Heart the Lover: Shortlisted For the 2026 Women's Prize For Fiction

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'Touching; thoughtful; a deeply affecting love story about time and regret' DAVID NICHOLLS'Steeped in yearning; melancholy and the reckoning with mortality that must come to us all . . . King's writing still pierces you' The Times'Exploring how first love shapes a lifetime; here is a novel of piercing clarity' Independent'Beautifully written . . . I was hooked from the first page' Daily MailOur 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 a 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.