Generally, the way titles are created for my books is that I suggest a bunch to my editor, who rejects them all for various reasons, and then she and the marketing geniuses come up with something that will catch the reader’s eye.  I am down with this—my strength is writing characters, not titling books.

When it came to this book, I happened to be with fellow author Karen Hawkins at a book festival.  I told her that I need to present some titles and gave her a rough idea of what it was about.  I had not yet settled on a family name for the Careys, so I called her Lady X as a place holder.  She and I batted some title ideas around and I jotted down about four.

I sent the titles in, assuming my editor would understand that Lady X was a placeholder name.  Imagine my surprise when I found it shortly thereafter that not only did they love The Seduction of Lady X, what they really liked about it was the X!  They thought it sounded mysterious and secretive, which was very fitting with my Secrets of Hadley Green.  So the title stuck.

Naturally, I went on to name the Carey family, but I made it where Harrison and his friends referred to his secret crush as Lady X.