Hilariously, as I was about halfway through "Heart the Lover," I told a friend how much I was enjoying it, noting that I adored "Euphoria," but couldn't quite get into "Writers and Lovers." Imagine my surprise at the end of "Heart the Lover," when I finally got hip to the connections (no spoilers here!) between the books. Guess it's time for me to try "Writers and Lovers" again, because I really did so love "Heart the Lover." Hunt writes like she's unspooling a big, grand story (that's also the most intimate thing you've ever heard) to a new acquaintance. The major movements are just as big as the little ones (a line about how Casey's kids can never quite fathom stories about their parents before they knew each other is a gem in a sea of them), and that all adds up to an uncanny ability to make a very deep-feeling story that never feels showy or soapy. It's all wonderfully earned, and it sticks with you. What a treat.

I am so honored to receive an ARC from one of my all-time favorite authors. Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic.

My face is still wet from the heavy tears after finishing the end of this book. King has a remarkable way of pacing her stories so well that every sentence is important. Her characters are realized enough while still remaining ambiguous and allowing the reader to infiltrate the plot subconsciously. I am so relieved at this one that is just as good as Writers & Lovers. This story spans decades over the course of our female protagonist’s life similar to her past novels. And of course the main character is literary-adjacent. This one focuses on aspects of relationships, motherhood, the meaning of life and a good card game. We are on a journey with these characters, flipping through pages up until the very end where she inevitably sticks the landing.

Bravo, Ms. King. I’ll read anything you put pen to paper to.

HEART THE LOVER is a relatively uncomplicated yet incredibly poignant slice of life tale that revolves around the friendship/ love triangle between best friends Sam and Yash, and the girl they call “Jordan”, after the character “Jordan Baker” in THE GREAT GATSBY.
“Jordan”, our narrator, first falls for Sam, a TA in one of her college classes , but eventually realizes she’s in love with Yash, Sam’s best friend and roommate. The feeling is mutual, and Sam and Yash share some truly blissful days. But , Yash is perpetually torn between love for Jordan and loyalty to Sam. The couple plan to move to New York, but when Yash doesn’t show, the relationship collapses. For both Jordan and Yash, the other is “the one that got away”.

Years later, the three friends come together again, but it’s already too late. As they face tragedy, they all grapple with regret of what might have been, and face the existential questions we all struggle with— should I have done something differently? Am I leading the life I was meant to live? Did I give enough?
By design, we don’t learn Jordan’s real name until the very end of the book, which invites the question of how much we ever really know about others, even the ones we love most.

Thank you Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book. I'm a big Lily King fan and this book was great. I kind of wondered about the first part (set when the three main characters were in college) because it just seemed kind of==pedestrian---but then "Jordan" goes to Paris and wow did the story change. It is a beautiful story about love and loss, friendship and anger, regret and promises for the future. I just loved it.

I admit that I devoured this book. I absolutely love Lily King's prose.
I wish that I'd read it slowly and a bit more carefully- will need to go back and reread.
The characters are so interesting and multi-dimensional- you can't help but adore them, even for their flaws and short-comings.
The story is propulsive, honest and heart wrenching.
I will read anything Lily King writes!!

I received this book as an ARC through NetGalley.

I really enjoyed Euphoria, so I was excited to pick up Lily King's new book. The complicated love triangle in Euphoria was fully baked, intense and passionate set in an equally high stakes environment. I was very disappointed in Heart the Lover, as neither the love triangle nor the situation in which it was set was particularly novel or fresh. It felt like a juvenile backslide for King, compared to her previous work. I did not read Writers and Lovers, so I can't speak to any connections between that one and this one, but for fans of Euphoria, I expect this novel might come as a bit of a disappointment. At least it did for me. Still, I read through it in the span of two days, so it was a fast-paced read, and I was curious and entertained enough by the characters to see how it ended. I enjoyed the college romance in the first half, but found the second half to feel wholly disjointed from the first. The jump felt abrupt as did the experiences and challenges facing the three lead characters decades after. I think some of this could have been resolved by drawing out the novel longer. It felt too short for all the topics it covers, especially in the second half. We hadn't stayed with the characters in the first half long enough to develop real compassion for them by the time the second half came where that compassion was necessary to bring the point home.

