That One Time a Publisher Sued a Blogger

By now, you have probably heard that last week Ellora’s Cave sued Dear Author and Jane Litte for defamation.

When I first heard about the lawsuit, I thought it was a joke. My second thought was that my blogging days were over, because I was suddenly very afraid. Not only was EC suing a blog, they were also suing a blogger and using her legal name*, effectively doxxing her. Other things I briefly considered were stop posting negative reviews or stop the reviews altogether and just write general articles that didn't mention specific books. That’s not going to happen, but for a moment there it felt like the only viable option. Even if EC just wants to gag DA and frighten their authors into silence, the chilling effect, as Sunita puts it, is likely to inhibit other voices and criticism including authors, readers, and bloggers, which is why this is an issue that affects and concerns us all.

Interview & Giveaway: Jill Sorenson

Credit: Florin Gorgan

Welcome to a Romance Around the Corner interview, where the questions are longer than the answers. Our guest today is Jill Sorenson, one of my favorite Romantic Suspense authors and a long-time friend of the blog.

Q. Hello and welcome back, Jill! Your new book, RIDING DIRTY, is a bit of a departure from your usual work, both in terms of story and the way it’s been published: it’s a Motorcycle Club book, it’s an electronic-only release, the tone is darker, and the sexual content is higher. You have been very open and frank about your struggle and desire to sell more books, and you recently talked about how the upcoming Aftershock book, WILD, has been dropped by the publisher and your plans to self-publish it. How much of this new direction you’re taking with RIDING DIRTY is motivated by the market and what currently seems popular, and how much of it is driven by inspiration and the desire to explore a new side of your writing? Is it hard to balance the business aspect of writing with the artistic and creative process? 

Jill: Hi Brie! Thanks so much for having me. These are such great questions. I’m not going to pretend that my motivations for writing this book were purely creative. I’ve struggled in traditional publishing and romantic suspense has been a tough road. I wanted to go digital-only to keep the price down, and I wanted to capitalize on a hot trend. But I was also more inspired by this story idea than I’ve ever been before. For me, it’s all about a good concept. I can’t write something I don’t believe in. I also think that MC romance is a subcategory of romantic suspense. Some of my previous books have been dark and gritty, so it’s not that much of a departure.

Currently Reading: Rock Stars, Vampires, Demons, and Maids

Source: Review copies provided by the publishers through NetGalley.

Are you feeling cheerful today? Here’s a bunch of mini doom-and-gloom reviews to help you with that.

Rock Addiction by Nalini Singh

I was very excited when Ms. Singh announced that she was publishing a Contemporary Romance, but this book was a disappointment that I couldn’t even finish.

A rock star falls in love with the virgin, skittish heroine the moment he first sees her. There is absolutely no reason why these two would want to be together, not even to have sex. The problem here wasn’t the trite tropes and contrived plot, though, but how incredibly half-baked the book was. Nalini Singh’s books are all about complex world-building and interesting characters, and at first I thought that the shortcuts she was taking were the product of bad PNR habits that didn’t translate well to a contemporary setting. But whereas the fated mates in the Psy/Changeling series are nuanced people who take time to develop a relationship, this book had two stock, flat characters getting together for superficial reasons in what ultimately was an underdeveloped story. I hear the second half gets better, but I seriously doubt it, because the groundwork just isn’t there.

Grade: DNF
Purchase: Amazon