Title Week: Kathy Kaiser

Here’s Kathy Kaiser’s title request. For convenience sake, here’s a repeat of title advice from the last post:

Things to remember about titles:

• One word titles are generally not memorable; you need at least two words because the juice is in the relationship between the words, the spark that jumps between them. Temptation is a lousy title; Welcome to Temptation is one of the best of my books.

• Familiar titles, aka songs and movies, generally make your book sound run of the mill, not to mention hard to google. Maybe This Time, my book, comes up fourth on an google search after “Maybe This Time,” the song, you tube video, lyrics, and Wikipedia entry. Welcome to Temptation is the first google entry.

• If possible, the title should should like something one of your characters would say, or at least be in her or his voice. (Phin says, “Welcome to Temptation” when he meets Sophie. Nobody says, “Maybe this time” in the book.)

• If possible, the title should reflect the crackle of the conflict or the romantic juice of the story, anything that strikes a spark when you read it. This is even more important in the digital age when you often don’t have a cover, or at least a cover bigger than an inch, to draw the reader in.

• Avoid theme at all costs. Nobody ever picked up a novel and said, “I can’t wait to find out about the theme.”

• Keep it clean if you want it in a lot of stores.

And now, Kathy’s book. Show her what you can do, Argh People.

Cheyenne Cole has just inherited her mother’s life–red cowgirl boots and all–but the moment she arrives in Dry Creek, Arizona, it’s clear her long-missing mother has left her something far more dangerous than a snake infested house and fifty acres of barren desert. A family land battle has been brewing for years and winning it is the key that opens the door to her future, but it also means standing in the crosshairs of the warrior-like Joseph Hawk. Cheyenne’s not afraid of Hawk, so why does Reed McConnell, a man as hard to ignore as the souped-up Chevy he drives, keep running interference for her? The battle turns to rehabbing the old Spanish Revival house when McConnell floats a deal that involves swapping his construction muscle for kid-challenged Cheyenne’s babysitting skills for his little girl River. As Cheyenne puts the old house right and builds a relationship with both McConnells, she finds the missing pieces of her past and discovers that sometimes stripping a thing down to the bare bones is necessary before the truth can shine through.