Fiction | Book Chatter

Heart the Lover
By Lily King
Grove Press, September 30, 2025, 256 pp.

The Short of It:

Lovely and poignant.

The Rest of It:

In the fall of her senior year of college, a young woman meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games.

This is the type of story you tuck in with as it gently unfolds in beautiful little bits. I LOVED this story.

The narrator of the story is young Jordan. Not her real name, more on this later. She meets these two amazing men, both best friends to each other. Has a romantic relationship with one, and then the other, a deeper more personal friendship but is it really something more?

These three romp around the university, talking literature and live in the fancy house of a professor on sabbatical. None seem particularly well-to-do but they have plans to be successful. Where they end up? Not all that important to them.

These characters share their innermost thoughts in a quiet contemplative way. The tone that King sets up is very similar in feel to the movie The Big Chill. Close friends, lovers, intimate secrets. The plot follows them into adulthood. They are presented with challenges and doubts which threaten to break them apart. Jordan’s true identity is not immediately revealed until she figures out who she really is.

Lily King, well done. Highly recommend.

Comes out September 30, 2025.

Source: Review copy sent to me by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Havoc
By Christopher Bollen
Harper, December 2024, 256 pp.

The Short of It:

Quirky. Fun. Batshit Crazy.

The Rest of It:

Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this threadbare luxury hotel on the banks of the Nile. ~ the publisher

A luxury hotel on the banks of the Nile? Yes, please. Except, the Royal Karnak is dusty and threadbare and coming out of a pandemic shutdown. It has lost its luster, but for Maggie, recently widowed, she considers the staff her family, and the hotel, her home. It still possesses all the charm she needs, and the people within it are an added bonus.

Except, Maggie isn’t all that she seems. Older, yes, sweet, certainly can be, but she has a nose for trouble and has no problem sticking it into people’s business if she sees a reason to do so. Here, I will tread carefully so as to not give anything away.

If she sees a married couple whom she suspects is not happy, Maggie to the rescue. Inquisitive children seen with a single parent? What’s the story there? Where is the father? She befriends these folks as a service of sorts, whether it’s welcomed or not but this gets her into trouble.

As endearing as she is to the hotel staff, and loyal too, she is carefully warned by her beloved hotel manager, that she is 80 and should be living a life of peace and calm. Not running around in the ungodly heat. She takes these warnings lightly and does what she sees fit to do.

I can’t go into more without giving the story away. This is definitely a wild, crazy read and the title is fitting. HAVOC is what you will experience while reading this one. It’s very well done, in my opinion, but I’d put the book down and say to myself, “Phew, that is outright crazy” and then pick it right back up again.

The characters are very well drawn. My book club chose this book for discussion this month and at first I wasn’t sure there would be enough to discuss but oh boy, there’s plenty. There are two main characters in this book and both are off kilter which makes it a wild, fun read.

Highly recommend.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

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