On Stage
Jem Calder: I Want You To Be Happy
I Want You to Be Happy renders an abortive romance between a frustrated novelist and an aspiring poet with devastating lightness; Sally Rooney called Calder ‘an extraordinarily gifted writer’ and The Sunday Times tipped it as 2026’s zeitgeist couple-novel.
Latitude loved: the pinpoint accuracy to the interior and exterior lives of our protagonists.
Imani Thompson: Honey
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.
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, My Sister the Serial Killer or Such a Fun Age.
Latitude loved: Yrsa! Her interior monologue is as thrilling as her action. Rigorous and, yes, unputdownable.