Our best books coverage begins with fiction, featuring special guest Lily King.

On this episode of Fully Booked, Lily King joins us to discuss Heart the Lover (Grove, October 7), one of Kirkus’ Best Books of 2025. “A love triangle among young literati has a long and complicated aftermath,” Kirkus writes in a starred review of King’s latest novel—her first since instant New York Times bestseller Writers & Lovers (2020).

King is the author of six novels, including Euphoria, winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize for Fiction, and the story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter (2021). Her other honors include the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Maine Book Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Award. She lives in Portland, Maine.

Here’s a bit more from our starred review of Heart the Lover: “King’s narrator doesn’t reveal her name until the very last page, but Sam and Yash, the brainy stars of her 17th-century literature class, call her Jordan.…The boys are housesitting for a professor who’s spending a year at Oxford, living in a cozy, book-filled Victorian Jordan visits for the first time after watching The Deer Hunter at the student union on her first date with Sam. As their relationship proceeds, Jordan is practically living at the house herself, trying hard not to notice that she’s actually in love with Yash.…King is a genius at writing love stories…and her mostly sunny version of the campus novel is an enjoyable alternative to the current vogue for dark academia.…Tenderhearted readers will soak the pages of the last chapter with tears.”

King and I discuss the literary value of love stories, their importance to our culture, and what makes love triangles particularly appealing (from a storytelling standpoint). We delve into her process, and muse on the benefits of writing first drafts by hand. We talk about why she chooses to use single quotation marks instead of doubles, how she balances reading with writing, and the belief that people—and characters—are capable of change and growth.

Then fiction editor Laurie Muchnick joins us to discuss the making of this year’s best fiction books list.

LAURIE’S PICKS:

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (Hogarth)

The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (Mariner Books)

Isola by Allegra Goodman (Dial Press)

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar (Knopf)

The Slip by Lucas Schaefer (Simon & Schuster)

Flesh by David Szalay (Scribner)

The Dentist by Tim Sullivan (Atlantic Crime)

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Cardinal)

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan (Knopf)

The White Hot by Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World/Random House)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

High Hopes by Anne Abel

Space Vault by Jeremy Clift

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.