Lily King’s power and finesse as a writer continue to grow, and Heart the Lover contains plenty of both. We meet the narrator during her senior year in college, just as she meets Sam and Yash — the men who change her life. King captures all the love and torture of young relationships, and people trying to find themselves. The first 75% of the book is just a setup for the incredibly emotional ending, but I loved every second of it. Fans of King and similar writers (Emma Straub, etc.) will not be disappointed.

They call her Jordan, like Jordan Baker in "The Great Gatsby."

Sam and Yash are like fire and water. Sam, a mercurial man of faith and Yash, a genial academic. They notice Jordan in their senior year 17th Century Literature class, and she's immediately swept up into their exhilarating world. Yash's easygoing nature is cool water to Sam's intensity; the former entertains Jordan with stories of his casual dates gone wrong, while the latter's lust for Jordan is confounded by his faith and refusal to go all the way with her. A single year on campus with Sam and Yash is all it takes: the trajectory of Jordan's life changes forever.

Decades later, Jordan is living a life of her own outside the reach of Sam and Yash. Having loved them both, she can never truly be rid of them. Their memories creak under her floorboards and pulse in her blood; that one year changed everything.

And despite the passage of time, it's not over.

"Heart the Lover" is Lily King's masterpiece. With not a wasted word in the entire short novel, King weaves the glamour of academics with the poignancy of college love and its reverberations across time. Jordan, Sam, and Yash are beautiful, complicated, flawed characters and yet they don't feel the least bit cliche. Their entanglement is written so perfectly, so emotionally, that I simply could not stop reading. In so many ways, "Heart the Lover" is a siren song for readers with memories of a past love locked in time, and what it would mean if it returned once the bones of adult life have set. If there's one book you read this year, let this be it, readers. It doesn't get any better than this.

Lily King, stop doing this to me (never stop).

This book is Challengers meets Past Lives. I am always envious of Lily King's writing and the rich, hand plucked detail she provides in this. There's a phrase in this book that's about a mere 7 words, but has not left my mind since reading. That's the power of a well placed detail and writing. This was SO easy to read I couldn't put it down. Each character is just a real person that I love and hate and love to hate and to experience yearning and hurt described in a new way is astounding.

Loved this. Will be buying.

If you want to deeply and wholly fall in love with a book, but also sob uncontrollably into the night, this is the book for you. Heart the Lover was a tender, philosophical, and thoroughly addicting nov. We follow our unnamed protagonist across decades, as she falls into a complicated love and struggles with purpose as a college student, and in later years when she is navigating impossible obstacles that life throws at her. The dialogue was witty, the humor perfectly dry, and the prose was beautiful and delicate. There’s a fun absurdity in the writing, even in the mundaneness of ordinary life. It’s a love letter to writers, creatives, and book lovers alike, and gives incredible food for thought on themes of love, eternity, and death.
On a separate note, I didn’t even know that this story was connected to Writers & Lovers, and since I couldn’t get the world of Heart the Lover out of my system, I immediately checked out W&L from the library. Both books are sincerely incredible in their own rights, and in my opinion, you do not have to read W&L before this book; I personally loved getting the chance to read Heart the Lover first, in terms of its structure and depth of storytelling.
Heart the Lover was 5 stars for me, and I’ll be thinking about these characters for a long time.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC! Posted on goodreads

Ooh. Maybe 4.5 stars even. This was a really great read with a fantastic flow. It had “Normal People” vibes in really the best of ways. What was really great about this one was the gritty realness. The longterm romance plot line is never bad, but wow was it far from perfect. It’s also really sad, but not superfluously. I feel like I had an intimate window where I could watch the full breadth of these characters’ relationship play out. Thank you for the ARC - so great.

