#darkest corners

[muresetivoire]

Every sliver of heartache I offer to you

[bluraaven]

Commission piece. The art is by the amazingly talented @omaano!

Thank you so much, I absolute adore it!

Scene from my fanfic, Wherefore, Heroism?

When he wakes up in a clean bed in what he later will learn is a sanatorium, he finds a pair of flintlocks and a rose quartz rosary lying on the night stand next to him, meaning they're probably his. Not that he has the slightest idea where he is, or how he got here in first place. As he tries to gather himself, a group of people wearing unfamiliar faces enters the room. They crowd around his bed and ask questions, but when he has no answers it is them who tell him that he was lost to them for nigh half a year, dead and buried, mourned, and now brought back to life by a miracle of the Light. They tell him this place is called the Hamlet, and that his own name is Dismas.

[fishbloc]

I was honestly anxious to send an inbox, but I got your artbook and keychain in my mail today and felt that I really just HAD to tell you just how exciting it was to finally hold these in my hands. I was shaking so much that I was honestly hesitating on opening it at all because I didn't want to ruin anything of it. But!! I'm glad I was able to get over that short crisis because as soon as I opened the book, I was immediately BLOWN AWAY at how gorgeous it is up close, paired with the little bits of dialogues that didn't fail to absolutely make me smile and cry (in a positive way). I was so emotional over finally getting to read it all that I honestly did just have one moment of silence where I wondered if it was normal for me to be this attached?? I thought I was being a little dramatic. But then I thought that; if I'm smiling this much and I've shed this much tears, then the book is just that beautiful, and I'm not one to reprieve myself of such gorgeousness, right? Especially when it's made with so much love for a friend. Overreaction or not, sorry about the long sappy paragraphs- I'm happy to have been able to buy your artbook and keychain :D It was well worth the wait!

this actually got me into tears oh my god 😭 im this close to plastering your message onto my journal or something

i'm actually pleasantly surprised you got attached to the story. maybe it was the art, or the expressions, or the colours, or even the dialogue that were sometimes too nuanced. whichever it was, i'm really glad you felt that way, because that was what it felt like to have known my friend

we didn't knew each other that long, and some might even consider 1+ years was nothing compared to the other people i know. but that amount of time never once subdued the fact we were close and we understood each other in a way no one else ever would.

in the same way what i believe grian and scar would in a death match.

of the fondness at the start, and the abruptness at the end.

so no, i wouldn't say you are overreacting or being dramatic, and i'm really happy my book made you feel the way i really hoped it would. :')

thank you, truly, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart.

[folatefangirl]

On The Darkest Corner of the Heart

A comment on how Booktwt, Booklr, and Booktok media reactivity has lost the plot

Or, I think y'all need to log off and touch some grass and think about your actions for a hot minute. Note: This rant is a tad long, because I'm fucking pissed.

Disclaimer 1: I don't personally know the author of this book or anyone screenshotted in the drama. We aren't friends. I have no reason to either defend nor criticize these people, except for the fact that I've been a primary reader of self-pub and indie books for almost a decade now, and yes, including romances that some people don't consider worthy of civility. I'm also a queer healthcare worker.

Disclaimer 2: I don't want anyone mentioned/screenshotted here to be spammed with hate. Please do NOT contact them, including any authors mentioned. I included the primary actors for the current drama primarily so people don't claim I'm talking out of my ass.

Book blurb:

Forbidden. That's what they are to each other. Maddie Stevens has never felt good enough. Not good enough to keep her parents’ love. Not good enough to be independent and stop being her brother’s problem. Not good enough to build the future she wants. When she injures her ankle before a ballet audition that could change her career forever, she’s convinced her life is over at twenty-one. What’s the point of having dreams when they can go down the drain at any moment? And because the universe has a cruel sense of humor, her physical therapist turns out to be a tank-shaped grouch who doesn’t even seem to like her that much. It’s totally unfair that, for six weeks, she’s forced to look at that handsome beard and listen to that deep voice that makes her head all dizzy. Top that with the fact that he’s ten years her senior, and falling for James Simmons is a recipe for disaster. But when their forced proximity makes the lines start blurring, the forbidden temptation becomes impossible to resist.

The Timeline:

Events preceding 2023: Lisina Coney, author of The Darkest Corner of the Heart, was born in 1999 in northern Spain. She worked as a translator prior to publishing books.

Initially I thought these books were only self-published, but in fact are published under the formerly indie publisher Page & Vine, founded by romance novelist Meredith Wild.

