Shame on you — Nora Roberts responds to Tomi Adeyemi’s plagiarism accusation

Nora Roberts has penned a lengthy, strongly-worded piece in the wake of title plagiarism allegations made by Nigerian author Tomi Adeyemi on social media.

Adeyemi had, in a tweet on Wednesday, accused the American writer of replicating the title of her book, Of Blood and Bone.

it would be nice if an artist could create something special without another artist trying to shamelessly profit off it pic.twitter.com/GDCcYS2TGa

— Tomi Adeyemi (@tomi_adeyemi) November 27, 2018

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The ‘Children of Blood and Bone’ author later said the titles were created in isolation adding that she had apologized to Nora Roberts.

“Nora was kind enough to reach out & explain that today was the first she’d heard of my book. After talking to her, I believe our titles were created in isolation. I’m grateful she explained & I’ve apologized, but I wanted to address it here as I know others were upset too,” she wrote.

In a response to the accusations, Nora Roberts wrote: “I don’t believe, and have never believed–will never believe–in a writer attacking another writing on a public forum. It’s unprofessional, it’s tacky and the results are, always, just always, ugly.

“Recently another writer used her social media forums to baselessly, recklessly accuse me of stealing the title of her book–which is bullshit right off–to attempt to profit from this theft. She had no facts, just her emotions, and threw this out there for her followers.

“I titled this particular book, wrote this book, turned this book into my publisher nearly a year before her book–a first novel–was published. So unless I conquered the time/space continuum, my book was actually titled before hers. Regardless, you can’t copyright a title.

“I have been accused of theft, of trying to use this first time writer–whose book has been well received–for my own profit. To ride her coattails as I have no originality. This after more than thirty years in the business, more than two hundred books.

“I don’t know this woman; she doesn’t know me. She lit the match, foolishly. I’m disgusted that people who don’t know me would feel free to say vicious things about me. I know very well the anonymity of the internet can foster such nastiness, but it still disgusts me.”