Each trilogy has a particular keyword used in all titles.

Book one uses the keyword as a possessive: either [keyword]’s x or else [keyword] of x.

Book two uses the keyword with an adjective: y [keyword] (or The y [keyword]).

Book three goes back to the same pattern as book one: [keyword]’s z or [keyword] of z.

She’s varied it slightly in the latest trilogy (no identical keyword, although the nouns are thematically linked) but it seems she is still following the possessive, adjective, possessive pattern. I guess when you’re onto a good thing, you stick with it.

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

This formula is particularly popular with nonfiction, I’ve noticed.

I will never have a book with the word “fate” in the title.*

*This remains to be seen.

use a fragment from an anthem, the bible or shakespeare for something thoughtful and emotionally wrenching: “Little Foxes”; “Grapes of Wrath”; “Winter of Our Discontent”; “Gilead”

use a phrase from engineering, astronomy, architecture, philosophy etc. for a thinky novel to be touted on NPR: “angle of repose”, “transit of venus”, “line of beauty”

quote from a famous poet, well-worn phrase, pop song or nursery rhyme for a popular novel: “great and terrible beauty”, “And Then There Were None”, “fearful symmetry”,

use faux legalese for police procedurals and forensic mysteries: “body of evidence”, “corpus delecti”

quote from an over-read poet, well-worn phrase, pop song or nursery rhyme but change it into a pun for a comedic crime novel or “chick lit”: “The Cradle Robbers” – “the Maltese Kitten” – “Lead a Horse to Murder” – “the eyes have it”

i wanted to call the current novel ‘east of the sun’, which for me was totally apt and meaningful. my editor hated it. i railed for ages, before realising that they were right. titles like ‘east of the sun’ or ‘night voices’ or ‘the right stuff’ or ‘a place in my heart’ all sound very generic. they’re difficult to remember, because there’s nothing for your memory to catch on to.

(novel is now called scatterheart)

i just pulled the above out of thin air–apologies to anyone actually using/publishing these titles

*–right, just looked up “the devil’s mistress” out of curiosity, and holy-cramoly, there are no fewer than nine books by this title by totally different authors in a variety of genres. yikes.

What I’ve learned from reading Lani’s sites over the years: it doesn’t matter what I title a book, because someone else will end up picking the title for me. In the event that I ever do get published, the novel wiill have some bare-bones, vaguely-indicates-what-the-book-is-about title (say, “The Magical Whatsit”) until someone else picks it for me.