Funeral in less than an hour, Lent service this afternoon — what the ‘ell do we need that for? Vicar’s a right killjoy. Can’t even eat a bit of chocolate without feeling guilty. Oh well, got to get cracking.’
Muffled noises echoed around the church. The hairs on her arms stiffened and her heart rate zoomed. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she told herself, ‘It’s that coffin sitting in the side chapel that’s spooking you. Get the job done and get out.’
A thought struck her. Suppose the coffin’s occupant is still alive?
‘Huh! Imagination running riot again, Doris. Time you gave this job up, you’ll be seeing ghosts next!’
Starting from the back of the church, she plugged in the cleaner and began her work — another half hour and the vicar would be arriving. She began singing ‘Abide with me’.
Just outside the side chapel she found empty beer bottles strewn around.
‘My goodness! No respect for the dead these days. Mourners drinking beer last night? Celebrating their inheritance? Huh! No business comin’ in the church and leavin’ the vestry door unlocked. I don’t know, whatever next?’
She trotted off to the vestry for a black plastic sack.
‘More work to do. The vicar will be here any minute. Better not be in one of ‘is moods.’
She started picking up the bottles. Muffled moans sounded from the side chapel just behind her. Fear immobilised her body. Bottles dropped from her hands with a crash. Icy fingers gripped her heart, stiff pimples covered her flesh, her hair uncurled and stood on end.
She forced herself to move. She was being stupid again: it was just kids messing about, the central heating playing tricks, timbers shrinking, or….
Slowly she turned to face the coffin.
‘Is there anyone there?’ she croaked, unable to think what else to say.
The coffin lay still and silent on its trestle in front of her. The only movement coming from the single spray of red roses resting on the lid — petals were dropping like tears of blood to the floor below. Her heart began to slow its rapid pace. She sighed with relief. ‘Silly woman, Doris.’
Suddenly the sound came again — much louder this time.
Her eyes darted to her left. Her mouth opened in a scream, but nothing came out. Paralysed to the spot her gaze was held captive by the vision before her.
Sitting naked in front of the chapel altar, his hands nailed cruciform to the altar frame, and his feet nailed to the floor below the step on which he sat was the Reverend Donald Charles Geoffrey Bloom — Father Don, as he preferred to be called. His bloodshot eyes were wild with fear and pain. Muffled grunts were vibrating the plastic tape sealing his mouth.
Grey ash of penitence drifted over his head, down his face, over his body and onto the sanctuary carpet. On a board resting on a piece of sacking stapled between his legs, was written:

I AM A SINNER

Even through the haze of her shocked brain, Doris remembered the village gossip about the vicar and the treasurer’s wife. Her eyes turned towards the coffin. Elizabeth Jones had died — or so it was rumoured — of a self-administered abortion. She looked again at her suffering vicar and nodded her head in understanding.
She turned and picked up the broken glass. How silly of her to think the body in the coffin was alive. Mrs Jones was dead all right: there’d been a post-mortem. Poor old Mr Jones was a very distraught man. Well, no man likes to be cuckolded… it’s against ‘is dignity. And to end up a widower as well. ‘Dear, oh, dear…’
‘Change and decay…’ she sang to no one in particular.
She stopped and picked up a small card.
‘Now what’s this?’

THOMAS DREADNOUGHT JONES.
DEBT COLLECTOR.
PERSONAL ATTENTION
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED

She dropped the card into the sack. ‘What’s ‘is card doin’ ‘ere?’
She dragged the sack to the vestry. ‘Better get on, the funeral will start soon — ‘ope Vicar’s ready in time.’
She took a last look at the side chapel.
‘I don’t know, the lengths folk go to at Lent… ash on ‘eads… fasting… flagellation… and now this! Why can’t Vicar give up sweets like the rest of us? Well, I’m not cleaning that lot up.’
‘’Elp of the ‘elpless……………….’

Gladys Hobson’s story is published in Northern Lights
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The Dim Light

The Dim Light — a true story by Gladys Hobson

The light grows dim

In the dim light of the bedside lamp, I stood by the pink-flowered curtains that were keeping at bay the dark miserable night, and looked across at my yellow-skinned father’s head lying on snow-white pillows. With yellowed eyes closed, gurgles of laboured breathing came out of his open mouth in some semblance of sleep — the sleep of the dying.
My eyes followed the shape of his body under the lightweight bed cover and I reflected on the skeleton it had become, with parchment skin so thin that his bed sores refused to heal. I didn’t want to see his emaciated body; it seemed totally wrong for a daughter to see her father naked, especially his private parts, but he’d asked for his bottle so he could urinate. I’d given it to him and he’d performed, quickly returning to sleep. I could only be thankful. I did not want to hear him moan or scream.
Tears welled up in my eyes and I became fearful of speaking lest he awake and I betray my sorrow. Here lay a once proud, well-built man. A man who’d faced life’s challenges — and there’d been many of them — with courage and determination. Maybe he hadn’t been a perfect father, and without doubt he’d often treated my mother like a doormat, but much outrageous behaviour could be excused by his frustrations when, for years, trying to work in spite of increasing physical handicaps and pain.
My stalwart father, now reduced to this — a helpless bag of bones enclosing a rotting inside eaten away by a spreading cancerous growth.
I knew the district nurse had inserted suppositories to quell his pain. I also knew that this could mean the end. For months his suffering had been severe in spite of the many codeine tablets he swallowed daily. We knew that the change in treatment would prevent his fight against death — two, maybe three days away, or so the nurse had said.
No one had spoken to my father about dying. We had not dared. I recall a friend telling me that my mother had told her that when my dad thought he was dying, she woke to find his hands around her throat. He’d said that he thought he was dying and he didn’t want to die alone. I didn’t think he would have carried it out — surely not. Maybe he needed to express his fear. Afterwards he would have sobbed with shame. That is what he did — fall into depression — when he’d allowed his emotions to lead him into dark areas of his soul.
Earlier, I thought his end had come. I woke my mother and together we stood over his bed. But Dad opened his eyes:
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded with new strength in his voice. ‘Do you think I’m bloody dying?’
Then his eyes closed again and mother went back to her couch in the lounge to try and rest a little longer. I kept up the watch, for that is why I had left my husband in charge of our children. My mother, weary with sleepless nights, needed me to be there.
How I would have loved to sit on his bed and take his hand in mine; to speak to him quietly and tell him that I loved him. But no one ever spoke of death and dying, no one ever spoke of cancer. My dad had major problems with heart, lungs and a creeping paralysis — these things were obvious to him and everyone. He believed he was suffering from jaundice and no one, not even the doctor was prepared to tell him different.
Is this what it must be for another two days? With my mother, already suffering acute weariness of body and soul, fading away; and my dad struggling with only agony waiting for him should he wake before another administration from the district nurse?
Time to pray. Not aloud. And time to talk to my dad, not with sounds but soul to soul.
So I whisper from my heart, prayers of love, repentance and forgiveness. I pray that God will take him now, not tomorrow or the day after. But now, in the peace and quiet of His presence.
And I turn to my dying father. I remember my granddad had been a lay minister who had gifts of preaching and healing. Yes, surely he would approve of the healing found in a peaceful death.
‘Let go, Dad. Don’t be afraid. Granddad is waiting for you. He’ll look after you. We all love you. God loves you too. You can let go now. Let go, Dad, let go..’
Gurgling noises come from my father’s throat, shortly followed by a deep, deep sigh…

The valley of the shadow...

The light shines on in the darkness

The darkness has not overcome the light...