Heart The Lover, Bondi Literary Salon Book Club

Join the Bondi Literary Salon for our March book club, hosted by Evelyn Levisohn! In our gathering, we will discuss Lily King's latest viral novel, Heart The Lover.

WHEN: Tuesday, 17th March 2026, at Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore; please arrive at 6.45pm for a prompt 7pm start.

TICKETS: Admission: $25.00 (excluding external fees). Your ticket includes a drink on arrival and nibbles during the evening.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers comes a magnificent and intimate new novel of desire, friendship, loss, and the lasting impact of first love.

The Book:

Our narrator understands good love stories - their secrets, their highs and free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the rules.

She was in her senior year of college when star students Sam and Yash swept her into an intoxicating world of academic fervour, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. Their lives became quickly intertwined - with friendship but also with unpredictable passions and the intimations of first love.

Decades later, she is a successful writer, living a comfortable life with her husband and children, when a surprise visit brings the past crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decisions and deceptions of her youth.

Written with the precision of poetry and the emotional tide of an epic, Heart the Lover is a celebration of literature and the life-long echoes of young love. This is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.

The Author:

Lily King is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Euphoria and Writers & Lovers, and the story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her work has won numerous prizes and awards, including the Kirkus Prize, the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Maine Book Award for Fiction, a MacDowell Fellowship and a Whiting Award. She lives in Portland, Maine.

The Host:

Evelyn Levisohn loved creative writing and reading from a young age, despite not doing very well in high school English. Her early influences included Harry Potter & the Redwall series, then as a moody teen she spent a lot of time with Anne Rice’s vampires and in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Evelyn developed a love for Hunter S Thompson, Hemingway, and Kerouac, then at age nineteen she moved to London and in a dusty second hand bookshop in Finsbury Park discovered the diaries of Anais Nin and the work of Henry James. It was around then that journaling became a big part of her life, and she even started a book review blog back in 2008, for which the subheading was "Red-haired bibliophile of little eloquence rants feverishly about her recent reads". Throughout her twenties in London, she was never without a book, and attended many signings, Booker Prize readings, and author events.

Evelyn moved back to Sydney in 2013 and promptly had kids, going on a reading hiatus for around 8 years until last year when she picked up a copy of Fourth Wing and couldn't put it down. Nowadays she lives in North Bondi with her husband and three boys, works for an EdTech company and is a volunteer Ethics teacher at her kids' school. Somehow despite all this, she now makes the time to read books.

"Lily King has written another masterpiece. This book overflows with her brilliance and her heart. We are so lucky."—Emma Straub, bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

About The Bondi Literary Salon

Bondi Literary Salon was established in 2018, it is the in-house book club of beloved Bondi institution, Gertrude & Alice. The Bondi Literary Salon endeavours to explore the vast world of literature each month, with a selection that reflects a focus on diverse writers and stories; delving into both classic and contemporary fiction, as well as non-fiction. 

Our philosophy has always been to use language and literature not only as a tool for connection and community, but as an insight into worlds we have not had the pleasure of visiting ourselves. We welcome all - young and old, those with a life-long love of literature, or whose relationship may be only beginning. Join us in the unmatched comfort of an after-hours bookstore, accompanied by wine and cheese, for an evening spent discussing books and building community.

About Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore:

Rated as one of the top 10 bookstores in the world by National Geographic, Gertrude & Alice Cafe Bookstore is an oasis for writers, readers, and coffee lovers. Books overflow from the shelves of their store, featuring a mix of new, second-hand, antiquarian and rare books. Stay a while & enjoy some home made chai, and amazing coffee, and unearth a book treasure or two. Read more about the bookstore's story here, and about the real Gertrude & Alice here.