Authors are reportedly being hit by negative reviews on the book review site Goodreads before proof copies are even circulated, with the review site allegedly failing to remove reviews.

Crime writer Jo Furniss was one of several authors to share her recent experience of the Amazon-owned review site with The Bookseller: “A lot of authors share the soul-destroying experience of seeing their books trashed before they are even available to genuine readers," she said. "Worse, like me, they feel they are given no protection by one of the biggest platforms in the industry. What is Goodreads doing to protect authors from online abuse?”

In her comment piece for The Bookseller, Furniss wrote: “It is months until the publication of my next thriller, Guilt Trip (Bonnier Zaffre). The novel is not available anywhere yet. Not even advance review copies. So why does Guilt Trip already have a single two-star rating on Goodreads?

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Long-time romance author Milly Johnson said: “I had a one-star rating for a book that hadn’t even been seen by my copy editor. When I raised it with Goodreads they wouldn’t interfere as they said the reviewer had a perfect right to predict if they’d enjoy it or not.