Review Wars: How one author used a 1star review to retaliate against a critic.
I've been waiting for something like this to happen ever since the GoodReads controversy of 1star reviews began.
Author K.T. Grant is also known asbook blogger Katiebabs, and is vocally against the practice of publishing fan fiction (also known as P2P). Recently, Katiebabs left this 1star review on the book Innocents (Dusty #1) by Mary Elizabeth and Sarah Elizabeth.
The review is blank, but the comments state that the book was originally the Twilight fan fiction titled Dusty, posted under the pen name YellowBella. It also notes that the fan fiction is still posted on FanFiction.net. (Which is all pretty standard for those of us, who shelve P2P in an effort to avoid it).
What happened next was something new, or at least something I hadn't seen before. Mary Elizabeth, under her GoodReads author account no less, went through and one starred every single one of K.T. Grants books on GoodReads.
Then she tweeted this:
It goes without saying that both of these authors/readers have the right leave whatever kind of review they want on each other's books.
However, I don't think I've ever seen an author retaliate against a critic in this way. I wonder if other authors will do the same. It's something other author/book reviewers might want to watch out for, which is why I posted this to give them a heads up.
Note: You might recognize Elizabeth and her fan fic turned book Dusty, because they were at the center of the Shey Stahl plagiarism controversy. Due to the attention and support she and her co-author received over Stahl's plagiarism of their fan fiction, the two decided to publish it as a series of novels.
Don't get me started on the painful irony of that.
