My novel has a new name! When I began writing it in October 2016, my temporary working title was Scarface. Obviously, given the famous Al Pacino movie of the same name, that was not a viable choice for the long term. At some point in late spring 2017, I renamed it The Chokecherry Tree. When you read the book, you will see why that name makes sense, but there was something about it I didn’t like. It wasn’t a name that would lead a person to pull my book off a shelf. Also, I learned that few people had ever heard of chokecherry trees. I just couldn’t think of a title I like better.
On the advice of a friend, I wrote out the major themes of my novel. It became apparent to me that beauty, in its myriad aspects and levels, is really the focus of the novel. So I decided to rename my book Beautiful. I do not promise not to change the title again, but for now, I like Beautiful; I feel it passes the “pull my book off the shelf” test.
So far as I can tell after extensive research on Amazon and Goodreads, there are no other books with “Beautiful” in the title that a reasonable person would confuse with my novel.
What do you think of my new, improved book title? I’m pretty excited about it!