Lily King | 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.

Euphoria
By Lily King
(Atlantic Monthly Press, Hardcover, 9780802122551, June 2014, 368pp.)

The Short of It:

A somewhat entertaining romp through New Guinea that happens to include a love triangle!

The Rest of It:

I had no idea that this book was loosely based on Margaret Mead’s life until I was a few chapters in. Lately, I find myself going into a book blind so I can avoid everyone’s opinions on it but I think in this case I would have read a little more closely had I known about Mead being a basis for the story.

Regardless, I found the book to be quite entertaining.

Bankson, a scientist, fails miserably at killing himself so when he encounters Nell and her husband Fen, also scientists he finds himself slightly obsessed with Nell even though she is obviously married to Fen and promises to find them a tribe to study. Mostly, this is due to his need to keep her around and not so much out of scientific curiosity. Nell is fiercely independent and somewhat aware of Bankson’s attraction to her so there is quite a bit of sexual tension throughout the book. Oddly enough, Fen enjoys having Bankson around as a distraction because Fen and Nell definitely have their moments.

Anthropologically speaking, I think the book needed a little more adventure and a little less romantic tension but that’s just me. I know Mead’s work and attitude toward sex is what shaped the sexual revolution of the 60’s but the book read more like a novel to me than historical fiction. I suppose I wanted a bit more of the history of things.

It was an enjoyable read and well-written but it felt a tad unbalanced to me. Have you read it? What did you think of it?

Source: Sent to me by the publisher via Net Galley.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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