Heart The Lover – Lily King

READ FOR WOMEN’S PRIZE

In her final year of college, Jordan is drawn into the orbit of brilliant students Sam and Yash. What begins as friendship develops into a complicated relationship between the three, shaped by intellectual rivalry, attraction and secrets whose significance only becomes clear with time. Decades later, an unexpected encounter prompts Jordan to look back at those formative years and reconsider what really happened between them.

What I am saying, these decisions we make in youth are everything. You have no idea. Those feelings, they don’t revenir. Pas comme ça. And no one tells you.’ She points to the pages of Yash’s letter on the bed. ‘Do not put this love second. Marry him. Marry him and have your babies. It doesn’t matter what happens after that.’ I say I’m only twenty-three and she says, ‘Screw the calendar. What does a calendar know about love?

RACHEL
●  Heart the Lover is a book of two parts. Initially we meet Jordan at College, where she becomes entangled with fellow students Sam and Yash and there are a lot of complicated feelings, followed by a lot of complicated actions in response to those feelings. The tone is angst-ridden, with emotional young adults throwing their heaving hearts about and despairing over everything left, right and centre. It was all a bit melodramatic for me, although I thought King constructed her characters well and revealed the story in a way that kept drawing me in. I also acknowledge she does a pretty good job of capturing just how intensely young people can feel everything. It’s just not something I’m particularly fond of reading about.

I enjoyed the second part more. Jordan is now in midlife, and a successful writer with a loving family, when someone from her past resurfaces and brings that earlier emotional upheaval back to the fore. This time, though, we have the level-headed lens of middle age through which to examine it. I found this part far more realistic, and the prose compelling enough that I genuinely wanted to know what had happened.

By the end, King ties up all the threads. Not in a neat romantic or happily-ever-after way, thankfully, but we do get answers to the accumulated questions and mysteries. I found some of the revelations unbelievable, which was disappointing, although at least they were consistent with the melodrama in the rest of the book.

Published 2025
Grove Press
256 pages