Testing #initialize of class Author
You could use the following solution unless it's important to call initialize in "create_author". 

# spec/helpers/create_author.rb
module CreateEntity
  def create_entity(klass, params = {}, defaults = {})
    opt = defaults.merge(params)

    entity = klass.allocate
    opt.each do |key, value|
      entity.instance_variable_set("@#{key}", value)
    end
    entity
  end

  def create_author(params = {})
    create_entity(Author, params, {
      name: "Ford",
      filename: "Ford",
      website: 'www.ford.com'
    })
  end
end

create_author(name: "Ford 1")