As the May 25 release date gets ever closer, the reviews for Web of Lies are starting to trickle in, including this 4 1/2-star review by Jill Smith at Romantic Times:

Retirement doesn’t seem to be in the cards for the assassin Spider. The second chapter of the first-person Elemental Assassin series is just as hard-edged and compelling as the first. Gin Blanco is a fascinatingly pragmaic character, whose intricate layers are just beginning to unravel. Estep has truly hit the jackpot with this outstanding series!

SUMMARY: Following the murder of her father-figure/handler, Gin decided to retire from the assassination business and run her inheritance, the Pork Pit BBQ joint. When a fire-elemental thug named Jake McAllister tries to rob the Pork Pit and threatens Gin’s customers, she gets pissed. Gin doesn’t kill Jake, but now her troubles have mulitplied, for Jake’s father is extraordinarily powerful — and out to get her. To cap off her week, someone shoots up the restaurant, and it turns out the target is not Gin, but rather college student Violet Fox. Gin decides to help Violet and her grandfather against a mine owner trying to drive them off their land. This time Gin is going to need both her stone and ice magic to survive. Some retirement this is! (POCKET, Jun., 384 pp., $7.99)

4 1/2 stars! Woot! Thanks for the great review, Jill. Although I wonder what a girl’s gotta do to get 4 1/2 stars and be an RT Top Pick. Ah, well. Maybe when Venom comes out in late September. As for right now, I’m doing the happy dance! 😉

For the past several days, my editor, agent, and I have been working to come up with a title for Elemental Assassin #4. We’ve tossed around dozens of titles at this point and are still trying to find that magic title that really captures what the book is about and sounds cool at the same time.

I originally suggested The Silken Noose for the title. Some of the other ones we’ve considered have been Black Widow, Widow’s Web, By a Thread, Tainted Threads, Tangled Web, and Death Weaver.

There are lots of things to take into consideration when coming up with a title. In the case of the Elemental Assassin books, we’re trying to use a spider-related word in all of the titles, as well as words with an I or O in them, so we can continue to use the spider rune on the cover of the book.

The title also needs to at least hint a little bit as to what the plot is about (in this case, an assassin coming to Ashland to kill Gin). The title should be catchy, and the publisher’s marketing folks should like it as well (since they’re the ones who will promote the book to various sellers). And, of course, you don’t want your book to have the same title as another book that was recently released or will be released soon. That’s confusing for everyone involved.

All of which means that we’re having a tough time this go around settling on a title. There’s an old saying about how laws are like sausages, and that it’s better not to see them being made. I think we should add book titles to that list too. Sigh.

But we need to decide on something soon, so the book can go into production. I’ll keep you posted as to what we come up with …