If you love stories of first love, missed opportunities, second chances, and redemption with an atmospheric summer setting, this one is sure to please.
Title: Every Summer After by Carley Fortune
Category: Adult Fiction, 320 pages
Genre: Women's Fiction, Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Berkley
Release date: May 10, 2022
Content rating: R for explicit sex scenes and language
Book Description:
"A radiant debut."—Emily Henry,#1 New York Times bestselling author of People We Meet on Vacation
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 —PopSugar
Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.
Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.
For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually, that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.
When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.
Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.
My Review:
Reviewed by Laura Fabiani
It's been a while since I read a coming-of-age story that was so emotional, nostalgic, and full of love angst. Every Summer After is a great beach read. I read it in the sun, sitting on my porch, with summer just around the corner and it made me long for hot summer days. The summer cottage setting had me reminiscing of summer days spent at rented summer cottages next to Quebec lakes.
Percy Fraser finally returns to Barry's Bay where she used to spend her teenage summers at the cottage by the lake next door to Sam and his brother Charlie. Sam and Percy had been best friends; they grew up together, swimming and frolicking in the lake, watching scary movies, and sharing each other's dreams. They ended up falling in love, but eventually, distance, school, and life insecurities got the better of them. More devastating, though, was that Percy makes a life-altering mistake that keeps her away from Sam for twelve long years.
The story is told from Percy's point of view and it alternates between her teen years at the summer cottage and her life in the present at age 30. This is well done as the stories from the past meet up to finally merge with the present and help us to understand the emotional baggage both Percy and Sam carry. Stories of first love, missed opportunities, second chances and redemption always appeal to me. I had a hard time putting this book down. I was so caught up in their story!
Percy was a great character because we saw her through her own narrative as she grew up, experiencing true friendship, the first flush of love, accomplishing her swimming feats, discovering her writing talent, and navigating her insecurities. She was relatable. I have to admit my heart ached for Sam and Percy for their missed years together. One mistake can cost years of pain.
It's hard to believe this is Fortune's debut novel. The book's pacing was spot on without any dull moments, and she succeeds in creating believable and memorable characters. Regarding content, there are a few explicit sex scenes and some f-bombs. These happened three quarters into the book when I was heavily invested in the book.
If you like small-town coming-of-age stories set during hot summer days with a good romance story, you won't want to miss this one.
Disclosure: Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me this book for review. I was not compensated in any other way, nor told how to rate or review this product.
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About the Author:
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| Photo: © Jenna Marie Wakani |
Carley Fortune is an award-winning Canadian journalist who’s worked as an editor for Refinery29, The Globe and Mail, Chatelaine, and Toronto Life. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two sons. Every Summer After is her first novel. Connect with her: https://www.carleyfortune.com/
