I know what you're thinking: "Huh? What the heck is that supposed to mean? Of course they have titles. They're books, right? And you've been working on them for a while. Didn't you call them something when you were planning them out?"
Uh, yeah. Sorta.
You see, publishers don't always like what you propose to call your books, not because they're mean or because you're a bad title giver. Sometimes the suggested title just doesn't hit the right tone for the book or marketplace, and sometimes an enterprising author has swooped in and named her book something very like the title you've had rumbling around your head (Grrr, I'm looking at you, two nameless YA writers with UK releases). In any case, final title decisions aren't made until you've signed a book deal and your editor begins whipping your novel into a masterpiece.
THE HOODOO APPRENTICE series is set in the South Carolina Lowcountry, the land of gigantic live oaks, hanging Spanish moss and lush saltwater marches. And as you can probably guess, it features Gullah hoodoo spells. Plus there's a wicked flesh-eating curse, soul-snatching and a nasty bunch of demons. I had a list of proposed titles, but they didn't capture all these fantastic elements, especially the magic, which is so incredibly cool it can't be ignored. So after some hard thought and thesaurus and dictionary consulting, we've come up with some winners.
So, without any further ado, here are my book titles:
Book One: CONJURE
Book Two: ALLURE
Book Three: ILLUSION
Aren't they great? They're all synonyms for magic and each one hints at the major plot for each book. But that's all I'll tell you for now because I've got to keep some things a secret. At least until the next blog post :)
~Lea
