Linda Gerber's Death by... Series

Linda Gerber shared the Cover Stories for her Death By... series last fall, so I wanted to ask her a little bit about how she chooses those venomous nouns--Bikini, Latte, Denim--in her titles. (Death by Denim is out next week!)"With just the title and the first draft of the book,Theresa Evangelista came up with the killer cover design. That set the precedent for the rest of the series. All the titles became Death by... titles, and the covers all have the cool, iconic images. The books themselves grew from there. "Even after the first one--Death by Bikini--was named, I was thinking of entirely new titles for the next book. But when my editor told me what they would like to see as far as titles were concerned, it felt completely right, like that's how it was supposed to be all along. "My daughter actually helped to come up with the first one. (Thanks, Jenna!) At that point, the book didn't involve a murder, just the intrigue about Seth's family being on the run. But when she suggested that title, a whole new angle for the series was born. For the next two titles, I had given my publisher the locations for the books and was brainstorming ideas, but they were the ones who actually came up with the winners. Latte was perfect for Seattle, but I was a little thrown by denim for Europe... until I did some research on designer denim in Europe - and a whole new twist was added to the story. On other names considered: "I really liked Death by Chocolate. : ) We also had a close runner up with Death by Lip Gloss. Oh, and Death by Deception. But, as I said, the ones we settled on were truly the right fit for the series. At the moment, we are working on another couple of projects, but I would love to hang out with Aphra and Seth some more in the future. We will see..." I vote for Death by Lip Gloss next. I love that one for some reason. Got ideas for Death by... titles? I'd love to hear!