You do realize that if you are receiving flames on the review boards, you can report them to the mods here, and they'll check it out. And if they find it to be flaming, they will smack the person in question. I don't know if they do anything if you are getting flamed through other forms of communications, such as email, or IM, but it wouldn't hurt to let the mods know if someone's being less than polite.
But sorry that you've had this happen, and I wish you the best of luck with the novel, and everything else.