Denise Hunter Stole My Idea or Why Women Shouldn’t Wear Short Skirts

Denise Hunter posted a sneak peak at Seaside Letters, a story about a woman who falls for a customer and gets into a online dating relationship with him, but doesn’t want to let him know (go figure). Actually, she didn’t steal that idea from me, though it has a few of the same elements in it as Searching for Mom. But there are some very obvious differences. The main similarities are that the love interest between a worker in a restaurant and a customer, as well as the online dating aspect of it involving deception. In my story, the poor guy didn’t even know he was in an online dating relationship.

 

I thought the cover was interesting. It has all the stuff wrong with it that I don’t care for with recent Christian fiction covers, such as appearing to be a stock photo, chopping off the head and too much pink. What makes it interesting is that the woman dress appears to have gotten hung on the name banner as she walked past it. So ladies, that’s why you shouldn’t wear short skirts. If you ever find yourself on a book cover, it might get caught on the author’s name.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Partial human figures on book covers are in vogue right now. I hate them and hope they'll go away. Partial people squick me out.

And I really doubt if Ms. Hunter knew about your book in order to lift ideas from it.
July 27, 2009 at 9:34 PM
Timothy Fish said…
Anonymous 9:34,

Yeah, you're probably right. My book is by far not the first book to contain those elements, nor will hers be the last. If she did borrow those elements from my book, all I can say is that imitation is the best form of flattery, but her book is no more similar to mine than mine is to the stories I borrowed from.

Has she actually read my book? She hasn't told me if she has. She has had ample opportunity to know about my book, but knowing about the book and even knowing what it is about doesn't translate into her having read the book. But then, why should she? I...uh...haven't read hers either.
July 28, 2009 at 5:19 AM
Denise Hunter said…
Hi Timothy.

I became aware of your post via Google Alert which I use to keep track of my reviews. I just wanted to let you know that I haven't read your book nor have I even been to this website or seen your books until today. You're right that many books share similar elements. Sorry you don't like my cover, but you're not exactly my target audience. :-)

Denise
July 28, 2009 at 9:02 PM
Timothy Fish said…
Denise,

Yeah, I don't care for romance novels all that much. Although, I sometimes find one that escapes its trappings of being a story built as an excuse to put two people together.

Don't take my distaste for the cover personally. I actually liked the cover on Surrender Bay. The colors were great. There was a nice shadown on the name banner to show us that the image is floating above the aqua background. The cover of The Convenient Groom was okay for the target audience, though I wouldn't want to be caught dead with it in my hand. The green background works with the image and though the shadow isn't so clear, having it missing doesn't hurt the cover. With Seaside Letters, the cover isn't so bad for the target audience, but the shadow is missing and the color of the background clashes with the pink dress. Thomas Nelson's cover designer could have easily grabbed the dark pink from the image at the woman's shoulder and fixed this problem. A dark drop shadow would have also improved the design and it wouldn't look like the dress got caught on the author's name.
July 29, 2009 at 8:11 AM
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