Mistaken Identity
“One, a steak. Rare, not because I like it that way, but because I’m ravenous.” Sweat drips from Hartley’s red roots into
her eyes. “Two, a glass—no, a bottle of Pinot, because...” She twirls her hand above her head. “And three, a heavy-duty
garbage bag for all these fucking tree nuts.”
“Okay,” I say, my heart thumping. “But what—”
The phone shifts, and her face is replaced by Cooper-Brad’s. “Sofie, Hartley’s agreed to talk with you. And I’m agreeing to
stay with her.”
If she’s agreed to talk, that means Cooper-Brad convinced her to.
He goes on, “But neither of our offers will last for long. So get down here and bring back her goddamned laptop.”
The screen goes dark. Huh, that does have a nefarious vibe.
I immediately start texting Blaire about the steak but stop just short of hitting Send. It’s not right to involve her. And
if I wind up in jail, she’s the one I’d call.
I duck inside the ballroom to nab a server, place the order for the steak (nut-free) and the wine, and pass her a hundred bucks from Hartley’s wallet (and, yes, I’ve got a mental tab going). As I do, Hartley’s license falls to the floor. Except it’s not a license like I’d thought. It’s a membership ID for a New England romance writers’ association. I hold it up to the light and squint at the small type underneath her photo. Redheaded Hartley is not a Hartley at all. She’s a Genevieve. Genevieve Lily.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Genevieve Lily.
Author of the glassblower-and-dreamy-sand-guy story.
Of course, she is.
So much for being a master plotter, Sofie.
“Uh, ma’am?” The server is still standing before me. “Is it the cost? Because I’m sure the conference would comp—”
“It’s fine,” I say, the shock still reverberating in my chest. I ask the young woman to deliver the meal to me in one of the
small conference rooms at the end of the hall.
There, I prop my foot up on a chair, nostalgic for a younger body able to bounce back from stubbing a toe, and pull Hartley’s
laptop from my tote.
Except it’s not Hartley’s laptop, it’s Genevieve’s.
She may be a liar, but perhaps she’s not also a thief.
Though the room is empty, I still check to make sure I’m alone. Goose bumps light up my skin as I open Hartley-Genevieve’s
computer, ready to find anything and everything I can to hold over her.
I start with her browser, googling Genevieve Lily , who has more than a dozen self-published books including the one Anika told me about: Transparent . Only the bio of the first book lists her age, but the releases date back to when she would have been in her early twenties. She’s younger than me by twelve years. Her hormones have yet to betray her. No perimenopausal mood swings and sheets drenched in sweat. Her joints are still kind. Her skin still elastic. Her metabolism not yet a traitor. She dyed her hair white and donned those drapey clothes to appear older, to appeal to a more mature readership, like mine.
Because not all of her self-published books do, I realize, as I scan the titles and premises. At random, I click on one, and
the sample chapter fills my screen. A quick skim shows the writing is decent, like Anika said. Maybe even good. The concept
may lack that extra hook that’s needed to more easily grab an agent or editor, but the foundation appears solid. I click on
another, and then two more, coming to the same conclusion. There’s skill here. And yet, all of these “Genevieve Lily” books
were written before the ushering in of AI. Love and Lawlessness is the only book released after AI hit the public domain.
Maybe she has a connection. Maybe she’s in tech and had access before the rest of us. I hesitate, then fully invade her privacy
by moving from browser to desktop. I scan her folders, open the one labeled “writing,” and sweep my eyes over the interior
folder and file names.
“Story ideas”
“Pitches for current books”
“Pitches for future books”
“2010 Query letters”
“2013 Query letters”
“2020 Query letters”
“Decoding self-publishing”
“Keys to Amazon ranking”
“How to craft meaningful character arcs”
“Story beats from Save the Cat”
“Story beats from Story Genius”
“Notes from Grub Street class”
“Romance tropes and how to use them”
On and on and on. The mark of a writer stamped on every folder and file name. The craft and marketing articles we read and download, forever looking for the secret to success. Which Hartley found by using AI. And me.
Her “finished projects” folder includes subfolders for each of the titles I’ve just seen online and more. In them are character
profiles and outlines and tracked-changes drafts and files labeled “final” and then “final final” and “final, use this one.”
None of what I’m seeing matches her recounting of writing Love and Lawlessness . All of it is true to the messy behind-the-scenes of a working writer.
I search the internet, but no other titles pop up under “Hartley West.” I do see her name attached to that pilgrim-themed
craft fair where she met Cooper-Brad. It lists her as selling just Love and Lawlessness , not a single one of her Genevieve Lily books. Backlist is where the money is, especially in self-publishing. Readers are
ravenous and loyal. If they like you, they’ll tear through everything you’ve ever written down to your grocery list. Especially
romance readers.
