It happened! My cherry has been popped! I received my first bad review on Amazon!

Oh well. That five star review monopoly had to be lost at some point.

I honestly don’t mind the criticisms the writer has of the book; I actually think some of the things she says are valid. They are choices I made when I was writing the novel, and perhaps, in hindsight, I should have made different ones. I’ve written three books since then, and I’m almost finished with a fourth. Each book has taught me something different about plotting, characterisation and pacing – some of the most important parts of constructing a book. I’m going to be learning how to write for as long as I write, that much I know.

It’s just the mean-spirited contempt that the review was written with that makes me pause. She – and I assume that the person who reviewed the book was female – seems to have gone out of her way to be as offensive as possible while giving her opinion, down to accusing my friends and family of being the ones giving the positive reviews!

My friends and family largely have no idea that I write romantic spanking stories. They have no idea that I write at all, let alone that I’ve been published. I can’t tell people; I run the risk of getting in trouble at work and I don’t think that my parents would be overjoyed at the thought of my choice of genre although I know that they would be proud of me for succeeding in attracting the attention of a reputable publisher.

I think that particular barb, of all those that she so callously threw, hurt the most because it was so far off the mark. I’m a big girl, both literally and figuratively speaking.  I can take constructive criticism. What I can’t take, and won’t take, and refuse to tolerate is mean spirited nastiness.

This review has reviewed only three books since 2011, and chooses not to give her name. Or a pseudonym. Or even a nickname. Two of the three reviews are of one star. Mine is the only book she’s reviewed in her extensive experience that had been given two stars.

I have to wonder if my book is that bad (which of course, it could very well be) or whether I was unlucky enough to catch the attention of a bitter, unhappy, mean-spirited person who gets some kind of enjoyment from deliberately confusing constructive criticism with vomiting up spurious insults. A person who is not brave enough to sign their name, or any other name, to their writing, unlike myself or the other authors she has taken pleasure in leaving an unpleasant review for.

Well, I’ll probably never know the answer to that question. But as annoying as that two star review is to me, I know that she’s far more annoyed than I’ll ever be by the “amateur and disappointing” Spanking The Governess.

After all, she paid a whole $4.99 for it!

Just think, if she’s bought it when it was released for $2.99, I’d have made far less money from her!

“Very enjoyable”, “a great plot and sweet characters”, “suspense, action and romance” or “amateur and disappointing”?

Decide for yourself at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk where Spanking The Governess is currently sitting at #2 in the Victorian Erotica section and #4 in the Historical Erotica section!