Borrowed in Brooklyn

BPL · Book · 2025

Heart the lover

Lily King

"You knew I'd write a book about you someday." Our narrator understands good love stories-their secrets and subtext, their highs and their free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules. In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. Youthful passion is unpredictable though, and she soon finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever. Decades later, Jordan is living the life she dreamed of, and the vulnerable days of her youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, she returns to a world she left behind and is forced to confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self. Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, friendship, and the transformative nature of forgiveness. Wise, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers,

Demand pressureDemand pressure: composite score across the 12 tracked branches — rewards low availability, branches all out, recent drops, and (when exposed) public hold counts. Higher = harder to get borough-wide.
990
Available
0/51
Branches all out
11/11
Public holdsPublic holds: BPL exposes 'people waiting' at the bib (record) level — one number per work for the entire 60+ branch BPL system, NOT just the 12 tracked branches. We capture the number when it's there. 'Not exposed' means BPL didn't expose it on this scrape — we never substitute zero for missing data.
not exposed
Public holds: not exposedPublic holds: BPL exposes 'people waiting' at the bib (record) level — one number per work for the entire 60+ branch BPL system, NOT just the 12 tracked branches. We capture the number when it's there. 'Not exposed' means BPL didn't expose it on this scrape — we never substitute zero for missing data.

ISBN 9780802165176

NYT Bestseller

Hardcover Fiction

Last appeared Feb 28, 2026
Weeks on list
2 weeks
Peak rank
#12
reached Jan 17, 2026
Last rank
#14
Feb 28, 2026

Source: NYT Best Sellers. List membership is national, not Brooklyn-specific.

Current availability across the 12 tracked branches

BranchAvailableTotalHolds
Bay Ridge042
Bedford031
Brooklyn Heights074
Bushwick063
Coney Island041
Crown Heights052
Flatbush042
Greenpoint074
Kings Highway052
Sunset Park020
Williamsburgh042
How we measure popularity →

7-day movement

04-2904-3005-01105-0205-0305-0405-05

Recent movement