The discussion surrounding the controversy led Del Rey Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, to announce Monday that Corrain’s book would not be published next year.
“We are aware of the ongoing discussion around author Cait Corrain,” the publisher wrote on X. “CROWN OF STARLIGHT is no longer on our 2024 publishing schedule.”
The publisher’s decision to drop Corrain and “Crown of Starlight” resulted in her losing other partnerships she had in the works. Hours before the announcement, Corrain’s literary agent, Rebecca Podos, said that she also had cut ties with her client.
“Cait and I will not be continuing our partnership moving forward,” Podos wrote on X. “I deeply appreciate the patience of those directly impacted by last week’s events as I worked through a difficult situation.”
Corrain did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning. Corrain acknowledged her actions in a letter published to X early Tuesday, saying her lies were driven, in part, by her struggles with depression and substance abuse.
“Let me be extremely clear: while I might not have been sober or of sound mind during this time, I accept responsibility for the pain and suffering I caused,” she wrote in a letter posted after midnight, adding that she spent the past few days “going through withdrawal as I sobered up enough to be brutally honest with you and myself.”
“I know some of you won’t forgive me, and I recognize that you’re not required to,” she wrote.
But the people of color targeted by Corrain noted that her letter was not a proper apology to the debuting authors who suffered as a result of the negative reviews she gave them on her fake Goodreads accounts.
“I’ll be waiting for that apology,” wrote Bethany Baptiste, the author of the upcoming book “The Poisons We Drink,” who was among the people review-bombed by Corrain.
Officials with Del Rey Books and Goodreads did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Even as Goodreads has grown in power and influence in publishing, review bombing — targeted harassment through negative reviews that has resulted in the cancellation of books and their authors — has been a long-standing issue for the platform.
Amazon bought Goodreads in 2013 for a reported $150 million with the hope that the online community of book lovers and the data they created about books would advance its mission of selling everything to everyone. But since Goodreads allows any user, not just those who’ve received advance copies, to leave ratings months before books are released, authors have become targets of review-bombing campaigns. Authors and critics say there’s little moderation or recourse to report the harassment on the Amazon-owned platform. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim Post CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)
“Crown of Starlight” is described by Goodreads as a “steamy, sci-fi reimagining of the tale of Ariadne and Dionysus — the first book in a snarky, queer, lushly romantic duology set in a galaxy of monstrous mortals, bloodthirsty gods, and love fierce enough to shatter the cosmos.” The 560-page paperback, which was part of a two-book deal that Corrain had signed with Del Rey, had received good early reviews and was to be published on May 14, 2024.
Members of the literary community recently started noticing that an unnamed author had been writing one-star reviews on Goodreads for months about authors of color who were publishing their first books. The reviews for books from Baptiste and Molly X. Chang included turns of phrase such as, “It’s so bad, I’m writing a review about it,” according to Gizmodo. Writers including Xiran Jay Zhao, the author of “Iron Widow,” noted last week that a debuting author had been review bombing other first-time authors through multiple Goodreads accounts while also upvoting their own book on the platform.
“If you as a debut author are going to make a bunch of fake Goodreads accounts one-star-bombing fellow debuts you’re threatened by, can you at least not make it so obvious by upvoting your own book on a bajillion different lists with those same accounts,” Zhao wrote Dec. 5 on X. Zhao later described the situation on TikTok as #reviewbombgate.
Soon, a publicly available Google doc titled “Review Bomb Receipts” outlined 31 pages of evidence detailing how the Goodreads accounts in question were linked. They all had a common link: The accounts listed Corrain’s “Crown of Starlight” as among their favorite upcoming releases.
Authors targeted by the bad reviews include Baptiste, Chang, Kamilah Cole, K.M. Enright and Frances White. All of them have books out between January and August of next year.
When Corrain was asked about the review-bombing accusations in a Slack channel for debuting authors, screenshots of the chat shared by Baptiste show, Corrain emphatically stated, “I did NOT review bomb anyone. I did not positively review my own book with false accounts.” Corrain also claimed that she had evidence that the review bombing was linked to her friend named “Lilly.” She provided screenshots of an alleged chat involving “Lilly,” but she did not give the other authors ways to contact the person, according to Baptiste.
Corrain asserted Tuesday that she was in the middle of a mental breakdown when she “made up the world’s sloppiest chat with a nonexistent friend who was supposedly to blame, and sent fake apologies for the actions of said ‘friend,’ which only made things worse.”
The discussion has caused an uproar in recent days, ultimately leading to Corrain’s being dropped by her publisher and her agent. Baptiste questioned the silence from Podos, Corrain’s former agent, over the past week.
“Dropping her doesn’t absolve you,” Baptiste wrote.
Podos on Tuesday acknowledged that not speaking out sooner “was shortsighted and privileged on my part.”
“I sincerely apologize,” she wrote on X, adding that readers should support the authors targeted for the negative reviews.
The blowback has continued for Corrain, as Illumicrate, a subscription box for books, said it would no longer include “Crown of Starlight” as part of its May 2024 box. Daphne Press, the specialty press arm that had a partnership with Corrain, said it was investigating the allegations and “determining how best to move forward once we have all of the information.”
Corrain said in her letter that she would be trying to contact each of the authors and would be checking into an intensive psychiatric care and rehab facility in the aftermath of the review-bombing controversy.
“All I can do going forward is to try to live my life in a way that shows you these aren’t empty words,” she wrote.
Caroline O’Donovan contributed to this report.
Laura Davis is an entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to Broadway, she offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
