A Tangled Web About Spider Hero Romances
Arachnid romances? An arachnid hero who falls for a dainty human heroine? An Internet controversy? The arachnid hero and the controversy both caught me in their web.
Meet the Monster Romance Genre
It’s all part of the hot “monster romance“ trend, which also includes alien romances. Many of these go far beyond Ruby Dixon’s Ice Planet Barbarians series. (I wrote about how fans fought Amazon over the removal of Ice Planet Barbarians.) Another popular author of monster romances is Katee Robert.
Monster romances involve heroes who are far removed from human beings. Heroes can be orcs, gargoyles, or lizard-like aliens. They can even have tentacles.
And yes, they can be sentient arachnids.
Meet Tiffany Roberts
Tiffany Roberts is a husband/writer team. Together, they write monster and SF and fantasy romances. One of their series is about heroes who are Krakens — with tentacles!
One of their popular series is The Spider’s Mate. These books involve a hero who is an arachnid alien. And a heroine who is very human. Their upcoming Vrix series is set in the same world.
When I first found out about The Spider’s Mate this week, I was startled. Yet … intrigued?
An arachnid hero? Wow! That was never a thing I thought I’d see in romance. But when I saw the cover of the Tiffany Roberts book, I thought, “Hmm. Seems odd, but maybe I’ll give it a try.” I’d rather read about arachnid heroes than yet more mafia heroes.
I’m not the only one who got lured into this web. Even some arachnophobes have fallen for this series.
As often happens, I learned about this series because of an Internet controversy.
And Here Comes the Controversy…
Enter author Melissa Blincoe. She started out as a fan of Tiffany Roberts. Like many fans, she went from being a fan to writing alien and monster romances. There’s nothing wrong with that. Many readers start out as fans and then start writing similar stories.
However, some fans are pointing out that covers for a series by Melissa Blincoe might be too similar to the Tiffany Robert The Spider’s Mate books. Others also say that the books are too similar.
Is this plagiarism? Probably not. A single author can’t claim ownership of an idea or a concept. Anyone can write spicy fantasy romances and faerie romances without being Sarah J. Maas. Anyone can write about muscle-bound fantasy heroes without being Robert E. Howard.
But…
When the books look very much the same, readers’ “spider senses” might start tingling.
What’s in a Cover?
As with any type of story, cover art has a huge part in marketing monster romances to the reader. The authors want to draw in readers who like monster romances. They do not want to fool readers who hate monster romances into picking up their books.
The cover art of the Tiffany Roberts books makes it very clear that this is something different. The hero is an arachnid. There is even a web in the background.
What if other books start showing up in the store with similar covers?
Via Twitter, a blogger did a comparison of the cover art of the Tiffany Roberts books and the newer Melissa Blincoe books. And this comparison shows that the Melissa Blincoe books do look similar to the Tiffany Roberts books. The lengthy thread compared image after image.
If it was just the covers, I’d say “It’s shitty, but it happens.” A lot of writers make their books look similar to a popular series. It sucks, and it can be confusing to readers.
But when I read more about this specific case, it revealed a more tangled … web.
Beyond the Covers
Beyond the covers, some readers are saying that Melissa Blincoe is bashing Tiffany Roberts on social media. And wrongly accusing Tiffany Roberts fans of harassment.
For some time, Tiffany Roberts remained silent about the controversy. They did not want to name the other author. They wanted to simply block and move on. (Melissa Blincoe said that Tiffany Roberts blocked her “for no reason.” I’ll let the reader be the judge of that.)
Finally, last week, they posted a statement on their official Facebook page. They also posted a TikTok video asking fans to refer to their Facebook page.
On the Other Appendage…
In a pinned PSA on her TikTok page, Melissa Blincoe is telling people that if only they knew her side, they would understand. She defends the cover art on her books. She did feel forced to remove her Dimension Jumpers series from Amazon. But the Zxalian Mate series is still available.
It is sad when an author feels forced to take down books because of a controversy like this. If authors of faerie romances pulled their books when they were accused of copying Sarah J. Maas, there would be a lot of empty shelves out there. Again, no one author owns a concept or an idea.
Yet I cringe when authors say they took an action like this because they were being “harassed” by readers. It’s not harassment if fans take the trouble to compare series — or series cover art, as in this case. That Twitter thread clearly took a lot of work, and the blogger posted it because she was concerned.
In a more recent video, Melissa Blincoe again refers to harassment from readers. But she also asks her fans to avoid confronting her accusers.
In videos going back months, Melissa Blincoe defends herself against accusations of plagiarism. And told fans she might give up on writing because of some of the responses. She claims she started writing her first arachnid romance before reading the Tiffany Roberts books.
She might be right. There’s no way for a reader to prove or disprove that. But this ignores all the other issues.
“Anyone Can Write a Spider Hero.”
In their Facebook post, Tiffany Roberts said, “Anyone can write a spider hero. The more the merrier!” They point out that they weren’t the first. Monster romance authors CM Nascosta, Octavia Kore, and Bebe Harper also wrote arachnid heroes.
They do not believe that their books were plagiarized.
Yet as they point out, this goes beyond that. When cover art is similar, readers get confused. Fans might buy a book from the wrong author by mistake.
And finally, when the other author continued to go on the attack, Tiffany Roberts stepped forward and spoke.
Even more importantly, Tiffany Roberts asked fans to be civil. They beg fans to avoid harassing Melissa Blincoe.
Postscript
If you want a cool video about the Tiffany Roberts books that has nothing to do with this controversy, try this.
“Not spider. Not man. Vrix.”
Maybe I’ll be reading about an arachnid hero tonight.
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