TITLES X, Y and Z

Titles - A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T The U V W X Y Z

Yesterday's News - Kajsa Ingemarsson (2012)

Swedish waitress Agnes is fired from her job at a prestigious Stockholm restaurant when she turns down the advances of her slimy boss. The same day her rocker boyfriend, Tobias, breaks up with her for one of his backup singers. With the encouragement of her friends, she struggles to move on and Agnes quickly runs into Kalle, an old friend, who is opening up a Mediterranean-style restaurant. Agnes joins the staff and the author takes you on a journey of the few weeks before the opening of the restaurant to the few months afterwards and the struggles a new restaurant encounters. The reader can't help but cheer on Agnes even when she stumbles back into the arms of her ex-boyfriend and ignores a good man who is right in front of her. Even though I have never worked in the restaurant business, I absolutely loved reading about all the details of running a restaurant from the importance of a good review to the description of the yummy food. (AO)


Back to top

Yesterday's Sun - Amanda Brooke (2012)

Life for Holly was perfect and in line with her five-year plan - that is until she and her husband Tom buy a country home in a picture-perfect English village. While renovating, Holly discovers an old sundial which turns out to be a moondial which can show visions of the future with one condition; it's a life for a life. In Holly's visions, she has died during childbirth, leaving Tom to raise their newborn daughter Libby alone. Holly sets out to try to change their path away from this vision. Things get tense when Tom starts to pressure her about starting a family. Will Holly do everything in her power to avoid becoming pregnant, so that she may live or will she sacrifice herself for her unborn child? Yesterday's Sun reads as a flashback leading up to the main event in which we discover the outcome in the last chapter. The ending is one the reader does not expect and will have your eyes tearing up as you read. This is a heartbreaking and haunting read that I enjoyed more than I thought I would. (PP)


Back to top

You Don't Have To Be Good - Sabrina Broadbent (2009)

In her late 40s, Cambridge council employee Bea Kemp is married to an aspiring writer, Frank, and has always been a good aunt to her nephew Adrian and niece Laura. What appears to be a satisfied life begins to shatter as a series of events lead to Bea's disappearance. Despite the seemingly complicated storyline, and the little emphasis on Bea's own view about things around her, the story is crafted in a beautiful way, adding with it a splash of irony that brings out the tragedy in Bea's life. (XT)


Back to top

You Don't Have to Say You Love Me - Sarra Manning (2011)

Neve Slater is on a mission... to lose weight and to be with the man she loves, William. The only problem is the 25-year-old has never had a proper relationship. Besides giving herself a makeover, she wants to find someone she can have a fake relationship with, so when William comes home from California she is prepared for him. One night, after being dragged out by her sister Celia, she meets Max - her sister's womanising editor. But she comes to an agreement with Max that they will pretend to date so Neve can get an understanding of how a relationship works. Who knows what's in it for Max? As time continues, Neve realises that she is depending more and more on Max and thinking less about William. So what's a girl to do - choose the man she is in a faux relationship with or wait for the man she hasn't seen for years? This is a great book about relationships and finding true love. With so many women on a quest to be thinner, Manning obviously hits a nerve as she focuses on Neve's antics to lose weight, highlighting how far a woman will go to get the perfect body - and man. At times though Neve was perhaps too self-involved with her eating and the lengths she took to get thin. (CG)


Back to top

You Dropped a Blonde on Me - Dakota Cassidy (2010)

Former trophy wife Max is trying to adjust to life without her car dealer husband's cash. Finley has cut her and her teenage son Connor off, citing a prenup, as he trades her in for a newer shinier model. Homeless and unemployed, Max moves into her mother Mona's retirement village. She runs into Campbell, a former high school classmate who has moved back to help his dad run his plumbing business. There's lots of sexual tension - and sex - between the pair as the wise-cracking Max learns how to suck it up and stand up to her ex. This is the first in a series about ex-trophy wives - got to admit not far in I was already looking to trade this story in for a shinier model too.


