Dear Author: Romance Book Reviews, Author Interviews, and Commentary

Dear Mrs Wells,

What happens when you take an intriguing idea and mix it with nice characters but throw in very standard plotting? A reader who ends up feeling manipulated. Oh, I know that’s what a romance book is supposed to do - get you to root for the characters and sigh at the HEA - but I just don’t want the strings to be that visible as they’re pulled.

How would you like to be Monica Lewinsky? For Real. And deal with white hot spotlight of public ridicule? Yet know you were innocent and still not be able to prove it? Emma is a detail oriented woman who’s made her way in life, built a business, takes pride in who and what she is and it’s all torn away. During a public relations trip, President-elect Ferguson visits the house where she’s the temporary hired butler. Her business supplies them but she also does some of the work herself, especially for long time clients. Ferguson is a sleaze who demands that the Secret Service supply him with a call girl for the night but the extended whoopee brings on a …

One of the things that make defamation cases so difficult is that most of the time, the person filing suit is a public figure. Defamation suits have been crippling to the publishing industry. Newspapers, book publishers and so forth faced extinction at the hands of these suits. Recently a publisher filed for bankruptcy due to the legal fees incurred defending three libel suits.

While truth is always a defense in a defamation case, the mere fact that it is false is not enough to prove defamation. Where a publication is made about a public figure, the MeanGirl has what is called a “qualified privilege” regarding false statements that are published. In order for a public figure to be successful in a defamation case against a MeanGirl, the public figure must overcome that “privilege” by showing that the statement or statements were made with malice

Public Figure Identified.

There are two types of public figure: First, there are the individuals who through fame and notoriety are public figures for all purposes; and second, there are individuals who inject themselves or are drawn into a particular public controversy and thereby become public figures for a …