Why the Title "Mimgardr"?

As you can imagine, I went through quite a host of titles before deciding to name the first book in the Oblivion's Gate trilogy Mimgardr. I had several pages worth of titles that I compiled over time, each focusing on a different piece or portion of the tale. It was an amazing array.

Over several weeks I carefully sorted through the lists and removed potential titles until I had a short list of ten. The short list was focused on one goal: titling not just the first book but all three books in the trilogy. It was formatted with four columns, including Series Title, Book 1 Title, Book 2 Title and Book 3 Title. And once the list was complete I took it to editors, beta readers and others to gather opinions from those who had read the book and knew more about the story. Their responses each added new light, and one by one sets of titles were knocked away from the list until I was left with only three.

One set I felt was too sappy and would undoubtedly make the book sound like a dirty romance novel to most readers, so that one I knocked of easily; but the other two, they gave me quite the fight. They were two I had felt especially good about all along but had not been willing to trust my gut about until after receiving the confirmation of others. Now the only issue was deciding which to pick. In the end, I chose the set titled Oblivion's Gate, which inherently dubbed book one Mimgardr.

Mimgardr, as a place, was Merlin's special training realm in the book. It hung on the brink of Nothing; it was the crossroads for all other realms of the Great Heart; and it was the setting for certain events that would shape the destinies for several key individuals and entire nations as well.

Mimgardr, as a title, reflected the importance of the place, both for the prologue and epilogue and for all the chapters in between. It was also an eye-catching title, one that makes you look twice and wonder what it could mean. It's a mysterious title with a strong, mythical power to it, and it emphasizes the type of story that the book contains, a foreboding mystery seeped in myth, fantasy and conspiracy. It was a wonderfully fitting, short title, and in the end it won the battle for supremacy.

I am very pleased with Mimgardr, its title and story, and hope you will share it with you friends so that many more readers will have the opportunity to fall in love with it. Unfortunately, however, what happened in Mimgardr will not stay in Mimgardr, so my question for you is: What do you think book two will be titled?