Every Summer After

Every Summer After is the debut novel from Canadian book-editor-turned-author Carley Fortune and I simply loved it.

This perfect-for-summer story centres around Sam and Percy (aka Persephone) who meet at the tender age of 13 when their families own cottages next to each other. Over the course of six summers, readers follow their ups, downs, emotions, sweet successes, and mistakes as their relationship evolves from friends to 'more-than-friends'. But something happened between Sam and Percy 12 years ago and through flashbacks and checking in on their current situations, readers are made privy to what happened to put a wedge between these two who once seemed fated for each other.

Much of the story takes place in the past but despite the story focusing on teenagers, I would not consider this a Teen read. I think it will give a strong sense of nostalgia for those of us who spent summers at cottages (or camps as we called them on Lake Nippissing) swimming, making friendship bracelets and hanging out at campfires. 

The story is well-written and filled with authentic dialogue, humour, saucy love scenes and is a realistic portrayal of the bliss and messiness of friendship and romantic love. I also appreciate how Fortune respectfully and genuinely explored issues of anxiety and the long-term effects of loss.

This character-driven story will run readers through the emotional gauntlet. You will laugh, cry and be shocked at some of Sam and Percy's decisions, but you cannot help but root for this perfectly imperfect couple as they go from teenage friends to more-than-friends within a handful of summers in northeastern Ontario. Don't miss this sweet with a side of heat story that is a must-read while you're sunning yourself on the dock at your own cottage. Look for it today in stores!

Disclaimer: My sincere thanks to Viking Books for my complimentary copy of this book provided in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 5 stars

Author: Carley Fortune

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Canadian, Romance

Type and Source: Trade Paperback from publisher

Publisher: Viking (Penguin Random House Canada)

First Published: May 10, 2022

Book Description from GoodReads: 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 look at love and the people and choices that mark us  forever.