Herz König

Reading and conversation

She studies literature and understands how great love stories work: secrets, highs, lows. Yet the greatest love story of her own life unfolds differently, following no rules.

In her final year of university, the narrator meets Sam and Yash, two exceptionally talented students from her seminar on seventeenth-century literature. Both live in the house of a professor away on leave, reading, debating, playing cards, speaking quickly and thinking even faster. They give her the nickname Jordan and draw her into a world of books, ambition, and wit. What begins as friendship evolves into an intricate web of love, desire, and dangerous attraction. What initially seems like the start of a free adult life becomes an experience whose consequences only become apparent much later.

With "Herz König", Lily King presents a novel about first love, friendship, and the lasting impact of early decisions. It is also a book about literature itself: about reading as seduction, about language as play, about conversations in which an entire life seems to open up. King tells this story with the precision she is known for: without grand claims, with an ear for nuance, for self-deception, for the humour and vulnerability of human beings.

Lily King was born in 1963, grew up in Massachusetts, and now lives in Maine. Her work has been widely acclaimed. Her novels include "Euphoria" and "Father of the Rain".