Heart the Lover

Heart the Lover (2025) is a campus novel by American author Lily King. It is a companion novel to one of King’s previous novels, as it follows the same protagonist before and after the events of Writers and Lovers (2020); however, it can be read as a standalone book. The story, set at a Southern university in the late 1980s, follows a young female writer who becomes involved in a love triangle with two brilliant and charismatic English majors, Yash Thakkar and Sam Gallagher. Spanning several decades, the narrative traces their intense, literature-fueled relationships and the life-altering consequences of their youthful choices. The novel explores themes such as The Interplay of Intellectual and Physical Intimacy, Storytelling as a Means of Reclaiming the Past, and The Tension Between Personal Desire and External Expectation.

Lily King is the award-winning author of several acclaimed novels, including Euphoria (2014), which won the Kirkus Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other novels, Five Tuesdays in Winter (2021), Father of the Rain (2010), The English Teacher (2005), and The Pleasing Hour (2000), have been widely well-reviewed and topped numerous best-seller lists. King often writes about the complexities of love, grief, and the creative process, themes that are central to Heart the Lover.

This guide refers to the 2025 Grove Press edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain depictions of or references to sexual content, suicidal ideation, illness or death, graphic violence, rape, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

The story begins during the narrator’s senior year of college when her humorous essay in a 17th-century literature class catches the attention of two classmates, the serious, scholarly Sam Gallagher and the witty Yash Thakkar. Sam begins walking her to class, and they soon go on a date. Afterward, he takes her to the off-campus house he is housesitting for their professor, Dr. Gastrell. The house, which they call the Breach House, is also home to Yash, who arrives and breaks the awkward tension between the narrator and Sam with a funny story. After Yash goes upstairs, Sam kisses the narrator, beginning their relationship.

The narrator, who earns the college nickname “Jordan” after Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby (1925), starts spending more time at the Breach House. Her relationship with Sam becomes physical, but they abstain from intercourse due to his devout Baptist faith and his guilt over a past sexual encounter with his ex-girlfriend, Valerie. Jordan becomes part of a close-knit group with Sam, Yash, and their friend, another intense English major. They often play a card game in which the King of Hearts is called “Heart the Lover.” During this time, Jordan and Yash form a private bond when they discover a shared connection to Cyra, a fellow student who was recently murdered.

Jordan’s relationship with Sam is damaged after a disastrous visit to his religious parents in Atlanta, where her humor and behavior are perceived as impertinent. A furious argument on the drive back culminates in them having sex for the first time, after which Sam immediately tells her to leave. He apologizes 11 days later with a note signed “Heart the Lover,” and they reconcile, but the relationship is strained. At a senior dance, Sam gets angry when Jordan tries to stop him from smoking cigarettes, and he knocks her to the ground during their struggle. She walks away, ending their relationship for good.

Jordan skips graduation and works summer jobs, where she befriends a coworker. She receives a final, cruel note from Sam quoting Yash’s father, who said, “Jordan sounds like the kind of girl you divorce” (59). She burns it. Before Yash leaves for the summer, Jordan slides a copy of a short story under his door. Soon after, Yash calls from his hometown, saying he cannot find work and wants to return. He asks to stay on her couch, and she agrees.

When Yash arrives, their friendship deepens into romance during their first evening together. On her porch, he reveals he noticed her in class before Sam did and admits he helped Sam write the “Heart the Lover” note. He gives her a book, Knut Hamsun’s Hunger (1890), and then kisses her, confessing he has wanted to for a long time. They sleep together, and Jordan realizes she is in love with him. They spend the summer together, hiding their relationship from friends. When Sam visits before the fall semester, Yash’s attempt to tell him about them goes badly; Sam vehemently asserts he shouldn’t be involved with Jordan. After Sam leaves, Yash and Jordan reunite, deciding to continue their relationship without mentioning it to Sam.

During her final semester, Jordan and Yash take a seminar together, and their intellectual and emotional connection flourishes. The owner of the restaurant where Jordan works, Madame Trèves, offers her a job in Paris as an au pair for her niece, Léa. Yash encourages her to go, promising to join her after he graduates as he has one semester left. Jordan skips her own graduation and travels with Yash to his hometown of Knoxville for Christmas, where she meets his family and friends. In January, she leaves for Paris.

Jordan lives in Paris, maintaining a long-distance relationship with Yash through letters and expensive phone calls. He arrives in August, and they spend an idyllic month together. Léa’s boyfriend offers Yash a job in Paris, which he initially accepts. However, after a phone call with his father, Yash abruptly changes his mind, deciding instead to return to the US, save money, and move to New York to pursue his writing career. He promises to meet Jordan there in January.

Jordan stays in Paris, saves money, and arranges for an apartment, but when she flies from Paris to meet him, he never arrives. She calls his father’s house and speaks to his stepmother, Paige, who informs her that Yash is not coming. He has gone to Atlanta to be with Sam. Devastated, Jordan takes a taxi to her college friend Carson’s apartment, where it is revealed that she is visibly pregnant.

Twenty-one years later, Yash visits Jordan at her home in Maine. She is now a published author, married to a teacher named Silas, and has two young sons, Harry and Jack. A flashback reveals that after Yash abandoned her, Jordan went to her mother’s home, gave birth to a daughter she privately calls Daisy, and gave her up for adoption. Yash connects easily with her sons, and during a family card game, his memory of the rules reveals their past intimacy. The next morning, Yash leaves, giving her his copy of a novel with a handwritten passage about regret tucked inside. She has not told him about their daughter.

Seven years after his visit, Jordan’s son Jack, now 12, is suffering from brain cancer and awaiting a high-risk surgery. Jordan receives a text from Sam and flies to Atlanta, where Yash is in the hospital dying from his own cancer. The room is filled with friends and family. Sam has been sleeping on a cot in the room every night, having saved Yash’s life by bringing him to the hospital. During rounds, the doctor mistakes Jordan for Yash’s wife. Meanwhile, Jordan is confused to find that everyone in Yash’s life thinks that Jordan left Yash and broke his heart rather than the other way around. That evening, Yash suffers a panic attack, and Sam asks Jordan to sing to him, which calms him.

The next day, Jordan and Yash argue about their breakup. As he defends his actions, she tells him the truth, that she was five months pregnant when he abandoned her. The revelation shatters Yash, and his condition immediately worsens. Soon after, Jordan learns that Jack’s surgery has been scheduled for the following Wednesday in Houston. Before she leaves, Sam apologizes for his behavior in college and reveals that Yash supported him through a depression in which he experienced suicidal ideation after their friend died.

Jordan returns to the hospital early Sunday morning to say a final goodbye. Yash asks her to tell him everything. She recounts the story of their daughter’s birth and adoption. He weeps but tells her that knowing makes dying easier. He soon falls unconscious. Jordan says a final goodbye and leaves for the airport. On the flight to Houston, she receives a text from Sam: “Yash died.” At the Houston airport, she is momentarily paralyzed by grief until she sees Silas waiting for her at the bottom of an escalator. He holds her as she breaks down, but she feels a new sense of hope that her son Jack will be okay. Silas calls her by her real name, Casey, pulling her back into her present life.