A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Harper’s Baazar, USA TODAY, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Kirkus Review, BookPage, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, PEN America, Chicago Public Library
“Lily King has written another masterpiece. This book overflows with her brilliance and her heart. We are so lucky.” —Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow
What lingers in the quiet moments between love, loss, and everything in between?
In Heart the Lover by Lily King, everyday lives are transformed into deeply moving explorations of human connection. Through a series of intimate and finely crafted stories, King captures the emotional undercurrents that shape relationships—romantic, familial, and personal.
Set across varied landscapes and moments in time, each story introduces characters navigating longing, desire, regret, and hope. From fleeting encounters to long-standing bonds, the narratives reveal how even the smallest decisions can ripple into profound consequences.
But beneath these quiet stories lies a deeper tension: the struggle to understand oneself while trying to connect with others. Miscommunication, vulnerability, and unspoken truths create emotional friction, leaving characters at crossroads where choices are never simple.
As the collection unfolds, moments of clarity emerge—brief, fragile, and often bittersweet. Readers are invited to sit with these characters as they confront what it means to love, to lose, and to keep going.
Elegant, introspective, and emotionally resonant, this collection offers a powerful reminder: sometimes the most meaningful stories are found in the spaces we rarely speak about.
About this book
320Pages
7 - 8Hours to read
99kTotal words
Review
Praise for Heart the Lover
Instant New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize Shortlisted for the Indies Choice Book Awards
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Harper’s Baazar, NPR, Vogue, Oprah Daily, People Magazine, USA TODAYLiterary Hub, Electric Literature, Kirkus Review, BookPage, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, PEN America, Chicago Public Library
#1 Indie Next Pick #1 Library Reads Pick A Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Read This Next Pick Zadie Smith’s Elle.com Shelf Life pick for “the book that made me weep uncontrollably”
“Even I, who married my college sweetheart more than 40 happy years ago, read Lily King’s new novel about what might have been in a state of blubbery longing . . . Heart The Lover is nostalgia distilled in black ink . . . King captures [her protagonist’s] guileless sense of awe with just a dusting of parody that never grows silly or bitter . . . And what’s particularly remarkable is how subtly King ages her narrator, preserving the kernel of that young woman’s openhearted urgency in the older woman’s complex voice . . . Only Lily King could tell a story so steeped in sorrow and so filled with hope.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post
“King is a master of sexual tension, of the slow build, of gratification tortuously delayed. In this respect, Heart the Lover is her best work yet.”—Lauren Christensen, New York Times Book Review
“Might be her best book yet . . . It stands as one of the most emotionally devastating and soulfully wise novels I have ever read . . . Like all of King’s fiction, Heart The Lover is literary without pretension, emotional without maudlin sentimentality . . . heartrending, swoonily romantic, rigorously clear-sighted.”—Priscilla Gilman, Boston Globe
“The latest masterpiece from the author of Writers & Lovers and Euphoria captures all the fevered obsession of 20-something romance—plus the deeper satisfaction of watching characters evolve beyond youthful hang-ups into fully realized adulthood.”—Oprah Daily
“Achingly, gloriously sincere. You could say to a fault, except it’s clearly intentional. These are young people who want to fall into big feelings but also wonder if they can handle them at the same time.”—Chicago Tribune
“[T]his affecting novel…questions whether a person can inhabit any moment other than the present.”—New Yorker
“Suffused with the heady impermanence of first love, King’s sixth novel is bittersweet, astutely observed, and thoroughly engaging.”—People
“To read Lily King is to love her.”—Harper’s Baazar, “The 10 Best Books of 2025”
About the Author
Lily King is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels—Heart the Lover, Writers & Lovers, Euphoria, Father of the Rain, The English Teacher, and The Pleasing Hour—as well as the story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award, the Maine Book Award, and a Whiting Award; has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Women’s Prize, and the Story Prize; and has been longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages. She lives in Portland, Maine.
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