Come on, Linda, you got four stars, what else do you want?

Our Lady of Fauxreview has reviewed Golden Vampire by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom, but, um, it seems there's a problem! Author does not recognise the book she wrote in this valuable Klausner review! Ouch. But then, Linda, please be reasonable: Harriet doesn't read no stinking books (and you knew that, 'cause everyone knows that, 'cause how can anyone read (and review) six books a day, every day for over a decade? Yet this is Harriet's average over the life of her account)! She only posts blurbs, without reading the books: how would she know which blurb goes where? And then, who cares what the text is if the rating is good, after all. It's a positive review, four stars (although, for Harriet, it's a rarity: usually it's five stars... maybe Harriet found the reviewing fee insufficient? We'll never know). Anyway, Dear Reader, check it out (while it lasts; I took a snapshot though, see below, click for normal size):

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Taken down?!?! How dare you. How dare you. Nothing gets taken down that Harriet graciously indited. Re-write your book to match the review! OK, so: here we have an author and/or her publisher hoisted on their own petard — I doubt Harriet bought this book: the author, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom (or her publisher) has probably requested a review and supplied a freebie for Harriet to "review" (and maybe a fee, who knows... it's hard to believe someone would throw up multiple reviews, no matter how bad, every day if it were not for a pay). Any takeaway lessons here? Yes: do not hire shills to puff your stuff.

PS. If the review does get blown away, remember that it will persist a long while in the reviews list sorted by most-recent comment. In addition to the snapshot above, I mean.

PPS. 1 a.m. next morning: Kluckusner blurb is gone. Damn! Not only gone, but in a speedily conducted (non-"Amazon-Verified") damage-control operation replaced by a fully five-starred piece of perky, smooth-flowing professional copy, quite Klausnerian in content, but impeccable grammatically and completely coherent. I say, Harriet is far more fun; bring back Harriet's blurb. 'course our Maîtresse will not disappoint and will (and already did!) post more of her delightfully discombobulatory burbling little affairs — but not for this book! And that is a loss.

Oh btw, the new reviewer, "J. M. Dickson" (real name), has only three reviews (including this one) in his record, all of them for books by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom. The other two reviews (dated 2010 and 2009) have been "Amazon-Verified" (there was probably no hurry then — although they're also distinctly less well-written: just a couple of lines, fairly vacuous, definitely not like this latest one).

Actually, a bit of digging uncovered the fact that J.M. Dickson also is a writer of similar kind of books, so this begins to look more and more like a professional favour by one writer to another (iow, essentially the same as a Klausner review would be: not an honest review by an unaffiliated reader, but something concocted by the industry in order to move the wares).

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Klausner blurb also survives (for now) as a google-cached page from her "go round" blog (snapshot below, for when the cache goes dead, which it will, with time; the post itself has been deleted).