January 27th, 2023: The Brightest Light of Sunshine is published by nearly 24-year-old Lisina Coney. On Goodreads, it currently sits at 3.87 stars as of today, February 10th, 2024, with 27,727 ratings and 3,592 reviews. Note: For a small-time author, especially for a debut novel, these numbers are huge.

May 2023, Page & Vine announced that Big 5 publisher Simon & Schuster would distribute their books as an imprint beginning in summer 2023.

In mid-to-late 2023, Lisina's website and socials announced The Darkest Corner of the Heart, her second novel to be published with Page & Vine on February 20th, 2024. Note: This means the events below occurred BEFORE the book's publication.

February 5th, 2024: anaborbareads on Twitter/X posts the cover and other art of Darkest Corner with the text, "a forbidden romance between ballerina and physical therapist???? pls i need this book now 🥺✨💗🫶🏻"

February 6th, 2024: h0mmelette on Twitter/X responds to anaborareads with "the booktok genre of forbidden romance is hilarious. theyre straight… whats forbidden"

February 6th, 2024: a tumblr user reposts the twitter thread from above to tumblr. Other tumblr users reblog and add on, and it quickly goes viral.

February 7th, 2024: From what I can tell via reverse image searching, the first iteration of the fake ARC page that's going around appears to be from Twitter/X user queef1ng. About 4 hours later, the same fake ARC page was reposted on the tumblr post mentioned above. And from here, this story takes a turn from people wanting to feel like they're above a romance novel writer to potential legal territory.

Of the 122 ratings on Goodreads for Darkest Corner to date, 9 appear to be 1-star reviews and from what I can tell, most/all of them were only published since the events began on 06Feb2024. 71 are 5-stars and while some of those are ARC readers, many newer ones appear to be trying to counteract the review bombing from the fake ARC page.

As of today, February 10th, 2024, it looks like the book will still be published on February 20th as planned, but we'll see.

Wait, so how do you know the page is fake?

I can't believe people have been so gullible but fine, here's my analysis:

Lisina's real ARC readers have stated that it isn't from the book (not gonna document all of them in the screenshots but you can easily go to the book's GR page and see the ARC reviews there).

As other folks pointed out on the tumblr repost, no real ARC page does a weird review watermark like that. Speaking from my own experience in reviewing ARCs or beta-reading, I agree.

The font tipped me off because it looked like it had literally been written on a Fanfiction.Net page. Not that Verdana, font size 10, is unique to FFN, but it looks like fanfiction typed font. Which brings me to:

Literally how could you believe this author writes like this? You can read her website or preview her first book or just have the bare minimum common sense to understand what satire looks like. If you don't believe me (because I know framing a post like this will put a lot of people on the defensive), I've also included screenshots below. The prose and dialogue are COMPLETELY different from the alleged screenshot. The only thing that is similar is that both characters are ballerinas.

But wait, all of this doesn't explain why YOU, Cinnia, are so pissed about this?

You're completely right! It really doesn't. All of the above is mostly documentation so the naysayers can't say I'm just some silly fangirl of the author.

The initial premise of the drama is that you can't have "forbidden love" in an m/f relationship. First of all, William Shakespeare would like to have a word with you regarding Romeo and Juliet. Second of all, yes you fucking can. See also: Religious and cultural differences and human history for a starting point. I know it may be hard to touch grass and look at media that is not tumblr queer media-centric and understand that people who are NOT you might enjoy it very much. Note that I'm a queer person saying this and I do read or watch m/f media at times because I don't like limiting myself. Go watch Bajirao Mastani and enjoy one of the most beautiful movies about forbidden love ever produced.

The book itself falls into the medical romance subgenre. For those not familiar, these are romances (usually m/f) that often involve a healthcare worker and their patient. In the real world, where people touch grass, a healthcare worker like me having a relationship with their patient is such a huge ethical violation that it will get you fired. In Darkest Corner, James is Maddie's physical therapist because she's a ballerina with a sports injury and he is treating her. Ergo, it is forbidden for them to get together and the initial premise for mocking this book is on very shaky ground.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the folks mocking it seem to very likely not be familiar with romance novels and their subgenres at all, or else they'd be well aware of the concept of straight romances marketed as a "forbidden romance" because they're fucking everywhere on any place that sells romance books. I have a personal collection of over 14,500 kindle ebooks. While not all of those are romances, a good chunk of them are, so I think I can count myself as a bit of a source here, you know?

