During the few days the first edition of Affairs Valentino was on Amazon in the spring of 2011, some copies sold and I would eventually receive a few welcome and good reviews. I excerpted two of the more notable reviews on the back of Affairs Valentino - Special Edition.
Those who spent the entire year previous to my publishing the book for the first time attacking me in the worst possible way online, swarmed the book with disgusting reviews. This was all a continuation of their hellish posts hurled my way throughout 2010..and those reviews had no relevance to the book's content, i.e. claiming the book fell apart, that there was “homophobia dripping from every page”, that it was “trash fiction”. If it was not that specific slurry of insult driving any readers away, it was a scouring for typos and mocking of all missteps of which there were many at that point.
It was kind of like having a gang mob you and break your legs so badly you could not walk and then those same people mocked you for not being able to dance. I have written about that time and spoken about it; I hoped in publishing the book I would put the nightmare of their daily abuse behind me. I thought I would just put the book in print, sell a few copies and have the wicked filth they were posting online about me and mine every single day on many terrifying sites cease. How wrong I was.
With my reputation in tatters, shredded by Terhune and Bret... anyone Googling my name by the end of 2010 would find such lies as my having a long history of drug abuse, fake accounts how people from all corners of the world hated me, that I was a liar, a cheat and a fraud who was wanted by the law, etc. So when the book came out they continued with this bullying in attacking the book. They are still at it with Terhune continuing to pretend he runs a “literary critique” under my book's title when every single person in the world who knows about this story... realizes this was never and is not his intent there.
Those same people attacking me, mocked my citing the good reviews I received but those reviews were intelligent, thoughtful and I am proud of them and always will be. I recently found the review by Tony Bonn, the editor of The American Chronicle and excerpt his much longer review here. (see below)
