Heart the Lover

"Lily King is one of our great literary treasures."--Madeline Miller

From the New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers comes a magnificent and intimate new novel of love and friendship--a journey into the heart of desire, loss, and the lasting impact of first love

You knew I'd write a book about you someday.

In the fall of her senior year of college, our narrator goes on a bad date with a smart guy from her 17th Century Lit class that alters the course of her life. Sam lives off campus in a professor's house with his enigmatic best friend Yash. She is quickly seduced by their warm, elegant home, rapid-fire banter, and academic fervor. They nickname her Jordan and sweep her into their magnetic world where she discovers the pleasures of love and friendship and her own intellectual ambitions. As graduation approaches and she begins to understand where her heart lies, Jordan finds herself caught in a charged and intricate triangle.

Decades later, Jordan is a successful writer living in Maine with her husband and children, and the vulnerable days of her youth are comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, Jordan must return to a world she worked hard to leave behind, confronting the choices and deceptions of her younger self.

Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, literature, and the transformative nature of forgiveness. Vivid, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers, King's latest reaffirms her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.