The fake screenshot and social media drama has spread to at least Twitter, Tumblr, and BookTok, which all have huge reader hobbyists. For a small-time author barely past her debut novel's publication, allegations of this sort tied to your author name and book titles can last on the internet and in web searches for a long, long time, hurting an author's career. Maybe you're like "boohoo, who cares about their careers, I pirate all my fiction books anyway" and well, a post like this was probably never going to convince you of anything. I'm talking to the folks who might still have a sense of shame and self-reflection. Authors, even authors tied to a Big 5's imprint, earn peanuts. This sort of manufactured "scandal" is not ideal when the book is weeks away from being published. In fact, if the book has fewer sales than the first book in the series, Simon & Schuster may have legal grounds to go after the person who made the fake screenshot. A smarter person would have kept that to the groupchat or posted it as a clearly marked fanfic on AO3.

As a reader, this also sucks because when shit like this happens, the reviews of a book are permanently biased by both the bombers and the fans of the author, no matter how good or bad the book ends up being. Do I know if this book will be a 1-star or 5-star now, based on the reviews? Nope. Will I read it? No, because I don't read medical romances as it's a squick for me. But I may read her first book, which has mercifully escaped most of the social media nonsense.

This isn't the first time booktwt/booktok/booklr has engaged in a similar mob mentality towards books they don't like and I doubt it'll be the last. See Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao and the allegations that turned out to be false then, too. However, I would like to ask y'all to please check your sources and not blindly accept what someone says on social media as truth. Get used to doing the research because manufactured misinformation is everywhere, and it's not gonna get better. (And for fuck's sake, not everyone is gonna like the same books and fandoms you like! It's not illegal to enjoy reading different things!)

Screenshots/Evidence (click for better resolution):

[introspectivememories]

[canid-daze]

Some parrys and a tiny abomination before I go to work (I’m too stupid to pronounce her name so she gets a nickname✨)

[semisolidmind]

Don't know if you're in the head space for a new eldritch abomination, but are you familiar with Wiggly (Starkids antagonist)? He's a king in the space between reality and is huge and scary and simultaneously looks like this

Kind of just curious if you've heard of him (or any of the Lords in Black)

Anyway, platonically love you! Hope you're doing well!

who.....who is this reject muppet....

i have never seen or heard of this in my entire life, and he looks as though he is aware of something i never will be

[acebender]

[inkedswordd]

I try and wash my hands obsessively but the blood doesn't come off. I am made for sin, I will never be pure again. My hands will forever stain any surface they touch with hideously beautiful crimson blood.

-inkedSword

[lmk-vibes]

Me try to find where to watch lmk

[aromantic-diaries]

Worry not guys I have not forgotten about this blog it is on my mind 24/7 but lately I have been more thoughts going into my actual diary by the way I think my real life diary is pretty funny look at this thing. I got it cause i found it funny

It's where I write about everything I don't talk about like things that'd get me a concerned look or my opinions on which of my sweaters go well with my two favorite pairs of socks

[matchamilkislover]

Masterlist.

asks/requests are always open!

⊹ ⋆｡˚ ————————— 𓆩♡𓆪 —————————⊹ ⋆｡˚

ABBY ANDERSON.

White Horse, knight!abby x princess!reader. incomplete.

teaser.

part 1.

part 2…

VI.

In The Darkest Corners, vi x oc/reader. incomplete.

preface.

part 1.

part 2.

part 3.

part 4.

part 5.

part 6.

part 7.

part 8.

part 9.

part 10.

part 11.

part 12.

part 13.

part 14…

[2dieavirgin]

I do think Chase and House fucked

[doriantomybasil]

oh yeah i’m doing great i just bought this new pair of shoes, uni is great, i love my classes, it’s snowing outside, i just finished doing a load of laundry, i feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with me and i’m inherently unlovable, and they had my favourite brand of yoghurt at the grocery store

[poetryandpickles]

Birthright

I was born with

Fangs and claws

Blood and rage

And a crown on my head. I fought

because

they told me I needed to

how else would I survive?

And the world was cruel, so

I fought,

tore,

slaughtered

paved the path to my throne in blood

And so they drop, one after the other

To their knees before me; call me queen, call me blessed, call me beautiful

...but all I wanted was

Simple land

Simple hands

Small feet running through the halls

And one to call me darling

[inkedswordd]

Thinking about the time I was on my way home and I met this homeless man on the pedestrian bridge I cross every night. I saw him praying so passionately, with his hands up, eyes closed, rocking back and forth immersed in his prayer. I couldn't help but ask him about what he was praying for. His response was,

"I'm praying for the people who are crossing this bridge, that they get home safely."

And I- I was speechless. This man was homeless, his situation itself was worrisome but here he was, still devoted to God, still praying for complete strangers. I just wanted everyone to know about him :)

-inkedSword