During recent years there has been a seemingly endless stream of books narrated by flawed and unhappy female protagonists, usually with terribly paid, quasi-creative jobs which they hate – in publishing, for example, or at a gallery or talent agency. Over the course of these novels – notable examples include Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Lisa Taddeo’s Animal and Meg Mason’s Sorrow and Bliss – the characters, often suffering historic trauma, party with abandon, take a trip, quit their job or have an affair. Such tales can be enjoyable on their own terms, but reading about drug abuse and bad sex from a nihilistic perspective gets a little wearing.

In this context, the work of the American author Lily King has been a tonic. The narrator of her previous novel, Writers & Lovers (2020), is a 31-year-old writer named Casey who is involved in a love triangle with two other writers. She deals with grief, student debt and frustrated ambition but isn’t cruel and doesn’t make it her mission to blow up her life. In King’s telling, Casey navigates a challenging period with resilience and humour, emerging as wryly observant but also resourceful. King’s new novel, Heart the Lover, follows a college student as she accumulates student loans, develops literary ambitions and navigates a love triangle with two fellow aspiring writers, Sam and Yash. Though not overtly presented as a sequel or prequel, there are hints – the strongest very late on – that this latest book is at least related to its predecessor.

As she did in Writers & Lovers, here King tracks shifting romantic dynamics with pinpoint, at times excruciating, precision. Near the beginning of the story the narrator goes back to her date’s house. It’s awkward. A housemate walks in. The narrator, noting her date’s small smile, reflects: ‘He’s as relieved