We love it when things turn out like this!  But before we tell you, we want to say we’re sorry to all those who’ve requested posts from us recently.  We’ve gotten behind schedule due activities in our private lives keeping us away from STGRB work.  That being said, A LOT has happened in the last few days, not the least of which a successful peacemaking effort between Kriss Morton and Bobby Adair to end the enormous flame war that erupted from the original attack.  Before we had even gotten word of what happened on Kriss’s Facebook page, the conflict between the two sides had been going for five days prior to our post.  Shortly after our post, Bobby Adair contacted Athena and asked if he could submit a report that he had written, telling his side of the story.  She accepted.

After we reviewed Bobby’s report and his evidence and also knowing Kriss’s side of the story, we realized the situation had escalated into all out war, with attacks happening on both sides.  At that point, we learned that over 10 blogs had already posted about the attack on Kriss before we’d even heard of it.  We won’t go into the details because there’s just too much, but we will sum up what happened.

It all started with Bobby’s editor, Kat, when she started approaching reviewers about their reviews on Bobby’s book, something that an author or an author’s colleague should NEVER do, unless it’s to say thank you or to offer the reviewer a refund or a gift card if they didn’t like the book (we’ve seen .  It’s very professional).

But that’s not what Kat did.  With one comment, she questioned a three-star review and then later contacted Kriss about her two-star review.  Kriss’s Facebook followers saw Kat’s comments and decided to start upvoting Kriss’s review.  Kat saw this as an attack and then sent Kriss the Facebook message in the screenshot that we published on our post.  Kriss told Kat that she was not doing Bobby any favors with her behavior but Kriss was still prepared to just ignore it all and let it go… until she saw Bobby’s troll post on Facebook.  In the post, Bobby wasn’t calling Kriss a troll.  He was talking about whoever was causing the deliberate upvoting of Kriss’s review.  It was after Bobby’s post that everything blew sky-high, straight up into the stratosphere.

People that both Kriss and Bobby didn’t know jumped on the war bandwagon.  Some were Bobby’s fans (over which he had no control) and some were… cough, cough, other people (we all know who, the ones who jump in and attack just for fun and/or just because they can).  Bobby was accused of horrific things he never did.  Kriss was accused of horrific things she never did.  Both suffered a great deal and both thought the other was the ringleader.

After Athena read Bobby’s report, she contacted Kriss and Bobby and asked if she could put them in touch with each other.  They gave it some thought and agreed.  Being a good person and a professional, Bobby said he wanted to give Kriss an apology.  Kriss said she was willing to accept it.  You see, Kriss is a good person.  She is not like Wendy Darling.  If you apologize to her, she will forgive.  That’s the kind of cool person she is.

In the end, they wrote long letters to each other, telling their side of the story and what they experienced from their own point of view.  Each apologized for any wrongdoing on their part and any injury caused to the other party.  And thankfully, peace was made between them.

Although the conflict was initially started by Kat (and subsequently Bobby’s Facebook post), Kriss and Bobby learned (as did we) that what really caused it to get out of control was the misperception and misinterpretation on both sides.  Each thought the other was encouraging the attacks, when in reality it was people jumping on the bandwagon, something over which they both had no control.

Athena wanted me to tell everyone how impressed she is with the professional way in which Bobby and Kriss handled the situation after having endured so much over the past week.  These are the kinds of happy endings we hope to see in future.

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