More about Titles: Introducing DEATH OF A SCHOOLGIRL

This week the committee met at Berkley to discuss cover ideas and titles for my newest series featuring Jane Eyre and her husband Edward Rochester as amateur sleuths.  My new editor Shannon Vazquez Jamieson was kind enough to ask for my input. I brainstormed a few titles and book cover ideas.

In the end, the title that everyone loved was...Death of a Schoolgirl: The Jane Eyre Chronicles. Or maybe The Jane Eyre Chronicles: Death of a Schoolgirl. The order is yet to be determined, but either way, the series will be "The Jane Eyre Chronicles." I'm thrilled! My agent Paige Wheeler of Folio Literary Management was also pleased.

All the books will be a variation of "Death of a..." As a reader, I love titles that have some sort of cohesion. As an author, the subtitle with its lead-in also helps me focus on the upcoming narratives. In fact, my sister Jane (!) and I sat around last night talking plot points for the second book in the Jane Eyre series. Jane's a keen reader. Her insight really helped me think through my characters, their motivation, and the themes that I plan to use as the underpinnings of Book #2. Jane helped me go past the obvious and add real depth to my characters by making their motivations more complex. We got some great work done--and had fun, too!

As for cover images, I sent Shannon photos of the famous "Nursemaid's Tunnel" in London. When I began my Jane Eyre book, I didn't know this tunnel existed. While researching the neighborhoods around The Regent's Park, the tunnel turned up.  And yes, the tunnel figures into the mystery. See, that's one of the coolest parts of writing. There's a serendipity at work that you can't predict. I mean, who knew?

Here's another shocker: While we lived in England, David and I were invited to dinner at a private home near the area that I'm writing about. So when I looked up floor plans for houses circa 1850, I quickly recognized they were similar to the house we'd visited. That made visualizing the action much easier.

I mention those happy coincidences in part because many would-be writers think they need to know everything before they sit down to write. WRONG. The unexpected discoveries along the way make writing fun! I have three sparkling characters who just "showed up" when I was at work on the book. One wasn't even invited.

Here's my question: Remembering that my books will be set in the 1850s, whom should I kill off? In other words, help me fill in the blanks: Death of a____________.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

I’m fortunate enough to be able to post my blog for Thanksgiving Day, so I’m going to resort to the not entirely original idea of giving an accounting of some of the stuff I’m thankful for.

I’m thankful for prepared food mixes that, with some additions and embellishments, help me to make a tasty Thanksgiving meal yet have time to write and visit with family on Thanksgiving Day.

I’m a little thankful that my part-time temporary law job that looked, yesterday, as if it might move and morph, is staying as-is. Maybe it’d be better if things changed enough to get me to leave, which would increase my writing time, but I like it enough for now to hang in.

I’m thankful for writing, since it’s so much a part of who and what I am.

I’m thankful for my good friends and my fellow writers, absolutely including my co-bloggers who invited me to join them here at Killer Hobbies. You're all great!

I’m thankful for my wonderful agent Paige Wheeler of Folio Literary Management, her interest in my writing career and her support, and all her efforts to make my publishing dreams come true. I’m thankful for my publishers and their hard-working editors, at Harlequin and at Berkley Prime Crime. By the way, Kendra Ballantyne, my pet-sitter mystery protagonist, joins me in these good wishes for Berkley and everyone there. She really likes it when her stories are told and looks forward to more to come. And, yes, I'm thankful for Kendra and figure she's thankful for me, too.

And of course we're thankful for our wonderful readers!

I’m thankful for all animals, those that are wild, and those that allow us to think they’re tame. For pets of all kinds. For dogs, and for Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. And at the top of that list, I’m thankful for my adorable Lexie. And Kendra says the same about her Lexie.

I’m really thankful for my family--those who remain in Pittsburgh, those who live in Phoenix, my extended in-law family in Ohio and Hawaii and here in L.A. And, most especially, I’m thankful for my two wonderful sons, Eric and Keith, and for my husband Fred, with whom I don’t always agree but I do always love.

I hope everyone reading this has a wonderful Thanksgiving. And please feel free to comment here to add the things you’re most thankful for.

--Linda