Irresistible!!!!
The creativeness, tenderness, uniqueness is so thoroughly enjoyable, I predict it will be a forever timeless literary novel and the most popular book of the year in 2025.

….Lily King’s prose is elegant and effortless — my favorite type of novel —
filled with captivating, imperfect characters, who, in one moment, made me laugh out loud, and in the next pierce my heart.
The storytelling- itself is deeply intimate and moving.

Celebrate love, friendships, (relationship-complexities)
literature, card games, and more with characters you won’t want to say goodbye to.

I could not put this book down!!

“On the trail we talk as we often do about books, what makes the magic, where the genius lies. He says it’s in the structure. It’s always in the structure. We argue about this. I insist it can be in a number of elements—the images, the dialogue, all the ways in which the narrative comes to life—and he says it’s always the form that makes the difference” .
The conversation continues— they discuss Tolstoy while still hiking. They have sex in a grassy meadow outside…..
“until three cows come trotting quickly” towards them.
Yash and Jordan were naked and laughing — happy!
Yash says:
“I think for the rest of my life the sound of cowbells will make me horny”.

Every woman and every man will devour “Heart the Lover”
256 pages …
Lily King is brilliant!!!

A fabulous five star read about first love and how the relationship never really leaves us. There were some beautiful, poignant subtle twists that I didn’t see coming and kept me reading way past my bedtime! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Loved this newest novel by Lily King. Her female characters are so compelling and so relatable and while the story to me is somewhat abstract, the emotion she evokes is very real. This book truly brought me to tears. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Another relatively short, but emotionally powerful book by Lily King. She’s definitely a talented writer who is skilled at character development. Fans of Writers and Lovers will really appreciate this book!

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

4+ stars
The complex relationships between three college seniors evokes thoughts on the power of creativity, the writing life , the depth of friendship , and enduring love. A young woman is nicknamed Daisy at first by two young men in her literature class then calling her Jordan ,both characters from The Great Gatsby by the way . They live together for a while, read together, philosophize, play made up,card games as friendships and love relationships develop.

After finishing school , they make thought provoking decisions . Choices to be made - friendship over love , religious principles over love , the creative life over love . These are decisions they made when they were young and we see the impact on their lives, nearly 30 years later . Revelations of the truth , forgiveness and the possibility of hope. It was a deeply moving story.

We don’t find out the narrator’s real name until the last page. I have thoughts on that , but won’t be a spoiler . If you loved Writers and Lovers , this is a must read .


I received a copy of this book from Grove Atlantic through NetGalley.

Lily King does it again. This book!! I didn't want it to end, and yet, it ended so perfectly. This is one of those immersive character studies, beginning in university and then shifting to middle age. Every character is so beautifully drawn, and the little - and big - heartbreaks and triumphs that occur during a life are rendered with precision and poetry. There are so many passages I underlined, so many phrases that I had to stop to admire.

This book will be huge when it's published in October as it's a new Lily King book, but I predict it will also be one that is treasured.

Expected to be a thoughtful, character-driven literary novel focusing on complex relationships and emotional depth, likely appealing strongly to fans of King's previous work and readers seeking intimate explorations of the human heart and the lasting impact of the past.

"Heart the Lover" is a beautifully written book about love, connection, and the human condition.

The book opens as a coming of age story and continues far beyond. It is the story of a life - the ambitions, friendships, loves, joys, sorrows, disappointments, and unexpected moments of grace. It is a book filled with beauty, vulnerability, and courage - both in the characters and in the writing. "Heart the Lover" utilizes masterful prose, deftly drawn characters, and real conflicts to invite the reader to connect. I highly recommend you read this novel.

This was such a strong book. The character Jordan is such a well developed character and you see her grow and experience so much from college and her relationships with Sam and Yash into her adult years. This was an emotional novel that touched on relationships, personal growth and identity and ambition. This is really a great literary fiction book and Lily King can write!