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Hearts and Bones
First love. Lasting loss. A lifetime shaped in between.
Maya is a freshman in 1989 when she meets Peter, a vulnerable boy with a secret behind his smile. Their romance begins in the thrill of independence but soon collides with the realities of mental illness, betrayal, and the fragility of youth. Years later, as a third-year medical student, Maya is haunted by memories of that love—and the choices she made along the way.
Navigating the weight of her mother’s decline, the demands of medicine, and the lingering echoes of Peter’s unraveling, Maya faces a reckoning with her own complicated past. But amid the heartbreak are glimmers of connection, forgiveness, and the quiet hope of a new beginning.
Spanning nearly a decade, Hearts and Bones is a poignant tale of love, loss, and becoming. It's a story about how the people we love never really leave us and how the choices we make in our formative years reverberate throughout our lives.
Maya is a freshman in 1989 when she meets Peter, a vulnerable boy with a secret behind his smile. Their romance begins in the thrill of independence but soon collides with the realities of mental illness, betrayal, and the fragility of youth. Years later, as a third-year medical student, Maya is haunted by memories of that love—and the choices she made along the way.
Navigating the weight of her mother’s decline, the demands of medicine, and the lingering echoes of Peter’s unraveling, Maya faces a reckoning with her own complicated past. But amid the heartbreak are glimmers of connection, forgiveness, and the quiet hope of a new beginning.
Spanning nearly a decade, Hearts and Bones is a poignant tale of love, loss, and becoming. It's a story about how the people we love never really leave us and how the choices we make in our formative years reverberate throughout our lives.
- GenresFiction
316 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 13, 2026
3 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 17, 2026
Thank you Netgalley and Atmosphere Press for the ARC of Hearts and Bones.
A dual timeline narrative is one of my favourite ways to read a book. it adds so much depth to a character.
In saying that the 8 year timeline difference didn’t seems like enough but still effective on portraying heartache.
I didn't love how Bi-polar disorder was portrayed in the novel. Only really talked about a manic phase, when there are many more highs and lows before manic phase
A 3 star read
A dual timeline narrative is one of my favourite ways to read a book. it adds so much depth to a character.
In saying that the 8 year timeline difference didn’t seems like enough but still effective on portraying heartache.
I didn't love how Bi-polar disorder was portrayed in the novel. Only really talked about a manic phase, when there are many more highs and lows before manic phase
A 3 star read
November 24, 2025
Gosh, this one tugs on the heartstrings! It’s such an impressive debut.
Lawrence has created such rich characters that I truly felt for them and had to see what their futures held. I read with urgency, the story pulling me along, even when I feared what the next page would reveal.
Mental illness is tackled with such care and compassion for all involved, with love and pain delivered in true-to-life doses.
I’ll be recommending this one loudly and often.
Lawrence has created such rich characters that I truly felt for them and had to see what their futures held. I read with urgency, the story pulling me along, even when I feared what the next page would reveal.
Mental illness is tackled with such care and compassion for all involved, with love and pain delivered in true-to-life doses.
I’ll be recommending this one loudly and often.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Hearts and Bones by Lawrence D. Bub is a dual-timeline contemporary novel that follows Maya through two defining stretches of her life: her first year of college where she experiences first love with Peter, and then a jump roughly ten years later as she navigates her mother’s Alzheimer’s and the realities of end-of-life care. It’s a deeply human story about love in its different forms—romantic love, family love, and the complicated love that shows up when you’re caring for someone who is slipping away.
What stood out most for me was how compassionate this book is. Bub writes with huge knowledge and understanding of mental illness and Alzheimer’s, and he handles both subjects with respect and emotional truth. Nothing feels sensationalized. Instead, it feels like the author is trying to honestly show what these experiences can look like from the inside.
Peter’s storyline is heartbreaking. His struggle with serious mental illness is portrayed with empathy and depth, and it genuinely hurts to watch what he goes through—especially as someone’s “first love,” when everything is already so intense and new. Bub doesn’t flatten Peter into a stereotype. He feels like a full person, and that makes his pain (and Maya’s confusion and love) land hard.
