Employee Says Authors Took Liberties

TULSA (CN) - Young-adult book authors P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast defamed their former personal assistant as a "traitorous, skanky ho" in their "House of Night" teen vampire book series, the assistant claims in court.

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Erin Bates, 25, sued the mother-and-daughter authors and St. Martin's Press in Tulsa County Count.

Bates says she met P.C. Cast when she was a student and Cast a teacher at South Intermediate High School in Broken Arrow, Okla. They kept up the friendship and Cast eventually hired her, Bates says.

During her tenure, Bates says, the Casts wrote ten novels for the series that features Zoey Redbird, 16, who gets "marked" by a vampire tracker and begins to undergo the "change" into an actual vampire.

Set in Tulsa, the books include Bates as a character.

The most recent book in the series, "Hidden," released in October, depicts Bates as "shallow, materialistic, promiscuous and heartless," Bates says in the complaint.

She says Bates is described as a "traitorous, skanky ho" who is "easily manipulated," "easily annoyed," is "cool because she excluded others to make herself seem better than everyone else," smells of "something rotten" when you get close to her, and that under the surface she is "dirty" and "polluted."

"All of the above statements are false and unfairly portray plaintiff Erin Bates," the 8-page complaint states.

"In November 2011, defendant P.C. Cast made a public announcement during promotion of the House of Night series that Erin Bates is a real person who lives in Tulsa."

Bates says the defendants used her name in the series without permission and continue to use it in advertising, sales and promotions.

Bates seeks actual and punitive damages for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

She is represented by Daniel Smolen with Smolen & Smolen of Tulsa.

Follow @davejourno

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