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Heart the Lover

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Heart the Lover

By: Lily King
Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman
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“You knew I’d write a book about you someday.”

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 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.

Written with the precision of poetry and the emotional tide of an epic, Heart the Lover is a celebration of literature and the life-long echoes of young love.

This is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.

©2025 Lily King (P)2025 Canongate Books Ltd
Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Emotionally Gripping Heartfelt Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Inspiring
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at the start I had to get used to the writing. It was a lot more fast paced than I normally read. one paragraph could skip a few months in just a few sentences. Which, for me, made the characters feel a bit flat. I love long character development in 600+ pages books.

but from 60% it did grow on me and it hit me with the emotional punch and I had a lovely cry at three points.

it did made me cry

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believe the hype - this is as good as everyone says. brutal but so viscerally real that I found myself searching if it was autobiography. it's razor sharp

heart rendering beautiful.

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Short, but packs a punch. A love story, told through the lens of other relationships, both in the moment and looking back, with all the hindsight and clarity that brings.

I was captivated. I was moved (yes, I shed a few tears). I was reminded of the power of love, and the beauty that comes from reaching out when that's a hard thing to do.

Compelling and moving

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Absolutely beautifully written and so sad it brought tears to my eyes. Don’t listen if your are depressed.

Beautiful and so very moving.

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It is a story to lose yourself in…. Beautifully performed and written. A Human interest tale…. Loved.

A beautiful story

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