The Alzheimer’s/caregiving sections are also extremely strong. Bub captures the emotional fatigue, the small practical details, and the grief that can start long before someone is physically gone. It’s written with tenderness and realism, and it’s the kind of portrayal that will resonate with many readers.
A note for readers: This is an emotionally heavy book. While I found it meaningful and well-written, there were moments where I wasn’t sure I personally wanted to revisit these parts of life—first love, and later caregiving and loss. Readers may want to choose their timing based on headspace.
Overall, Hearts and Bones is thoughtful, moving, and memorable—especially for readers who appreciate character-driven fiction with emotional realism and compassionate handling of tough topics.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. All opinions are my own.
What stood out most for me was how compassionate this book is. Bub writes with huge knowledge and understanding of mental illness and Alzheimer’s, and he handles both subjects with respect and emotional truth. Nothing feels sensationalized. Instead, it feels like the author is trying to honestly show what these experiences can look like from the inside.
Peter’s storyline is heartbreaking. His struggle with serious mental illness is portrayed with empathy and depth, and it genuinely hurts to watch what he goes through—especially as someone’s “first love,” when everything is already so intense and new. Bub doesn’t flatten Peter into a stereotype. He feels like a full person, and that makes his pain (and Maya’s confusion and love) land hard.
The Alzheimer’s/caregiving sections are also extremely strong. Bub captures the emotional fatigue, the small practical details, and the grief that can start long before someone is physically gone. It’s written with tenderness and realism, and it’s the kind of portrayal that will resonate with many readers.
A note for readers: This is an emotionally heavy book. While I found it meaningful and well-written, there were moments where I wasn’t sure I personally wanted to revisit these parts of life—first love, and later caregiving and loss. Readers may want to choose their timing based on headspace.
Overall, Hearts and Bones is thoughtful, moving, and memorable—especially for readers who appreciate character-driven fiction with emotional realism and compassionate handling of tough topics.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. All opinions are my own.
January 18, 2026
This was a difficult book for me to move through. I struggled to connect with the main character, feeling that we looked out at the world from fundamentally different places. The short, clipped sentences and the impulse to explain rather than let the story breathe often pulled me out of the narrative.
What stayed with me most, though, was my unease with the novel’s portrayal of mental illness. The characters sometimes felt shaped more by their diagnoses than by their inner lives, and Peter’s story carried a sense of inevitability that was hard to accept. As someone who loves a person with bipolar disorder, this framing was painful to read. Bipolar disorder is not a death sentence, yet the novel seemed to drift toward that conclusion in ways that unsettled me.
And still, I kept reading. There is a quiet gravity to the story, a pull that makes you want to see how everything settles. In the end, I’m left with mixed feelings. While this book didn’t resonate with me personally, I can see how it may feel poignant and meaningful to others.
Miigwech to Netgalley and Atmosphere Press for the ARC.
What stayed with me most, though, was my unease with the novel’s portrayal of mental illness. The characters sometimes felt shaped more by their diagnoses than by their inner lives, and Peter’s story carried a sense of inevitability that was hard to accept. As someone who loves a person with bipolar disorder, this framing was painful to read. Bipolar disorder is not a death sentence, yet the novel seemed to drift toward that conclusion in ways that unsettled me.
And still, I kept reading. There is a quiet gravity to the story, a pull that makes you want to see how everything settles. In the end, I’m left with mixed feelings. While this book didn’t resonate with me personally, I can see how it may feel poignant and meaningful to others.
Miigwech to Netgalley and Atmosphere Press for the ARC.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A heartfelt and solidly awarded 5 stars, without hesitation.
The recommendation to write what you know is a good one. Author Lawrence Bub uses his background as a Harvard undergrad and later medical student to bring life and realism to the roles of Maya and Peter, the book's two main characters in this dual-timeline novel. I found the realism of Peter's mental illness and Barbara's decline both refreshing and touching. The struggles of these two characters were tenderly drawn to make the pain of the family real for the reader. Grief and loss are difficult subjects to explore in youthful characters, especially in ways that acknowledge the difficulty of such circumstances and honor the accompanying confusion often felt in the aftermath of complicated relationships. The power of love and time to heal is gently folded into the events of the story, with hope sprinkled throughout.
