Part I of Lily King's three-part novel begins in college, when our narrator meets two “smart guys” in class. They sit together up front, but they turn around to take note of the person who has turned in her essay on neon-orange paper: “The professor doesn’t read it as much as perform it. He gives it far more life and humor than I imagined it had.”

Sam is the first to ask her out. He lives in a grand, formal house with the other smart guy, Yash. They are caretaking for Professor Gastrell while he is on sabbatical. She is intrigued and impressed, and very attracted to Sam. It’s here in this fancy den of striped furniture and racks of pipes that she acquires the name they call her forever, and the only name the reader knows (until the last page). 

“‘She’s not Daisy Buchanan, she’s Jordan Baker,’ Yash says, then bends an ear towards me. ‘Does your voice sound like money?

‘No. It sounds like someone who gave up her golf scholarship.’”

"If you crave a book that will transport you to another world and play your heartstrings like a lute, then I highly recommend you pick up HEART THE LOVER."

Sam and Jordan have some difficulty with conversation, but not with sex. Sam is religious, Jordan is not, and she finds it much easier to talk and hang with Yash. Soon she is spending way more time at their place than she does in her dorm. But as the school year winds down and Sam prepares to graduate, their relationship sours. Jordan turns towards Yash and becomes aware of deeper feelings for him (aka the hots). She decides to stay for another semester because Yash is planning to do so as well. During the summer, he phones her at her job. (He’s gone home for the summer, and this is the pre-cell phone ’90s.)

“I clench my eyes shut. ‘Yes, there’s a couch. We have a couch. It’s yours.’

He asks if tomorrow is too soon and I say it’s great. Then I say I have to go because my very stoned boss is glaring at me.

‘I wasn’t glaring,’ Michael says after I hang up. ‘I just thought I might have to go get my defibrillator for you.’”

After a whirlwind post-graduation stint in Paris together with Yash, the first part of HEART THE LOVER ends with a heartbreaking surprise and a years-long break in communication with Jordan’s college friends. 

Parts II and III take place decades later. Jordan is happily married to Silas and living in Maine with her two sons, Jack and Harry. She has achieved her goal of becoming an author. Yash comes to visit. (Part II is told in the second-person point of view, directed not at the reader, but at Yash.) “On our way to the house, you stop at your rental and pull your bag out of the back. It’s the green duffel you brought to Paris. Now it’s come to Maine. The sight of it is jarring. I wish you would put if back in the car.” That visit is brief, but in the coming years there are many difficult choices to face as serious illness descends on the ones whom Jordan loves. 

Lily King’s style is somewhat spare, presenting vivid details and leaving us to draw our own conclusions. In Part I, I was especially drawn in by the relatable, realistic and often funny presentation of college life in the 1990s. The portrayal of Jordan and Yash’s love effectively lays the groundwork for the stakes in the rest of the novel. If you crave a book that will transport you to another world and play your heartstrings like a lute, then I highly recommend you pick up HEART THE LOVER.