Back to top

You Had Me at Good-bye - Tracey Bateman (2008)

Book two in the Drama Queens series focuses on Dancy Ames, who lives with Laini and Tabby and works as a book editor at Lane Publishing. Her brother's best friend Jack Quinn not only took her dream job at the firm, but ends up having to fire her because of a change of company direction. Meanwhile, Dancy helps out her friend Nick at his coffee shop and works on her own novel, called Fifth Avenue Princess, whose main character is torn between two men - one sounding remarkably like Jack. Dancy also is dealing with a teenage half-brother who has just arrived on the scene and jealousy that her engaged brother is getting the family condo. Not sure if I read a different book to what the blurb and advance reviews promised - what happened to the storyline about Dancy being dared to send Jack a book, under an assumed name, about a romance between a mean editor and a coffee barista?


Back to top

You Had Me at Halo - Amanda Ashby (2007)

Holly Evans has just been watching her own funeral (and she certainly wouldn't have wanted to have been caught dead in that particular polyester dress). The 22-year-old drowned in her bathtub on the night her boyfriend Todd was going to propose. Unable to keep her mouth shut in heaven and with much mortal baggage still to deal with, Holly's spiritual realigner decides to send her back to earth in the body of another recently departed. As luck would have it, one of Holly's work colleagues, IT geek Vince Murphy, shows signs of dying and she is put into his six-foot body. But Vince had only fainted and wakes up to discover he has to share his body with someone with only two days to sort out her life. As Holly embarks on a mission to prove she didn't kill herself, she discovers that not everyone in her life was who they seemed. An engaging, comic read that keeps you turning the pages to find out if Holly will resolve her issues and find out why she died in time. And Holly just seems made for the big screen.


Back to top

You Had Me At Hello - Mhairi McFarlane (2012)

Rachel's life takes an unexpected turn and she starts to question the decisions she's made in life. When Rachel bumps into Ben, her best friend from university and the one-that-got-away, it reawakens old feelings. Only in the decade that has passed since they last saw each other, Ben's got married and Rachel's life seems to be the same. As Ben and Rachel rekindle their friendship, will they be able to just be friends? The story is fast paced as it is set in the present day with flashbacks to Ben and Rachel's time at university. This worked really well with the adventures of their university days being interpreted through thirty-something eyes. I laughed out loud throughout the novel. It was witty and fresh and it felt like the sort of naughty chick lit that we had before all the novels about baking cupcakes and running twee shops. An excellent debut novel that will have me looking out for the rest of Mhairi's books. (AB)


Back to top

You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs - Laurie Graff (2004)

Forty-five-year-old Karrie Kline, a still single Jewish actress, looks back over 15 years of dating. She goes out with a variety of men from New York to Los Angeles - from long-term boyfriend Jack, to a famous Hollywood actor who barked. There was Elliot, the married journalist; Donald, who wore the same clothes for a week; and Phil, who she mistook as Rob the blind date. Will she find her Prince Charming or just kiss too many frogs?


Back to top

Young Wives' Tales - Adele Parks (2007)

Lucy has stolen her friend Rose's husband, Peter, but is now finding life may have been better as a mistress. With barely a maternal bone in her body, she often escapes to her stockbroking job to get away from her four-year-old daughter Auriol. Meanwhile, Rose is making sure she's the best mum possible, making organic meals, volunteering on school committees, not showing her two sons that their father's betrayal has devastated her - even though it was more than six years ago. To avoid rocking the boat, she even allows her friends and family to sign her up to a night course and starts dating again. Their friend Connie, happily married to Luke and a working mother, has managed to stay friends with both women. But her world is rocked when the man she had an affair with, John Harding, turns up at the school gates. The story is expertly told from the varying viewpoints of Lucy, Rose and John. It is the sequel to Playing Away.


