Book Cover of Grey – Photo: RA2 Studio

Sex sells? Well for the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise it certainly does! And she’s at it again- Kent alumnus and author E.L. James has brought out a fourth, spin-off novel entitled Grey to mark the birthday of the protagonist billionaire and bondage-loving Christian Grey (June 18^th). In just three days her latest kinky novel sold more than 647,000 copies breaking UK sales records, making it the fastest selling adult novel.

This story is said to follow a similar timeline to the first of the trilogy, Fifty Shades of Grey, but from Grey’s perspective, giving dedicated fifty fans a deeper insight into the damaged and sexy business man that is Christian Grey. James stated when she announced the book’s release date on Instagram: “Christian is a complex character and readers have always been fascinated by his desires and motivations.”

But even with the success of the new book, there has been a lot of hate and negativity surrounding its launch. In a recent Twitter Q&A, E.L. James got bombarded with people using the #AskELJames to criticise and make fun of her writing, aiming at her grammar, spelling and overall literary style. Comments included digs such as: “Do you get paid per adjective?” and “Did you ever consider using a thesaurus, or did that sound too much like hard work?” People then went on to mock the books similarities to the Twilight franchise as well as bringing up the topic of abuse, one commenter wrote: “Did you see the abusive relationship of Bella and Edward and think ‘hmm needs more abuse.”

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy was known for sparking controversial opinion and it seems the fourth addition has only added to the existing controversy. Whether people like E.L. James and her writing style or not, she has been successful in her writing and is reported to be worth a staggering £37 million.