A truly lovely work that I am grateful to have had to opportunity to review in advance, thanks to the author, Atmosphere Press and NetGalley.
The recommendation to write what you know is a good one. Author Lawrence Bub uses his background as a Harvard undergrad and later medical student to bring life and realism to the roles of Maya and Peter, the book's two main characters in this dual-timeline novel. I found the realism of Peter's mental illness and Barbara's decline both refreshing and touching. The struggles of these two characters were tenderly drawn to make the pain of the family real for the reader. Grief and loss are difficult subjects to explore in youthful characters, especially in ways that acknowledge the difficulty of such circumstances and honor the accompanying confusion often felt in the aftermath of complicated relationships. The power of love and time to heal is gently folded into the events of the story, with hope sprinkled throughout.
A truly lovely work that I am grateful to have had to opportunity to review in advance, thanks to the author, Atmosphere Press and NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I cruised through Hearts and Bones in just over a week. The novel flows easily as it takes the reader from the main character's college years at Harvard in 1989, to adulthood in 1997. As a 54 year old, who has spent time in both Cambridge and Colorado, the details of the book from music references, place references, book references and even descriptions of the weather, fashion and architecture brought me vividly back to my youth (Lean Cuisine and “Oriental” Ramen). The writing speaks to the time, before cell phones, when relationships, conversations and friendships played differently. It was easy to feel connected to the characters and the trials and tribulations of love, sex, family, friendships and career which all start to carry greater weight and evaluation through the college years. Hearts and Bones is the type of book that you just want to chill by the fire, relaxing, reading, and transporting to that time in life where you are just starting to understand yourself in those special coming of age years. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read that I highly recommend.
January 12, 2026
Thank you Atmosphere Press and NetGalley for this ARC, out January 13th.
Hearts and Bones reads very much like a memoir, giving the story an intimate, almost confessional tone. It follows Maya, first as a college student who meets Peter - a relationship shaped by a deeply held secret - and later as a doctor facing the emotional weight of her mother’s progressing dementia. The dual timeline is handled thoughtfully, with past and present quietly informing each other rather than competing for attention.
This is a touching and reflective story about survival, mental health, and the long-lasting impact of unresolved trauma. What stands out most is how Lawrence D. Bub explores not only mental illness itself, but also how it affects the people around those who are struggling - the loved ones who care, support, and sometimes feel lost alongside them. The writing is compassionate, emotionally grounded, and deeply human.
A quietly powerful read that lingers long after the final page.
Hearts and Bones reads very much like a memoir, giving the story an intimate, almost confessional tone. It follows Maya, first as a college student who meets Peter - a relationship shaped by a deeply held secret - and later as a doctor facing the emotional weight of her mother’s progressing dementia. The dual timeline is handled thoughtfully, with past and present quietly informing each other rather than competing for attention.
This is a touching and reflective story about survival, mental health, and the long-lasting impact of unresolved trauma. What stands out most is how Lawrence D. Bub explores not only mental illness itself, but also how it affects the people around those who are struggling - the loved ones who care, support, and sometimes feel lost alongside them. The writing is compassionate, emotionally grounded, and deeply human.
A quietly powerful read that lingers long after the final page.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers and author for an advanced copy of Hearts and Bones by Lawrence D. Bub.
The story revolves around Maya and Peter, 2 college freshman. They deal with ordinary teen drama, drinking, love, breakups and makeups. They also deal with Peter’s mental illness, which is written wonderfully. This story was both captivating and heartbreaking. Peter was such a sweet and gentle soul. His story absolutely devastated me. Maya was not as likable, she made some terrible and hurtful choices but she was only 19. She was really too young to cope with Peter’s illness along with all the other stresses in her life.
I do wish we got to see more of Peter after college, not just Maya. I did have hopes for a different ending.
Beautiful debut novel by the author. This story will stay with me for some time.
4.25⭐️
The story revolves around Maya and Peter, 2 college freshman. They deal with ordinary teen drama, drinking, love, breakups and makeups. They also deal with Peter’s mental illness, which is written wonderfully. This story was both captivating and heartbreaking. Peter was such a sweet and gentle soul. His story absolutely devastated me. Maya was not as likable, she made some terrible and hurtful choices but she was only 19. She was really too young to cope with Peter’s illness along with all the other stresses in her life.
