The following is a one star review I got which I consider slander to my character:
just so we’re clear, i didn’t bother buying this book simply because of the short excerpt from he book i read before i bought it. ok the vampires name is logan steel, sounds sexy enough,with one problem- the charactors name was taken from another book!! this book was published after a book that i have already read. this same charactor was in the book “biting nixie” to a “t” so to speak. all the way down to the detail of the charactor. if you’re going to write a book and steal ( no pun intended) a charactor from another, at least change them a bit to reflect your own personal interest in the charactor.
and to boot not only was he in a different book, but another book from mary hughes was based solely on his charactor in another biting romance novel. i’m utterly disappointed in peoples lack of imagination in creating their own work.
again i say that i haven’t bought this book, nor do i intend on doing so simply because of the lack of imagination put into this book. however if you are someone who enjoys a well thought out storyline and charactors i would refer you to mary hughes biting love series. especially “biting nixie”.
I usually don’t answer bad reviews, but no one calls my character into question without a rebuttal:
Just for the record… I have never read nor heard of another book with a character named Logan Steele. I would NEVER steal anything from someone else’s book. That’s deplorable and I just don’t do it! If you read a book and don’t like it, and it deserves a one star review, then so be it. But it is mean and nasty to assume a character was stolen, and give a one star review, without even contacting an author to see if…wow…you might be wrong. I hope you reconsider and change your review since you have accused me unjustly and that’s neither fair nor morally right. If your conscience can allow you to let it stand…then that’s something you’ll have to live with. My conscience is clear.
lauralynnelliott.com 
Gee, if you’re going to leave a 1 star review and you want it to be taken seriously, it might behoove you to learn how to write a grammatically correct sentence, use punctuation, capitalization, and actually learn to spell.
And for the record, according to Howmanyofme.com, which uses U.S. Census data, there are 9 actual PEOPLE with the name Logan Steele. Should their mothers be blasted for “stealing” names?
Basing a review on a SAMPLE, the fact that a name happens to be the same, and that there is another book out of TENS OF THOUSANDS out there about vampires and accusing the author of stealing is ludicrous and poorly thought out. A better tactic would have been to dash an email to the author “hey did you know…?” because chances are, they don’t.
Yeah, that’s pretty bad to do what this person did. And I was so happy today because I got a great review on sparklingreviews.com. That’s what I should have posted about instead. LOL
Thanks for the encouragement, Kait.
Okay, my 5 year-old could have done a better job. Or maybe the reviewer texted the review.
Well, maybe bad press will work in your favor and people will buy the book just to see what was so bad.
{{hugs}}
I often buy books when they get bad reviews. LOL. But this wasn’t even a review. It was a personal attack on my character. I’ve reported it to Amazon as advised by two of my author friends.
The grammar and spelling was terrible, wasn’t it? The whole thing seemed kind of weird to me.
Thanks for the hugs. I can use them right now. 🙂
To leave a one star on a sample is beyond obnoxious. The whole point of the sample is to help consumers decide if they WANT the book. Does every sample the reviewer dislikes get slammed? Ugh!
You should totally report that review and get it removed because nowhere in it is the content evaluated. How could it be? All the reviewer does is attack your integrity AND promo someone else’s book.
Yeah, it was definitely a personal attack rather than a review. And that promo of the other book sounds a little suspicious to me. Maybe a friend of the author’s? Who knows? But I have reported it to Amazon.
On the bright side, I got a great review on the sparklingreviews.com website, so maybe I should post about that tomorrow for something more upbeat. 🙂
When people are evil to others, it’s to boost their own self esteem. It’s a shame that they can’t find a more constructive way to do it than to tear someone else down. I’m sorry you ended up being someone’s random victim.
On the topic of character names, I always pull a name out of an imaginary hat when I write, but I do often worry that someone else used it in another work of fiction. Then, I remind myself that there’s no patent on names. So what if the same name is in another story? Now if I read a dozen paranormal romances with Brad Pitt as the lead character, I might start to wonder…
Why was it even an issue to this person? That’s why I wonder if it was a friend of the author’s, since she promoted that person’s book at the end of her rant. I checked out her other reviews. There was one 5 star (guess which book that was) and there was another 1 star besides mine.
Zoe suggested I Google the names I want to use. I actually did that before coming up with my pen name and also my book names. I pointed out to her that there are lots of books with the same name, but she said it seems people get more upset over the characters rather than the name of the book.
If there were just two books with characters of the same name, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. The real coincidence was that both of them were vampires. Why would I even WANT one of my characters to have the same name as someone else’s? Grrrrr.
I’m so sorry, Lauralynn. Nothing makes me madder than someone who judges a book without reading it. This person didn’t read it or buy it. I think you’ve got grounds for abuse and removal on more than one count- just the fact that this person used your “review” (and I use that term very loosely) to promote someone else’s work should be an automatic remove, not even counting personal attacks. I also think Amazon is more likely to pay attention if more than one person reports it as abusive and/or unhelpful. I can do that as I find it both.
I’m such a mild mannered person that I almost never get mad about anything. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. But I was furious over this one. It is definitely abuse in my opinion. It is actually libel since untrue statements were made. Vicki, I appreciate your thoughts and help.
Hey, was just checking GV and it looks like that review was removed. Yippee!
Yes, they emailed me and told me they deleted it. They agreed that it was inappropriate.
I’m glad to hear that Amazon was responsive and took action. Yea for justice!
Yeah, that made me really happy with Amazon. 🙂