She only had to say the word, and I would. I told her I’d be happy to re-write anything she found too similar. I asked if she would mind reading my first draft to see if she was comfortable with what I’d written. Julie very graciously, very generously, agreed. To which Julie replied, with a lot more sense and less panic than me. My first contact with Julie, where I explained what had had happened was more a panic-stricken rant that went like “OMG I’ve just written a book and I think I copied you but I can’t have because I have never read your book but I’m just diving into it now, and I would DIE if anyone thought I’d plagiarised you.

The third thing I did was put a call out for prereaders, who had also read Julie’s book. The second thing I did was contact Julie Bozza. The first thing I did was bought a copy of The Butterfly Hunter. A search for a butterfly that supposedly doesn’t exist. Or, rather, Imago sounded like The Butterfly Hunter.Īn Australian Lepidopterist. And yes, I agreed wholeheartedly that it sounded like Imago. She gave me a strange, slightly horrified look and said, “that sounds familiar.” We were discussing our WIP’s and I gave her a very brief plot rundown of my first draft of Imago. An Australian Lepidopterist. I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago that I would explain the story of Imago and how I found out about The Butterfly Hunter, and how I almost died thinking I’d possibly (unknowingly) copied the story line.Ī few weeks back when I was in Sydney, I met up with another author friend for coffee.

Butterfly hunter by julie bozza