The Naughty School Teacher: Plagiarism Can Get Steamy

By Ashley Shaw | September 18, 2014

Rachel Ann Nunes may not have made it to your personal library (or maybe she did — I don’t know what you read), but she apparently made it to Tiffani Rushton’s. Nunes is the author of, among other books, a Christian novel entitled A Bid for Love. Third grade teacher (that is pretty irrelevant to the story, but somehow makes what I am about to say that much worse) Rushton read the book and had a thought.

“What,” I assume she asked herself, “could make this Christian novel even better?” And then, light bulb! She knew the answer!

Graphic sex scenes!

Because, of course, every book is made better with graphic sex scenes.

Now that she had her million dollar idea, she just ran with it. She wrote The Auction Deal – an e-book that, from what I gather, is basically just A Bid for Love with the aforementioned sex. Unfortunately for her, Nunes somehow got a hold of the novel and was not left as satisfied as all that sex was supposed to make her.

So, she sued Rushton claiming plagiarism.

Perhaps Rushton had an agenda here. She is, after all, a third grade teacher. And the best way to remember things is if you have a real world example, right? So, maybe ‘plagiarize’ was going to make the weekly vocabulary list and Rushton had the perfect example sentence for her students…

“For word three: plagiarize. It means to act like somebody else’s ideas are your ideas. For example, when Ms. Rushton added detailed sex scenes to someone else’s story and then said she wrote the whole book, she plagiarized, which is why she probably will lose a whole lot of money in court.”

I bet a lot of students will get that one right come test day, so Ms. Rushton might just deserve teacher of the month.

Assuming education was not her main goal, though, did she really plagiarize? I wanted to see just exactly how closely these books were related. To that end, I went to my favorite store, Amazon, to look up the descriptions of these books. Here is what I found –

A Bid for Love:

Cassi is the head buyer for a prestigious art gallery in California. Jared is a buyer for an exclusive New York gallery. Sparks fly as the two come head to head in a bidding war for a hideous but very expensive Indian Buddha. Cassi and Jared are both determined to win the statue, but others also want the Buddha—at any cost. Thugs, art forgers, the FBI, or Jared’s beautiful and alluring boss . . . who will end up with the statue? During a string of hair-raising exploits, Cassi and Jared are forced to develop a tentative friendship that deepens into romance. Will they survive long enough to see it through? Best-selling author Rachel Ann Nunes has crafted a wonderfully intriguing and romantic drama in this fast-moving novel, bringing two idealistic people together from opposite edges of the continent and allowing them, in their own way, to find an unexpected connection to their Christian faith and each other. In the end, their very lives depend on the trust they’ve developed. If you love romance and excitement, you’ll be captivated by A Bid for Love.

The Auction Deal:

Huh. A search for this book (and Tiffani Rushton) just brings back results for A Bid for Love. Okay. So that doesn’t help. Because I have nothing to give you from Amazon, and I am much too lazy to see if other sources have a description, I am forced to write my own idea of what this book is about (completely out of my head and with no help from any other source):

Cassi Ella is the head buyer for a prestigious art gallery in California. Jared Lance is a buyer for an exclusive New York Chicago gallery. Sparks fly as the two come head to head in a bidding war for a hideous but very expensive Indian Buddha. Cassi and Jared Ella and Lance are both determined to win the statue, but others also want the Buddha—at any cost. Thugs, art forgers, the FBI, or JaredLance’s beautiful and alluring boss . . . who will end up with the statue? During a string of hair-raising exploits, Cassi and Jared Ella and Lance are forced to develop a tentative friendship that deepens into romance. Will they survive long enough to see it through? Best-selling author Rachel Ann Nunes Tiffani Rushton has crafted a wonderfully intriguing and romantic drama in this fast-moving novel, bringing two idealistic people together from opposite edges of the continent and allowing them, in their own way, to find an unexpected connection to their Christian faith and each other by having hot graphic sex. In the end, their very lives depend on the trust they’ve developed. If you love romance and excitement, you’ll be captivated by A Bid for Love The Auction Deal. 

Hmm. I don’t know if I am convinced these sound that much alike. I guess we will all have to wait with bated breath for the sinewy, devil-may-care judge to slowly but powerfully pound his long gavel…

…and give us his ruling.

(Here is a real summary of Rushton’s book from Goodreads. As you will note, the full title appears to be NOT A BOOK: The Auction Deal.)

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Ashley Shaw (@Smoldering_Ashes) is an Alabama native and current New Jersey resident. A graduate of both Kennesaw State University and Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, she spends her free time reading, writing, boxing, horseback riding, playing trivia, flying helicopters, playing sports, and a whole lot else. So maybe she has too much spare time.

Feature Image courtesy of [Stephen Coles via Flickr]