Kate Gosselin has never been famous for having the warmest personality, but as a new book alleges, the reality TV star may be far crueler to her eight children than anyone likely imagines. In "Kate Gosselin: How She Fooled the World" by Robert Hoffman, the author accuses the start of TLC's "Kate Plus 8" of a litany of crimes, but most notably, that she has beaten her children since they were toddlers.

Gosselin may have recently told Huffington Post Celebrity in an interview that she ignores her haters, but this time she took swift legal action. The e-book, written by Hoffman, a friend of Gosselin's estranged husband, Jon, was pulled from Amazon just two days after its release following charges that it had "inappropriately obtained confidential documents," according to Huffington Post.

"The book sounds like a whole lot of nothing blown up to look sensational," a friend of Kate's, who has not read the book, said to Huffington Post. "Sometimes it's best to ignore something, especially something self-published that hasn't attracted that much attention. If Kate fights back or makes a statement, it might make people more interested. She's checking on the best approach."

"Kate had her own lawyers deal with this," says a network insider. "TLC lawyers were involved as well, since there was some confidential documents in there."

The confidential information that troubled TLC was found in a series of private emails exchanged between Gosselin and the Discovery network. The emails were leaked via computer hard drives that Gosselin had put in the trash.

Author Hoffman claims he found secret journals that Kate used to write her books "Multiple Bles8ings" and "Eight Little Faces," according to Hollywood Life. In journals that Kate reportedly wrote "She was beating 2-year-old babies in diapers," Hoffman told Star magazine.

"I don't judge somebody for spanking, but what Kate wrote in her journal is just absolute violence," he told the magazine.

One instance in particular Hoffman found shocking: when the kids helped themselves to M&Ms without asking, Kate became consumed by anger. "I really, really lost it! I pulled Collin up by the hair, and I spanked them so hard!" she allegedly wrote.

Hoffman added that the journals detailed how she constantly used a wooden spoon to hit her children called "the spanker," and would even grab them by their hair.

See pics of Gosselin with "the spanker" here

After Colin threw a tantrum another time, Kate reportedly went on another rage. "I sent him to his crib and whipped him into it very hard...I never felt that I may really seriously injure a child, but today was that day."

"I personally contacted Child Protection Services twice when I found the journal," said Hoffman. " I sent them copies of what I had and they told me they would look into it and that's the last I heard. I've tried to talk to Kate several times, but she wouldn't acknowledge my existence," Hoffman said.

But just because the book is gone, doesn't diminish its impact or the future damage it could cause. Hoffman claims he still has plenty "more explosive" material just waiting in the wings, according to RadarOnline. He doesn't intend to publish it, but he still might go public with it if he feels pushed by Kate.

"The other 90 percent of the material that I possess will not be published, ever, but you can be sure that if I'm falsely accused of anything and drug [sic] into court, or called a liar by Kate Gosselin or her lawyers, this information will come out then, including photographs," Hoffman allegedly wrote to Radar.

"Several months ago I received a very threatening seven-page legal letter before the book was even published," Hoffman claimed in an email to Huffington Post. "I'm trying to regroup right now and certainly don't want to do anything illegal. I'm meeting with an attorney to discuss my options as far as making the book available in the future."

So, what do you think? Is there any credibility to any of this, or is Hoffman just trying to capitalize on Gosselin's reality popularity?