Page 3 of The Author

The following day was just as stressful while I waited for a response. When my phone rang, I answered it immediately.

“Hi, Kyle. How are you?”

“What's going on with my book, Graham?” I gritted out to my agent as I stood up.

“Look, stay calm. Tom called me last night. They can’t publish your book. They claim that another author has submitted a book, and the similarities are—well, in his words, striking. The details they gave me were classed as plagiarism. It may take a few weeks for them, Tom, to come back to us, but you’re going to have to re-write a lot of it.”

It felt as if someone had pulled the ground away from my feet. I sank onto my sofa and tried to make sense of his words.

I know for a fact I didn't copy anyone, so how did someone get a hold of my work? I hadn't shared my book with anyone. My agent dealt with all the advanced review readers. After I lost my temper with someone who had left me one nasty review, which created a social media scandal, I was banned from interacting with readers.

“Kyle? Are you still there?”

Could someone have hacked into my laptop? This has to be a mistake.

“Who is the other author?” I said quietly with barely suppressed rage.

“I don't know much about the other author. Her name is Faye Saunders. Look, Kyle, she submitted her book before you did.”

I paused, trying to comprehend what he was telling me.

“Email me everything they told you,” I said calmly and hung up on him.

My phone rang immediately, but I ignored it because I was too busy looking up the author. My confusion only grew when I saw all her books were in various romance genres. I tapped on the author bio. It was vague, but she was based in England.

The bastard was ringing again, so I picked up.

“This is wrong. She writes romance, not horror,” I barked at him.

“From what I’m told, she is branching out into horror,” he said. “I’ve messaged and emailed Rathbournes’. I'm just waiting for a response.”

“You know I've been working my ass off for the last two years to get this manuscript finished. Someone has fucking stolen my work.” I shouted down the phone.

I felt sickened by the thought and all the promotional advertising that had been done for the big launch in October.

Graham was saying something, but I couldn't focus on him, so I hung up on him again. I put my phone on silent and stared at her author logo. A feminine F and S entwined together in a lilac colour. I flipped my coffee table over and watched it topple over, and the glass shattered on the wooden floor.

I looked at the shards of glass, wishing I could repeatedly smash Graham's face into it.

No.

Not Graham.

Faye Fucking Saunders.

Chapter 3

Faye

My eyes ran over the front cover, inspecting the quality of the graphics in print. I ran my fingers over the embossed lettering before checking the back. The quality was amazing. I eagerly opened it up.

My first dark romance.

I've been writing for five years, but this was the first time I felt truly accomplished. It was my first book with a traditional publishing house. It was daunting to start with a dark romance when everything prior to this book had been so—wholesome. It had felt so good to let out all the more morbid, darker ideas I’d begun to have. Turning the book back to the front, I ran my fingers over the bloody knife.

The not-for-resale ugly strip running over the front didn't put me off. It was a close one because I thought the editor would make me pull some of my darker scenes, and I was grateful they let me keep the integrity of the original storyline.

My so-called hero was an absolute prick. I hated him for 75% of the book. I knew I would be slandered by my readership for my change in writing style, but I didn't want another pen name. I liked my own name being on my books. It was the small part of my ego I allowed.

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