Heart The Lover

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2026 AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Touching, thoughtful, a deeply affecting love story about time and regret' DAVID NICHOLLS 'Steeped in yearning, melancholy and the reckoning with mortality that must come to us all . . . King's writing still pierces you' The Times 'Exploring how first love shapes a lifetime, here is a novel of piercing clarity' Independent 'Beautifully written . . . I was hooked from the first page' Daily Mail Our narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules. She was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love. Decades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth. Review: Touching, thoughtful, a deeply affecting love story about time and regret -- DAVID NICHOLLS Lily King is an exceptionally good writer . . . vivid, moving and witty. . . King's novel got me straight in the heart * * Guardian * * The novel is steeped in yearning, melancholy and the reckoning with mortality that must come to us all . . . It can also be very funny . . . it's a celebration of fiction and how writing can help us to work through tumultuous feelings . . . even as she lets us see how she pulls the strings and evokes our response, King's writing still pierces you * * The Times * * A triangle charged with secrecy, longing, uncertainty . . . Exploring how first love shapes a lifetime, here is a novel of piercing clarity * * Independent * * King is a master of sexual tension, of the slow build, of gratification torturously delayed. In this respect, Heart the Lover is her best work yet . . . The long-delayed revelations, like the tears, come fast and hot * * New York Times * * Beautifully written . . . I was hooked from the first page * * Daily Mail * * One of the sharpest observers of love, relationships and the human condition writing today . . . an accessibly erudite three-act tale of paths not taken and loves misaligned. Equal parts witty, wise and full-box-of-tissues heartbreaking, Heart the Lover is hands down one of the emotionally uplifting stories you'll read this year * * Marie Claire * * King's language is pared back, her sentences uncluttered, but the novel is studded with nuance . . . a gratifying portrait of a young woman learning to take her writing seriously . . . this is a gorgeous, hopeful, life-affirming novel * * Literary Review * * Indescribably good. It is incredible that Lily has managed to tell such an epic love story in just 250 pages, and I emerged feeling ruined for all other books. I adored these characters and feel lucky to have known them. I'm in awe. A perfect literary love story -- FLORENCE KNAPP A tender, devastating exploration of first love, betrayal and the fateful choices we make at pivotal moments in our lives . . . With lyrical prose and emotional depth, Lily King delivers a beautiful tale of love's enduring imprint that lingers long after the final page * * Woman * * Prizes: Short-listed for Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 (UK) and The British Book Awards - Fiction Book of the Year 2026 (UK). Author Biography: Lily King is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Euphoria and Writers & Lovers, and the story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Maine Book Award for Fiction, a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Award. She lives in Portland, Maine.