Name That Book!

As I mentioned on Monday, I have been struggling forever with finding a good title for my first manuscript. It began life with the title Living in Sin, but the feedback I got from contests and other sources was that it was both misleading and a little cliched. After a lot of discussion with the Mavens, I retitled it A Scandalous Liaison earlier this year, but even though I liked the idea behind it, I wasn't sure it completely described my book, and when I pitched it to Elaine Spencer of the Knight Agency at National, the first words out of her mouth were, "Well, it is a little cliche."

/Sigh

So, since National, I've reworked the hero and heroine's underlying motivations and pieces of the story a bit and written a new hook for the book which I hope is sexier and catchier than what I had before. Here it is:

After a disastrous near-marriage to the man who took her virginity but wanted only her fortune, Lady Rosalind Brighton has sworn off men, money, and matrimony. She plans to secure her future by managing her thoroughbred breeding estate. Unfortunately, Society doesn’t approve of a woman running such a business and the former estate manager has absconded with most of her operating capital. Rosalind could gain access to her dowry by wedding one of the impoverished lordlings who regularly pop up on her doorstep, but she prays for a miracle instead.

Her miracle comes in the form of England’s most renowned—and most dashing—racehorse trainer. Determined to uncover a scheme to run horses under false pedigrees, Patrick O’Brien makes Lady Rosalind a tantalizing offer: he’ll lend her his credibility and training skills in exchange for complete control over her horses and half the profits. His plan progresses splendidly but for one complication—the passion that simmers beneath the surface of his every encounter with the delectable Lady Rosalind.

After weeks of smoldering glances and increasingly intimate caresses, Lady Rosalind makes a tantalizing offer of her own: she’ll take him as her lover for the duration of their contract. But Patrick’s an old hand at such indiscretions and he won’t be another aristocratic lady’s plaything. He’ll have Rosalind as his wife or not at all. So begins a battle of wits and sensual temptation, with surrender the greatest prize.

So, now it's your turn. What title would you give this book? What would make you pick it up off a bookstore shelf and turn it over to read the back cover copy? Help! Remember, there's a signed copy of Barbara Pierce's Wicked Under the Covers in it for the poster with the best entry!