It is perhaps no surprise that what works for a male-female romance might work equally well for a male-male romance. Similar names, similar settings, a similar plot and a similar dose of temperature-raising sizzling anecdote. Perhaps it's all little too easy.
Such appears to be the scenario confronting Laura Harner, a self-published author of gay romances, who has been accused of nothing less than plagiarsing the work of a bestselling author of straight potboilers. Becky McGraw, a New York Times bestselling writer, wrote recently on Facebook: "I was just notified by a reader that she started reading M/M Romance recently and read a book by another author that is almost VERBATIM my book, My Kind of Trouble, with the exception it's an M/M book!! I need a recommendation for a good literary attorney fast!!"
Ms McGraw expressed her anger after being alerted to alleged similarities in her novel, in which the character Cassie Bellamy falls for bad boy Luke Matthews when she returns to her hometown of Bowie, Texas. She was told it had strong similarities with Laura Harner's Coming Home Texas, in which the character Brandon Masters falls for Joe Martinez. Martinez is also portrayed as a bad boy and the action happens when Masters returns to his hometown, Goldview, also in Texas.
Ms McGraw told The Independent: "I was shocked that someone who was supposedly so ingrained in the Indie author community, respected even, could do something like this. I believe her fellow M/M author colleagues as well as readers and bloggers who supported her are equally stunned and upset."
She added: "The blatant word-for-word replication of my book, a copy and paste of my entire manuscript really, without any changes other than name and gender, was very brazen."
The similarities have been detailed online by novelist Jenny Trout, who has provided screenshots and extracts from both books.
"Plagiarism, idea theft, sabotage in general is more common in the romance and New Adult genres than we want to admit it is, but that's probably true of most genre fiction," she said.
"Because it's such a female-focused genre, romance readers and authors don't want to call too much attention to this stuff. People tend to think, 'Oh, women and their drama'. Some of the rules we apply to women in our culture in general allow this shadiness to go on. I call it "Be Nice". Women are told to be nice, don't cause drama, don't be 'catty'."
Ms McGraw has said she is consulting a lawyer about legal action against Ms Harner, who has pulled the book from retailers since Ms McGraw first complained on Facebook.
Ms Harner's Amazon profile says she has written more than 50 novels and sold almost half a million books. Ms Harner did not respond to inquiries on Thursday. In a statement to The Guardian, she said she realised she had made mistakes and that she would "own and deal with the consequences".
"For those who know me best, you know that responsibility for my actions begins and ends with me," she said. "I will also add there are some personal and professional issues I've had to deal with in the last year that have stretched me in ways that haven't always been good for me."
The Independent