At some point one might blink in un-surprise to yet another discovery of rampant holy shit plagiarism, but today is not that day (and frankly, I hope it doesn’t arrive).
Per Courtney Milan, Tessa Dare, and many, many other people doing the terrible work of unearthing and checking books page by page, it seems writer Cristiane Serruya has lifted…sheesh, at this point, half the internet into her books?
As always, a fan found it and let Courtney Milan know:
If you know me, you know I do not make accusations lightly–especially accusations about plagiarism and copyright infringement. Earlier today, a fan sent me an email claiming that portions of my book that had been copied by another author. After investigation, I have concluded that Christiane Serruya has copied, word-for-word, multiple passages from my book The Duchess War.
There are more passages copied than what I list below, and history suggests that if you delve deeper into this book, and other books, there will be even more plagiarism.
Oh, indeed. Sad Plagiarism Bingo square: it’s never just one book.
Once folks began looking, there were plenty of additional examples. Which of course means buying copies of a book one suspects contains other people’s work – a particularly galling enterprise, return policies notwithstanding.
As Tessa Dare searched, Natalie The Reading Debutante identified The Duchess Deal as one of the sources.
Well, this is embarrassing. I am 95% sure this was lifted from my books, but I don’t know where or in which one. Geez, #CopyPasteCris knows my books better than I do.
Sidenote, how come none of the bits from my book show up when I search? I had to go get the other off the shelf. pic.twitter.com/aDqEUhelj2
— Tessa the RedNosed Rein-Dare (@TessaDare) February 19, 2019
It’s The Duchess Deal! I’d know that book anywhere. Jesus Christ I’m livid! pic.twitter.com/tKnLOTtizz
— Natalie Jane Smith (@thereadingdebut) February 19, 2019
It seems the lifting is rampant and thorough, too:
I am literally 9% into ONE book “by” @CrisSerruya (ROYAL LOVE), and have found text plagiarized from at least 5 authors. #copypastecris
— Tessa the RedNosed Rein-Dare (@TessaDare) February 19, 2019
And while passages from Bella Andre, Trish Morey, Lynne Graham, Abby Green, Karen Marie Moning, Lisa Kleypas, Kresley Cole (is your jaw on the floor with mine?) and many others have been identified, reader Kawy also spotted lifted recipes from The Knot, and from The Field Magazine:
https://twitter.com/kawy/status/1097716453258772480
We haven’t gotten to “and the ‘author’ once managed Blues Traveler” territory yet, but that is definitely a new subterranean notch on the WTF scale.
The scope of the plagiarism is still being revealed, with new updates at the #CopyPasteCris hashtag on Twitter.
I’m still caffeinating but I’m about 87% bafflement face at the moment, with an equal amount of exhausted empathy for the individuals doing the investigating. The hours it takes to identify, search, and match passages from other books are not small in number. (Been there.) And it is work that the potentially wronged individuals have to do, because otherwise the plagiarism continues.
And then there’s the ridiculousness of lifting so much from so many places to assemble into one book. Imagine the work that goes into creating a new document, then taking portions of others, fitting them into the skeleton of some kind of narrative, and finding others to add in as well. Forget the mathematical calculations of how many tabs that would be in a browser. Why would someone do that? It seems like an astonishing amount of really, really dumb work and, as always, you’ll get caught.
Looks like I’m going to have Rihanna stuck in my head all day:
If the plagiarism call-and-response pattern holds, at some point there may be a flounce (which is always a boomerang because flounces are never one way) or maybe a vague, passive-voiced non-apology.
UPDATE: I was wrong! I was not expecting this response:
https://twitter.com/CrisSerruya/status/1097847797351673856
She’s also reached out to Courtney Milan:
Oh, boy.
My theory, and purely a theory: ghost writers. Lots of ’em, grabbing passages left and right then selling the “manuscript.” ETA: I’m definitely not alone in that theory.
I know there’s a market for ghostwritten romance manuscripts (since romance is a perennial cash production machine according to some wisdom). I wonder if someone has developed software that takes pieces of books like a deck of cards and shuffles them into a new order.
Presto. A “book.” I wouldn’t be surprised if such a program exists, but again, a lot of work for something that will be discovered. Readers remember shit like this, and we recognize patterns, especially in books we love. Always.
This story will likely to continue to evolve and I’ll update as new information arrives. In the meantime, I wish everyone some sleep and a LOT of coffee. Really, really good coffee.