I do wish we got to see more of Peter after college, not just Maya. I did have hopes for a different ending.
Beautiful debut novel by the author. This story will stay with me for some time.
4.25⭐️
Review of advance copy received from Author
Hearts and Bones is an earnest and vulnerable love story between two college freshmen, one that alters both characters in lasting ways. The narrative moves between two time periods, allowing Maya and Peter the chance to look back on that early love through the lens of a decade’s distance. Bub lets the story unfold quietly, weaving in an exploration of mental illness, friendship, family, grief, and longing. In the end, it is a story of love and loss—and the ways they are often inseparable. I finished the book feeling a gentle pull toward my own past, and was reminded that true love is both beautiful and painful. This special book lives in my heart now and I find myself missing the characters now that I’m done.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book. I was hooked from the very first page. Heart and Bones is a tender, character-driven story that explores love, loss, and the quiet ways people carry their grief. The author’s use of metaphor throughout the novel creates vivid, almost lyrical imagery, making the emotions feel deeply felt and intimate.
I really loved the writing style; it is gentle and thoughtful, allowing the story to unfold naturally while still packing an emotional punch. This was a beautiful yet heartbreaking read that stayed with me long after I finished the final page.
I really loved the writing style; it is gentle and thoughtful, allowing the story to unfold naturally while still packing an emotional punch. This was a beautiful yet heartbreaking read that stayed with me long after I finished the final page.
November 20, 2025
Hearts and Bones is the first book I've read in a long time that kept me awake past my bedtime! The story was engaging from the very beginning. I cared about the characters and wanted to know what would happen next. Nothing in the story felt cliche or expected, even though it centered around very universal themes of love, loss, regret, and betrayal. Bub is gifted at portraying the complexities of human feeling and behavior, telling a story that was both relatable and original at the same time. It's hard to believe this is his first novel. Highly recommend!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Possible spoilers.
I have very mixed feelings towards Maya.
Looking at her in her older years, I had sympathy as she dealt with what life was throwing at her.
Looking at her younger self, I couldn't help but judge her decisions, and her. I kept reminding myself how young she was.
As if that justified everything.
Non of this is helped by how loveable and charming Peter is, and how he might well break your heart .
A wonderful read, that I think some of the characters will stay with me a while.
Thanks to netgalley for the free digital copy.
I have very mixed feelings towards Maya.
Looking at her in her older years, I had sympathy as she dealt with what life was throwing at her.
Looking at her younger self, I couldn't help but judge her decisions, and her. I kept reminding myself how young she was.
As if that justified everything.
Non of this is helped by how loveable and charming Peter is, and how he might well break your heart .
A wonderful read, that I think some of the characters will stay with me a while.
Thanks to netgalley for the free digital copy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 16, 2026
This is a book not to be missed. It's a fascinating novel of the relationships of university students, their joyful and emotional development amidst the community of Harvard and Cambridge Mass. The book is unputdownable at the end of each chapter. We've bookmarked the author's name for (hopefully) future novels
Philip Hart
Philip Hart
Review of advance copy received from Author
I got an advanced copy of this book a few weeks ago and decided to start it on the plane… never did I expect to finish it in one sitting! So good!! Equally sweet as it is heartbreaking. Reminds me of Normal People by Sally Rooney. A beautiful coming-of-age story, totally worth a read.
January 17, 2026
A beautiful yet heartbreaking story of young love and mental health. Maya and Peter are freshmen in college when they meet. But in time Maya will be faced with desire for another as well as Peters unsettling mental health challenges. The highs and lows will shape each of them for years to come. I enjoyed this book and found it to be a very fast read yet timely in discussing how the battle of bi polar disease not only affects the person with the diagnosis but everyone in that person life as well.
January 17, 2026
After reading mostly fantasy and mythology books, it was a refreshing break to read some general fiction. I enjoyed the duel timelines, even if it was a little confusing at times. The characters felt real and believable with well written dialogue.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews