Cait Corrain was on top of the world. Her debut novel, A Crown of Starlight, was scheduled to be published by Del Rey Books. It would receive national distribution and appear as a featured text in several subscription book clubs.
And in the span of 48 hours, the book and its author was dropped by its publisher; all the contracts were cancelled, and Cait Corrain’s name was on the same level as mud. Maybe not mud. You can actually DO things with mud.
And Cait Corrain has no one to blame for this than herself.
A Crown of Starlight was to be the first in a series of novels that reimagined the Greek gods and goddesses of ancient mythology. The 560-page novel would be the breakout project for Cait Corrain, who according to her Goodreads profile is “a writer, artist, and relapsed goth from the East Coast … I have a BFA in Sequential Art from Savannah College of Art and Design, where I also minored in Art History. I spent time working in film/TV before jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire by becoming a programmer. Please buy my books so I can stop doing that forever.”
Again … things are going great. Del Rey Books is a major imprint, and this book has a chance to catch on with the fantasy novel set. Look, if you’re going to wait for George R.R. Martin to finish that Song of Ice and Fire project … A Crown of Starlight might tide you over.
And it’s gotten plenty of five-star reviews on Goodreads.
Lots of five-star reviews.
But therein lies a problem.
Because many of the Goodreads members that are giving the not-yet-published A Crown of Starlight five-star reviews are also giving several other not-yet-published fantasy novels blistering one-star reviews. Vicious one-star reviews. And according to Gizmodo, some of the one-star reviews contained similar words and phrases. I’ll now turn you over to author Xiran Jay Zhao, who discovered the review-bombing tactics … and kept plenty of receipts.
Trust me. If I’m linking a TikTok account, you know it’s a serious matter.
Eventually Cait Corrain claimed that a friend of hers, someone named “Lilly,” was using a collection of sockpuppets to review-bomb the other authors with poisonous one-star reviews of their work. She even produced screenshots of her text conversations with “Lilly” about the matter.
Except … the dates of the text conversations didn’t match up. This wasn’t a Hercule Poirot detective whodunnit. This was more of a three-page Encyclopaedia Brown brain-teaser with the answer as obvious as the butler saying “I did it.”
There were increasing rumors that Cait Corrain was the mysterious “Lilly,” and was review-bombing other authors with her own sockpuppet accounts – the same sockpuppets who all mysteriously LOVED A Crown of Starlight as if it was the second coming of Gone With the Wind.
I should also note that the books Cait Corrain bombed on Goodreads were by minority BIPOC writers. And Cait Corrain – in case you’re wondering – is Caucasian.
Eventually Cait Corrain came clean about the review-bombing … and blamed – I kid you not – the drugs she was taking for anxiety.
“In late November, 2023, I started a new medication, and on December 2nd, 2023, I suffee a complete psychological breakdown. During that time, I roughly created 6 profiles on Goodreads and … boosted the rating of my book, bombed thratings of several debut authors, and left reviews that ranged from kind of mean to downright abusive.”
So are you saying that the medicines to treat your health issues caused you to become a racist troll?? Seriously???
Well, I’m sure Del Rey Books totally understands that this was just an anomaly, nothing more than a misguided attempt at publicity. Surely they have no problem putting A Crown of Starlight on bookshelves in 2024 –
Oof. Well, perhaps one of the international publishing houses that works with Del Rey Books will still put this book in print –
Oh, that’s not good. I wonder if this will cause the Illumicrate subscription service to delay A Crown of Starlight for their members –
Fan … meet shit.
Well, perhaps her agent can shop the book around to another publisher. Certainly this can happen –
Hoo boy. Cait Corrain went from hitting the lottery to tearing up the winning ticket. And for what? A bunch of ghostwritten sockpuppet one-star reviews against fellow authors – who just happened to be BIPOC? How much damage did she cause those authors? For what? Seriously … for what end?
Trust me, I’ve seen sockpuppetry. When I used to blog for the Albany Times Union, there were at least two different bloggers whose comments section mysteriously contained nothing but glowing admiration from commenters who seemed to NEVER post to any other TU blog. And if anyone ever wrote a comment to their blog that was even the slightest bit disparaging, that comment would be deleted in an instant. Trust me. I take no joy in recounting those moments.
That being said … what Cait Corrain did was completely self-destructive. And if there’s something in her nature that feels the need to nuke any form of success she could have had in the way she did … then she needs more help and support than just a detox. She needs professional help that supersedes all of this armchair psychology.
And if you feel the urge to add any of these titles to your Amazon Kindle for future study, these are the books by the authors who got review-torpedoed by Cait Corrain. So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole, Voyage of the Damned by Frances White, The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang, and Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright.
They shouldn’t let some spurious one-star reviews dissuade your interest in their work.
That should be the true crown of starlight in this whole story.
Chuck The Writer 
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