ETA: I’m setting a timer for 5 minutes and using the free preview to see what I can find. Ready, set, go.
Shaded Love, free preview.
Chapter One, All That’s Unspoken, Constance Phillips, screenshot via Scribd:
Jeez. Ridiculous.
ETA: Well, gee golly gee whiz, it was indeed perhaps a ghostwriter:
ETA: Via Claire O’Dell: the Goodreads page for Royal Love has been edited to read “Plagiarised from Courtney Milan.”
ETA, 20 February:
Well, that’s been a lot.
Cristiane Serruya deleted her Twitter account (not surprising).
A person named Bee commented on Courtney Milan’s original post saying they had worked as a ghost writer for Cristiane Serruya (and who wasn’t paid, either):
Her work, when given to me, was a number of mishmashed scenes that needed “expanding”, as she said. I took for granted that these were her own words, and embellished as she requested, as this is how I work–I often help authors who are “too close” to their own book to get it in shape for publication. Now I can see that it’s very possible those were plagiarized scenes that she was hoping a ghostwriter would change enough to make unrecognizable.
Oy.
Courtney also revealed on Twitter that two additional ghostwriters have independently contacted her revealing the same details of Serruya’s approach.
And the list of plagiarized titles has lengthened to nearly 30 (I’m sure it’ll pass that number today).
CaffeinatedFae on Twitter (holy smokes I love that name!) has been keeping a running tally and posting them in a Twitter thread. And @JeannaLStars has also kept a Twitter list with US and UK buy links.
Added: CaffeinatedFae also has a lengthly list on her website (nice job!).
Titles link to the book in question.
- The Importance of Being Wicked, Victoria Alexander
- The Wedding Gift, Bella Andre
- Grey’s Lady, Natasha Blackthorne*
- A Season of Hope, Christi Caldwell
- Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta Chase
- A Hunger Like No Other, Kresley Cole
- If You Deceive, Kresley Cole
- Lothaire, Kresley Cole
- The Duchess Deal, Tessa Dare
- She Belongs to Me, Carmen DeSousa
- Slade, Laurann Dohner
- Fool for Love, Marie Force*
- The Accidental Wedding, Anne Gracie
- The Spanish Billionaire’s Pregnant Wife, Lynne Graham
- The Spaniard’s Marriage Bargain, Abby Green
- Badlands, Callie Hart
- Marrying Winterborne, Lisa Kleypas
- The Rogue Not Taken, Sarah MacLean
- The Duchess War, Courtney Milan
- The Heiress Effect, Courtney Milan*
- Proof by Seduction, Courtney Milan*
- What Happened at Midnight, Courtney Milan*
- Beyond the Highland Mist, Karen Marie Moning
- Forced Wife, Royal Love-Child ,Trish Morey
- The Christmas Company, Alys Murray
- All That’s Unspoken, Constance Phillips
- Warrior Prince, Michelle M. Pillow
- Love Potions, Michelle M. Pillow
- The Liar, Nora Roberts*
- Private Scandals, Nora Roberts
- The Liar, Nora Roberts
- Lost in Temptation, Lauren Royal
- The Darkest Night, Gena Showalter
- How to Tame a Beast in Seven Days, Kerrelyn Sparks
- Ruthless, Michelle St. James
- Rafael’s Suitable Bride, Cathy Williams
*Indicates newly added titles.
When I saw “Nora Roberts” my first thought was, “Everybody, get underground NOW.”
Plus, there are the pheasant recipe from Field Magazine and a scone recipe from Jamie Oliver, as well as two articles:
- From The Knot, “A World Tour of Wedding Cake Traditions,” written by Sarah Doyle
- From The Guardian, “I help women and children in refuges heal together after domestic abuse,” written by Jessica Scott* (From the article: “Due to the confidentiality of Hestia’s work, Jessica’s name has been changed.”)
And, this Tweet from @SalvagedBooks and KJ Charles made me snort coffee:
ETA:
Courtney Milan has also provided a detailed post of what to do next, including filing ethics complaints with RWA and reporting the books at Amazon, BN, and Apple. She’s also created a Yahoo Group for those affected. Details are at her site, of course. This community can be truly a gift.
ETA, 22 February:
The editor who worked on Royal Love asked Courtney Milan to post a statement on her behalf :
I would like to personally apologize for my role in this situation. I edited Royal Love, Book 1. If I had any knowledge this book was plagiarized in any way, shape, or form, I would have sent her packing.
