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My second novel, The End of Romance, comes out on February 3rd, 2026 from Viking in the U.S. and on February 27th, 2026 from Verve in the U.K. You can pre-order it using the links below or, even better, from your favorite independent bookstore. Here’s what it’s about:
Sylvie Broder was taught early to embrace joy. The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who’d developed a system of thought that focused on enjoying the life they’d snatched back from Hitler, Sylvie grew up believing in the tenacious pursuit of pleasure. So, when she finds herself trapped in a suffocating, emotionally abusive marriage, no one is more unmoored than Sylvie herself. With enormous fortitude, Sylvie frees herself and turns to graduate school, determined to prove her new philosophy: Straight women will find true liberation and happiness only once romance is eradicated.
Sylvie uses her new-found freedom to enjoy men, but never to commit to one, priding herself in separating sex from tenderness. She doesn’t sleep over, certainly doesn’t cuddle, and never hooks up with a man more than once. Then she meets Robbie and Abie…and finds her philosophy sorely tested. A warm and gentle man, Robbie treats Sylvie with patience and enormous kindness, offering her the soft place to land she hasn’t had since childhood. Abie, on the other hand, is passionate and dynamic, a man who challenges Sylvie, and with whom she finds herself constantly disarmed. With both men, she feels a deep desire that looks, worryingly, a lot like love.
Cleverly constructed, delightfully funny, and beautifully written, The End of Romance is an anti-romance romance novel that charts its fallible heroine’s tumultuous journey to love and happiness with erudition and deep feeling—a story for anyone who, despite their very best efforts, has fallen in love, and wondered why.
“It is one of many delightful ironies in Lily Meyer’s gripping and incisive novel, The End of Romance, that her unforgettable heroine, Sylvie Broder, finds herself constantly untangling herself from love. It is also one of its many pleasures that you root for Sylvie at every turn, from her loveless childhood to her flight from an abusive marriage to a life of passion and intellectual pursuit…Meyer has created a woman I learned from, suffered with and, now that I’ve finished this terrific novel, miss terribly.” – Adam Ross, author of NYTBR Editor’s Choice Playworld
“Meyer so beautifully captures the cumulative effect all of our past relationships (romantic and otherwise) have on us…in The End of Romance she’s crafted an unforgettable cast of characters (including one splendid imaginary turtle). The End of Romance will be an encouraging companion to anyone who’s struggled with the question of how to be true to yourself and how to let love in.” –Katie Yee, author of Maggie
"If Grace Paley and Miranda July had a baby, the result would be Lily Meyer's The End of Romance. Hilarious, off-kilter, sparklingly special, deliciously Jewish, and disarmingly deep, this book made me feel 10% less dead inside."- Emma Copley Eisenberg, national bestselling author of Housemates
“Sylvie Broder is in the midst of a philosophy crisis. What’s a briliant young Ph.D candidate to do when her thesis — that romance must end — turns out to be at odds with her life? Lily Meyer has created a funny, relatable, and empathetic protagonist who combs the literatures of moral and feminist thought—and frequently consults her imaginary turtle friend— to confirm her theory that for a woman to thrive, her private and public lives must be bifurcated. Can the likes of Rich, Hegel, and Foucault help solve Sylvie find clarity? Perhaps not. The End of Romance is a brainy, highly original anti-romance romance that will speak to anyone who has ever wrestled with questions of love.” –Susan Coll, bestselling author of Acceptance
“An anti-romantic finds herself at odds with her own beliefs when she falls in love with not one, but two men…A less capable writer would stumble under the weight of the book’s intricate themes, but Meyer’s prose is both graceful and skillful. A charming and complex book full of intellect, humor, and—despite its title—romance.” –Kirkus
"Critic and translator Meyer’s sharp and sexy sophomore novel... chronicles a young woman’s liberation from an abusive marriage... Meyer’s writing is propulsive, and Sylvie makes for a believably complicated protagonist as she puts Robbie and Abie through the ringer while exploring her thesis and trying to recover from her marriage. This thought-provoking novel pulls off big ideas and steamy romance all at once." -Publishers Weekly