What's in a Name?

"Don't get too attached to your titles," a friend warned me recently, after I mourned the working title of my recently contracted project. "They change them all the time."

Too late, the cry came..

It's a tricky thing, a title change. My rational mind understands it, but I feel distance from my story, like the finished product is a little less mine. I know 'it takes a village to write a book', but when that village was just little me, at the very beginning, during my 'creation' phase, before I even switched the lights on, I'd named it. Because, how could I not?

I probably kid myself that the working title was "Last Dance of the Doll Maker", because any reference I made to it was only ever with the two words "Doll Maker" as I understood the full thing was a bit of a mouthful. And who really wants the entire cover of their romance novel eaten up by the words in the title, especially when two of those are 'of' and 'the'?

Before I introduce the new title to you, I just wanted to give my explanation of the old one because, truly, it is a very bizarre choice for a romance book, when I think about it.

It wasn't about a literal last dance. It was a comment on an old man's choreography with regard to pairing the main couple in the book, and his machinations in breaking them both free of their pasts. 

And if that sounds at all interesting to you, please read the book - the content hasn't changed. 

So, with a modest fanfare, and enthusiastic waving of flags, the new title is:

Her Dollmaker's Desire

Leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new title. Or have you ever had a title change? What was your old title?

 (Please be aware the new title does not refer to the afore mentioned old man. :-D)

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