Heart the Lover cover art

Heart the Lover

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About this listen

“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 Heartfelt Tear-jerking
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What a beautiful story and so eloquently written. I want to read everything Lily writes

My heart is shattered

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It was a bit long winded in places but enjoyed it overall. It might lead on to another?

Good story

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A stunning book with a second half that keeos you hooked until the very last page. Heart the Lover takes you right back to your college days, I felt like I was in the room with these characters. A detailed love story like no other I have read.
The writing is superb.

Heart The Lover

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I loved every second and just wish there had been more of them. So good.

Made me CRY in the best way

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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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