And per the incredible work done by CaffeinatedFae (wow I hope that caffeination is 200% real at this point) and others, the list is up to 36 books and 28 different authors. The list above has been updated.
Nora Roberts has written about this, and the Janet Dailey plagiarism from 1997, Plagiarism, Then and Now, wherein she writes about plagiarism, and how it’s always a reader who discovers it:
You don’t get over it, you get through it.
Since then, I’ve had a couple more less public and ugly cases which we dealt with firmly and quickly. Because I’ll never play nice with a plagiarist again.
That leads to now.
…it’s always a reader, and bless you every one.
@Lynne Connelly,
I too have been kept out of my rightful place on a list by a scammmer. I even showed it to KDP reps in Orlando and vented the frustration of hundreds of indie authors. Nothing happened. They did nothing, despite me explaining in great detail exactly how they did it at the time.
I’m small potatoes, but I still grabbed the free book off Kobo, the one with the stolen from Constance Phillips opening, to scan and be sure. I put so much effort into my work and then a bitch like this comes along and almost makes me wonder why I keep doing this.
@Joey and @Lynn Connolly thanks for your encouragement. I’ve had so many people (including contest judges) say “OMG I want to read this book!” but it’s been hard getting traditional agents and publishers to take a chance on something this different. And the marketing departments run screaming, they have no clue what to do with it.
Well, if all else fails I can turn it into a webcomic. 🙂
Why isn’t this actionable “FRAUD”? Can and should she be reported to the state bar association?
If someone was buying a book from a ghostwriter all they’d have to do to check if it had plagerised content is google a lot of passages and they would show up on google books presumably.
Nobody ever plaigerizes me. I feel so…inadequate.
What a wild time for the book romance twitter community. I can’t believe she tried to blame ghost writers for the work she copy and pasted onto her own Word document.
And Nora Roberts laughs evilly while calling her legal team. There is not a hole large enough in the world for that woman to hide in. Hope she likes ramen. What a disgusting human!
[…] Plagiarism controversy: https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2019/02/cristiane-serruya-alleged-plagiarist/?fbclid=IwAR1O0Ydh-… […]
One of the other plagiarized authors just let me know she found a line of mine from Whiskey Beach woven in HER stolen love scene in one of this fuckwad’s ‘books’. That makes four of mine–so far–we’ve found involved. The thing is, there’s going to be more, tons more, for lots of us. That’s how this was done. A bit here from this author, a bit there from that one, mix it together, then a big chunk here, there, a bit, a slice.
More than two dozen authors have been violated by this, are now dealing with that gut-punch, that emotional trauma, that visceral rage. Not all of them have the money, the backing, the time to fully fight back.
I do.
If it’s determined what she took from me meets the bar of infringement, I will sue her bones to dust. If it doesn’t, I’ll use my name, my clout, my public forums, to do whatever I can do to beat this creature, and the culture that fosters this ugly, greedy bastardization of writing into a puddle of trembling ooze.
There is software to collect and export annotations. That might do it.
@Nora Roberts.
Thank you. I think I’ve been infringed, and if you read my post above, you’ll see how it’s done, if you don’t know already. I’m already a bit battered this year, so I didn’t want to get deeply involved, because it’s just one more thing, and I know the effect it will have on me. Just that some of her paragraphs sound eerily familiar.
And it’s happening on an industrial scale. This woman is only one of many, she just bought a book on Fiverr or a similar site, or from a private network, had it smoothed over by a ghostwriter, and passed it off as her own.
I’m not big enough or rich enough to make a difference. But if Amazon did better policing, and took more notice of more than the bottom line, things would get better for us. I know how it’s done, as do many authors. But there’s not a lot I can do about it.
Thanks for taking this on.
I’ll have a blog about this mess up on my site fallintothestory.com within the hour.
What a hateful—and idiotic—thing for this woman to do. I’m sorry for those whose work was plagiarized and in awe of the literary sleuths who took the time to ferret this out.
But, oh my goodness, Nora. I couldn’t help but notice that even your blog comments are poetry. I especially loved “I will sue her bones to dust” and “[I will turn…] the culture that fosters this ugly, greedy bastardization of writing into a puddle of trembling ooze.”
