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Casey Peabody, a vulnerable, young writer who lives in a potting shed in Boston, pays her bills by waitressing and walking her landlord's dog, but refuses to give up her dream of being a published author one day. She’s reeling from a sudden death of her mother and a breakup with Luke, a fellow writer she met at the artist residency. Casey’s romantic life gets even more complicated when she’s torn between Oscar, an older, famous novelist, widower and father of two boys, and Silas, one of Oscar’s students. Lily King masterfully layers Casey’s hardship with money, loss of her mother, fallout with her father, her own medical scares, her unfailing artistic ambition and tangled love life. At the end, the future looks bright for Casey, and I realized that the book I’m holding is a palpable result of her grief, her sharp insight, and ultimately triumph and happiness. --Aggie
— From This is Why I Read - Aggie’s Monthly Picks
“Casey lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, waits tables, worries about her debt, and falls for the wrong man and the right one. She dreams, she grieves, and she worries about her health. In spite of it all, she manages to finish her novel. Lily King’s assured, closely observed story is a loving portrait of Casey and the writing life. I don’t think there’s a single unnecessary word in the whole thing. Writers & Lovers is a joy to read, a gift from a writer at the top of her game.”
— David Enyeart, Next Chapter Booksellers, St. Paul, MN
#ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today
Emma Roberts Belletrist Book Club Pick
A New York Times Book Review's Group Text Selection
"I loved this book not just from the first chapter or the first page but from the first paragraph... The voice is just so honest and riveting and insightful about creativity and life." --Curtis Sittenfeld
An extraordinary new novel of art, love, and ambition from Lily King, the New York Times bestselling author of Euphoria
Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with another instant New York Times bestseller: an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.
Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.
Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.