Back to top

You Take It From Here - Pamela Ribon (2012)

On their annual girls' vacation, Danielle learns best friend Smidge's lung cancer is back and this time, it's terminal. Smidge, ever the bossy one, proceeds to outline for Danielle how things are going to go, including her plan to have Danielle move into her house, marry her husband and raise her daughter after she's gone, keeping all of this a secret from Smidge's family, of course. Danielle is torn between granting her best friend's dying wish and being true to herself and the life she left Louisiana to live. When those closest to them begin to suspect something is up, Danielle decides it's time to finally take charge of the situation before it's too late. I found the premise of the book intriguing. How far would one go for a dying friend? However, even with several witty exchanges between Smidge, Danielle and those around them, I felt the story went on far too long without any significant plot until the very end of the book. I found Smidge to be an unlikeable character, even with everything she was going through, and hoped that by the end of the book, she would have redeemed herself with me. That was not the case. (LEK)


Back to top

Your Big Break - Johanna Edwards (2006)

Communication specialists Dani Meyers started working for Your Big Break Inc, which arranges relationship break-ups, after her fiancé dumped her on live radio. But she can't seem to follow her company's rules, especially the one about not getting personally involved. But could you end a relationship with a guy whose father has just died or tell your father that his mistress wants to end it?


Back to top

You're The One That I Don't Want - Alexandra Potter (2010)

"You will be together forever and nothing will ever break you apart". To Lucy, nothing could be more romantic or perfect for her and Nate than the legend of the Bridge of Sighs. To be joined for all eternity to the One and for nothing to come between them. But that was when they were teenagers. Since then they have gone their separate ways and it seems that they are not destined to be together after all, that is until Lucy moves to New York and through an enormous twist of fate (or is it the legend?) is reunited with Nate. But 10 years is a long time and they soon discover that they no longer want to be with one another. But with a Venetian legend, it's not that simple. After they break up, it seems that the universe is constantly conspiring to throw them back together and the prospect of being together forever now seems like a horrible nightmare. Lucy has to try to break the legend or she's stuck with the One that she doesn't want for all eternity. A nice twist on the usual soulmate story but the plot becomes a bit repetitive. (JC)


Back to top

Yours Truly - Kristy Greenwood (2012)

Natalie Butterworth is getting married to Olly in a month and she's just had a horror haircut. Growing up with bickering parents, Natalie has learnt to be undemanding and doesn't like offending people. So as her mother and sister Dionne help organise her wedding - choosing things she'd never choose in a fit - Natalie finds it hard to stand up for herself. Then one night Natalie is at the pub with best friend and aspiring singer Meg and falls under the spell of hypnotist Brian. Now whenever anyone asks her a question, she can only tell the truth. But can the people in her life handle the truth? Natalie heads to the village of Little Trooley to track down the hypnotist before her wedding is completely ruined. She gets caught up in the dramas of the Old Whimsy pub, which is run by the rather dishy Riley. This very funny debut will delight those who hanker after some good old-school chick lit. If hypnotist Brian put me under his spell and you asked me should you read it: I'd say "definitely!"


Back to top

Zoe's Muster - Barbara Hannay (2012)

Restless Zoe is the odd one out in a high-achieving family; the daughter of a politician and cellist. Her sister is a successful lawyer whilst Zoe ices cupcakes for a living. When she discovers that her blood group is incompatible with her parents, she is not who she thought she was. Rather, she is the product of a brief liaison between her mother and a North Queensland cattleman. Confused, she embarks on a quest to meet her biological father and accepts a position as a muster cook on his property. Travelling to the remote property, she expects to meet her other family, but what she doesn't count on is romantic flirtations from her half brother Luke and her feelings for the undeniably charming musterer Mac McKinnon. As if it isn't difficult enough to keep her mother's secret, she finds herself increasingly attracted to the cool Mac, who is anxious to keep his distance whilst struggling to deal with his own past. The burden of her secret overwhelms Zoe who is worried she will unintentionally cause hurt to all those involved. Burdened by her mother's guilt, can Zoe keep her identity a secret? Will Zoe's mother, Claire, reveal the truth to her husband and potentially ruin his chances of re-election? And how will Zoe's new family feature in her life and can she secure Mac's heart? This is a feel-good romance set amongst clear northern skies and dusty cattle plains. (LF)


Back to top