Goodreads page is no longer showing Plagarized.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38193223-royal-love?from_search=true
God bless Nora Roberts
I’m not bloodthirsty (honest), but I do hope this person’s appropriation of Nora Roberts’ work meets the bar of infringement. However, I suspect we can’t rely on the next romance plagiarizer to be foolish enough to steal from an author with pockets deep enough to take legal action. Is there any romance-friendly writers’ organization with a legal fund specifically dedicated to defending individual authors against copyright infringement? (Yes, I do want to throw money at this outrage. No, I am not willing to support a legal fund for a specific case. I’d like to fund an ongoing resource, not an instance. Thanks for any direction you can provide.)
All hail Queen Nora!
Also—I have a general question for the Bitchery: is there is a way for people like me who aren’t very active on social media to bring plagiarism (or suspected plagiarism) to attention in Romancelandia. And what about appropriation? Not verbatim copying of another writer’s work, but taking characters, plots, etc. (I realize in a genre where there are often trending tropes, it’s possible that some books that seem alike are just coincidentally using a trope du jour.) What is the legal line there? A year or so ago, I read a review for a new book that sounded extremely similar (down to the name, occupation, and exact family struggles of the hero) to another book by a different author that I’d read a couple of years prior. I left a post noting the similarities in the comment section of the reviewer’s blog, but I don’t know if having the same character names & occupations & dysfunction rises to a legal level of plagiarism. (It goes without saying that it’s still a dick move.)
Had anyone met Ms. Serruya in person? Do we know that she’s a real person and not a front for someone (or a group of someones) to just make a buck?
Can’t wait to see this dirty bastard crushed. So grateful to Ms. Roberts for spearheading the legal action, and to the rest of you who have been affected, know that we’re rooting for you, even in other genre communities. <3
Go Nora!
I am not a writer, but I would think it would be more work to steal passages from other material and force it into your plot.
An update from me. On a first pass of the bullshit frankenbook Forevermore by one of the people looking into this? Several bigger chunks of my Whiskey Beach, several more chunks from those authors already involved, and some bits from a handful of new to this nightmare authors. It’s going to keep growing.
There’s no fracking way this Serruya creature is the only one who’s played this evil mash-up game to self-pub and game the Amazon system. No fracking way.
And CopyPasteCris has spoken thanks to an article in Medium:
https://medium.com/@mrlucasmota/ive-never-earned-any-penny-with-any-book-in-all-these-years-says-cristiane-serruya-acussed-of-d6d92415e0db
Among other (obviously extremely dubious) claims, she says:
“I have many ideas, so many that I can’t handle, and the ghostwriters were just to help me in some parts/scenes, never to write the whole book. I often write with ice on my hands to ease the pain.”
She’s continuing to blame the ghostwriters for doing the plagiarizing because the “obvious stupidity” of the copy-pasting means she could have never done it. Also claims that her out-of-order writing style and poor advice from mentors who told her to publish a new book every month led to her boneheaded plagiarism.
Also continuing to blame Courtney Milan for taking this public and not talking to her privately. Also looks like no one’s getting their money back because “She hasn’t made a dime off of the books in years”.
Apparently she quit social media due to threats against herself/her family.
The writer of the article found a fourth person who did ghostwriting for her and the same method was applied. I don’t know why she’s persistent in trying to lie about this, but lie she is.
ETA: I’m still amazed that the thing she’s angriest about his her ghostwriters “ripping her off” when she gave them plagiarized passages to work with AND never bothered to pay them.
@Lisa F – thanks for the link to the Medium post! I didn’t know about fakespot.com (using an algorithm for determining the authenticity of reviews), and it is now my new favorite toy.
I mean, I know these 5-star reviews for cr*p books are shady, but there’s something very satisfying about seeing an F on that website.
[…] Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has screen shots of tweets and the plagiarism and the exhausting list of famous authors affected. “And then there’s the ridiculousness of lifting so much from so many places to assemble into one book. Imagine the work that goes into creating a new document, then taking portions of others, fitting them into the skeleton of some kind of narrative, and finding others to add in as well. Forget the mathematical calculations of how many tabs that would be in a browser. Why would someone do that? It seems like an astonishing amount of really, really dumb work and, as always, you’ll get caught. “ […]
[…] If you’ve been anywhere near the writing community on Twitter, you’ve probably seen at least a few posts about #CopyPasteCris. This is about Cristiane Serruya, who plagiarized from more than 36 books and up to 28 different authors. […]
[…] the aftermath of the #copypastecris controversy I got to musing about ghostwriting and the nature of ghosts. Now I should say that […]