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It's been a convoluted and strange process, this whole title thing. Readers naively think that a writer picks a title and that's the title that's used on the book wherever it's published, with foreign publishers simply translating the title into their on language. If only it were that simple...

I had about 300 titles for the book when I started writing. I took a long time to settle on CROSSED BONES, which I liked not just for the pirate references but also because of the sense of crossed fates, and death and antiquity. However, the American publisher reported that Barnes & Noble felt the title was too close to a thriller published in the US and weren't keen on the Pirates of the Caribbean connotations. After a great deal of back and forth, my editor Allison came up with the idea of using the lovely Berber verse from the Moroccan strand of the novel to generate the title. I'll show that verse it in full here, because I get a lot of emails from readers asking why I chose THE TENTH GIFT as the title:

God divided beauty and gave it to the ten:
Henna, soap, and silk -- those are the first three.
The plough, the livestock and the hives of bees--
That makes six.
The sun when it rises over the mountains--
That makes seven.
The crescent moon, as thin as a Christian's blade--
That makes eight.
With horses and books we come to ten

In the novel, Julia's soon-to-be-ex gives her a book, and that's what starts the entire story off: hence THE TENTH GIFT. But THE TENTH GIFT didn't work with the original UK cover, with its bodice-ripping heroine and pirate ship. Publishers often change the package for the paperback edition (which will be released in March 09): but CROSSED BONES didn't work with the new artwork, which is beautiful and very un-piratey. So we decided to adopt the US title for the UK as well, and thus CROSSED BONES becomes THE TENTH GIFT throughout the English-speaking world. Confused yet? You will be.