A heartfelt thank you to those who downloaded Beautiful & Terrible Things during the 2-day sale to celebrate the book’s one-year anniversary!

Would you believe that together we vaulted the novel into the #1 slot on Amazon’s Romance Literary Fiction list for the day? Traditional romance novels follow a very specific formula that my book does not, so I was surprised to be in that category, but I’m not quibbling. I’ll take the glory!

And if you missed it in all the anniversary hubbub, here’s a new video trailer capturing some of the highlights from the book’s first year:

What’s in a Name?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” 

– Juliet in Romeo and Juliet

Choosing a book title can be difficult — How do you distill multiple themes into one phrase or word that captures readers’ attention and conveys the genre as well as the themes? Now, with north of one million books coming out a year (thanks in large part to self-publishing and to AI-generated books), try finding a title that hasn’t already been used! This makes naming your book even harder than before. But that chore comes with some funny stories, at least in my case:

What’s In A Name – Beautiful & Terrible Things

When I finished writing Beautiful and Terrible Things several years ago, I researched other books with that title and found none. The title was pulled from a quote by minister and author Frederick Buechner that inspires several scenes in the book: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” All I found were similarly named books, like Hunter Biden’s memoir Beautiful Things. So things looked good and I chose that title for my novel.

Fast-forward through one publishing deal that failed to transpire (the publisher essentially went out of business), another year to find a new publisher, and the typical lag time between signing a contract and holding your book in your hand, and it’s July 2024. It never occurred to me to research the name again in case it had been applied to other books in the meantime. But, it had…

Frederick Buechner

Mere months before my book was published, pastor Amy Butler published a series of inspirational essays under the title Beautiful and Terrible Things. My publisher, Black Rose Writing, quickly added “A Novel” to the end of my book’s title to help avoid confusion among readers looking for either book. (Btw, the black rose illustration above is from Black Rose Writing’s logo; it seemed appropriate for the topic.)

That prompted me to do a fresh round of research, and lo and behold, Beautiful and Terrible Things is now the name of at least two more books: Episcopalian priest Christian M.M. Brady’s self-help book about moving on from grief, and Riley Hart’s LGBTQ+ romance. That’s not counting the books with similar titles, which include a memoir of marriage and betrayal, and an 18-page story by a professional Dominatrix! Reverend Buechner, who died in 2022, seems to have had quite a sense of humor, so I expect he would have been flattered, humbled, possibly shocked and, mostly, entertained by this slew of books bearing his words in their titles.

What’s In A Name – Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

The title for my adult contemporary friendship story with incest and sexual harassment themes also came from a quote — in this case, the saying Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. When my novel Horseshoes and Hand Grenades was published in 2019, no other books had that title, although there was a rock band sharing the name.

Then, in 2022, John Corabi of the band Mötley Crüe called his autobiography Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. Well, I figured, maybe some people searching on his book will find mine, gaining me some visibility. Be careful what you wish for…

A reader gave my Horseshoes and Hand Grenades a one-star review on Amazon because he was looking for the Corabi book and he ordered mine by mistake! Not sure how his oversight translates into my book being unworthy, but you have to keep a sense of humor about these things!

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