Hartley has enough novels published to understand this. Changing her name for Love and Lawlessness does a disservice to the others—considerably, now that the book is doing well. Authors most often use a pen name to differentiate
between categories (say, middle grade and adult) or when works will appeal to wildly varied audiences (sweet romance versus
erotica). Genevieve Lily’s books don’t seem very S&M at first blush.
Authors also use pen names to distance themselves from the abysmal sales figures of previous books. A new name wipes the slate
clean and tricks the big chain stores into thinking you’re a debut. No sales history is better than a crappy one. One bomb
of a book can tank an entire career. A pen name is like a reboot.
Is Love and Lawlessness that much better that she didn’t want to be associated with her previous work? Or the opposite? That much worse? If she always intended for the truth of AI to come out, perhaps she was safeguarding herself against the backlash that could have come. She’d still have her “career” (such as it was) as Genevieve Lily. She was hedging her bets.
The publisher had strongly encouraged the same for me when they acquired the first two Jocelyn books. Blaire went to bat for
me. She convinced them to let me use my own name. Something I’d forgotten until now.
I return to the folder of completed manuscripts on Hartley’s computer and choose two of the titles whose first chapters I’ve
already skimmed. Online samples are always the first chapter, which we authors revise ad nauseam, knowing that’s what agents
and editors and readers will use to decide if they want to see more. Flatware in Buckingham Palace shines less than an author’s
opening chapter. Here, I push past and skim chapters from the middle.
The writing in these pages holds up. It’s reminiscent of what I’ve seen in Love and Lawlessness . Perhaps a little less stylistic. A little less “me.”
Which makes sense, considering she used my writing as the prompt to create Love and Lawlessness . Except she claimed she was using AI not only to be able to sound like me but to be able to write, period. That she had no
training, no skill. That she only understood what made a good story, not how to craft the prose to express it.
None of that describes Genevieve Lily.
Yet, Genevieve Lily became Hartley West and used AI to write a bestselling novel. AI that I have never used.
Like voluntarily swimming into the mouth of a crocodile, I sign up for an AI account. As I wait for Hartley’s steak, I type
Genevieve Lily, author in as a prompt, not sure if it will be able to identify her. But it can. It describes her as a lesser-known author of romance novels, often with a paranormal or period element, like Heartbeat, Heartbreak , The Moons of Caramoor , and Magic in the Mist . I then ask it to write a short story in the style of Genevieve Lily.
It seems to be thinking, the wait time longer than before. Still, within seconds, it spits out a response apologizing for
not having enough specific information about this author and the author’s work to complete the request.
My fingertips hover over the keyboard. But then I do it. I open the files and copy the opening chapters of The Moons of Caramoor and Magic in the Mist and paste them into the AI. I then ask it to write a short story in this same style. It draws on Genevieve’s material in
less time than it takes me to blink. It’s disturbing and terrifying. It feels reckless.
Dumbfounded, I watch as paragraphs and paragraphs appear before me. I read with terror in my gut. Terror that this is truly
the end, like Rosie fears. And yet, the more I read and the more I compare to Genevieve’s actual work, the more I realize
this isn’t very good. At all. Similar themes appear to be expressed—lost love, grief, a quest to find one’s true self. Some
of the details are the same or reminiscent—a “charmer” in Magic in the Mist is an “enchantress” in this short story. But the cadence and tone, even the word choice reflect little of Genevieve’s style.
It’s like an actor adopting the affected JFK accent, thinking that’s actually how people from Boston speak. It’s not real.
And the story itself is simplistic and derivative. Maybe that’s accurate for Genevieve’s work. I haven’t read enough to assess.
There’s only one author I know well enough to be able to judge that.
The smell of char and meat wafts in. Before I can second-guess, I ask the AI to write a story set in the Wild West in the
style of Sofie Wilde. Exactly what Hartley said she did.
A deluge of words fills the screen. I don’t have to describe who I am or put in any source material. It channels me, trawling through years of my work, of my life, in a blip.
What if it’s good? What if it’s great? What if the abundance of my writing means it could actually mimic me well enough that
I could use it to write like me? I could put out an entire new series in a month, a year, space them out like serials, and
Blaire and I would simply sit back and watch the zeros in our bank accounts proliferate.
I read with a mix of hope and fear. This story’s prose reads marginally better than the first. The tone a stronger match for
me. But it’s the same playacting. Too many flowery adjectives and metaphors tossed in a blender, nonsensically combined, like
a campy version of literary fiction the writer didn’t intend to be campy.
“Your steak, Ms. Wilde?” says a nervous young woman with doe eyes and a T-shirt that reads I Write Your Wrongs.
I thank her as she leaves it on a chair by the door. I root around in my tote for my copy of Love and Lawlessness . I flip pages. The prose flows seamlessly, the dialogue crisp and true to life, the character descriptions a tad overdone
but not enough to pull you out of the story. The writing is strong, nearly as strong as mine.
I close the book and trace the outline of the chocolate-colored horse on the front. Hartley using AI to write Love and Lawlessness would take longer than just writing it from scratch.
She’s an even better liar than me.