Are you a fan of lit fic? Or wanting to get into the genre? Here are our top picks for lit fic readers.
Honey by Imani Thompson
The darkly comic killer debut novel of 2026.
The first time, Yrsa doesn’t intend to kill.
But the Cambridge professor sitting opposite has manipulated her friend, stolen her research. When she flicks the bee into his Sanpellegrino, she thinks he’ll get a nasty sting.
Then he’s dead. And Yrsa, who – let’s face it – has been bored for a while, is alive.
It’s a sweet feeling, finally having some control.
Comic, sexy, addictive, unpredictable, Honey is about the not-always-righteous path of taking justice into your own hands.
The essential next read for fans of Butter, Yesteryear, My Sister the Serial Killer, Fundamentally or Boy Parts.
Find out more here.
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
'My name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive…'
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle – and her followers are sick with envy. Her charming farmhouse on her working ranch is artfully cluttered, her husband is a handsome cowboy, her homemade sourdough boules are each more beautiful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers and industrial-grade ovens behind the scenes? What her followers don’t know won’t hurt them.
Then, one morning, Natalie wakes up in a strange, horrible version of reality. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Is this a hoax? A reality show? A test from God? Natalie knows just two things for sure: this isn't her perfect life, and she must escape, by any means possible.
As darkly funny as it is shocking and gripping, Yesteryear is an electrifying examination of tradition, fame, faith and the grand performance of womanhood, from a thrilling new talent in fiction.
NOW BEING ADAPTED INTO A MAJOR FILM STARRING ANNE HATHAWAY
Find out more here.
The Nocturnals by Frances Whiting
From the bestselling author of The Best Kind of Beautiful, Frances Whiting, comes an endearing, wise and witty novel of love and friendship, which asks, how far would you go, to protect your friends?
In the summer of 1997, five high school students meet. Nina, the Good Girl. Beatrice, The Poetess. Harriet, the Ghost. Cosmo, the Professor. And Hunter, the Golden Boy. In their last year of school, they become inseparable, five sides of the same star, until a fault line cracks between them, scattering them to all corners of the globe.
Now, fifteen years later, Hunter has called them with his conch shell lips to return to the place where they lived and laughed and cried together, before secrets were whispered, and promises were broken. No-one knows why he has assembled them, but there is no question they will go. Because to outsiders, they might be, in turns, a little bit weird, a little bit glamorous, and a little bit dangerous. But to each other, they are, and always will be, The Nocturnals.
Find out more here.
Billie King by Shannon Kelly-White
A blisteringly fast, fresh, funny and hugely entertaining novel of mothers, daughters and one gutsy wild colonial girl who gets caught up in Australia's last female bushranger's quest for revenge. Think Leah Purcell's The Drover's Wife meets Trent Dalton.
1918: Australia's last bushranger, Dulcie James, holds up Anna King's falling-down farmhouse. There's a scrawny unloved infant on the floor, Anna seems more furious than frightened, and it's the bushranger who's left shaken. And the next day, Anna disappears.
Twelve years later, Anna's daughter, Billie King, is a girl ready to explode. With a missing mother, the rent in arrears and her alcoholic father's gambling debts to cover, she has no time for school. But when child services threaten to remove Billie from her father, she must decide between continuing her search for her missing mother and keeping what's left of her family together. If she fails to hold onto her father, she'll be taken away and placed in a children's home, but if she doesn't find her missing mother, who will?
Find out more here.
Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
Half His Age is a highly anticipated, funny, sad, thrilling novel about sex, class, desire, and power – and the (often misguided) lengths we’ll go to to get what we want, from Jennette McCurdy, the three-million copy bestselling author of I'm Glad My Mom Died.
Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Hurting. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all? Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher.
Mr Korgy, with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films that she doesn’t? Or are they actually kindred spirits, sharing the same filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.
Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is an incisive study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles in her effort to be seen, to be desired and to be loved.
Find out more here.
Dandelion is Dead by Rosie Storey
Jake has fallen head over heels for Dandelion. The only problem? Dandelion is dead.
Seven months after Dandelion’s death, Poppy resurrects her sister’s phone and finds a message from a man on a dating app. Jake.
Dandelion delighted in bad behaviour. She pushed Poppy to be daring. So, on what would have been her 40th birthday, Poppy decides to do something her sister would love, and – for one night only – she goes on a date as Dandelion.
Only when Poppy meets Jake, they have unexpected chemistry. Thrillingly hot, confusing chemistry. They become tangled in deceit while discovering something shockingly real. What happens when you fall in love with a lie?
As a precarious dare spirals somewhere altogether more unexpected, Dandelion is Dead becomes a love story, a ballad of sisterhood and an ode to bad behaviour.
Find out more here.