Tag: Carley Fortune

This Chick Read: One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune

When Alice was seventeen she spent a summer at the lake with her Nan. It’s where she took a photo of three teenagers in a yellow sailboat. A photo that changed the trajectory of her life. Now, a photographer, Alice is struggling to find that magic she felt when she first started taking photos. She has a successful career making her clients happy, but she is searching for that happiness for herself. When her Nan needs to recover from hip surgery, Alice decides to take them back to that cottage on the lake hoping that they’ll both find that magic that will put them back on track. What she doesn’t count on is Charlie Florak.

When she and Charlie meet there’s an instant connection, but deciding to be just friends, they fill their days in each others company. He’s one of the teenagers in the sailboat, still flirtatious and charming, but there’s something holding him back from the feelings that are growing between he and Alice.

I relish a great Summer beach read novel and Carley Fortune delivers every year when I’m jonesing for a vacation when I can spend time immersing myself in a delicious setting, and complicated characters that make you want to root for them. One Golden Summer captures that feeling so well. Alice’s journey to find herself while capturing the love for photography while having a summer “friendship” with Charlie was easy breezy reading. It made me feel warm with happiness while at the same time tense with nervous anxiety. Just as with any good romance, there is a hiccup to happiness that they must overcome. I’ll admit I shed a few tears reading this novel but that’s a sign of a strong connection to the characters. I was hooked and stayed up until late in the early morning hours to finish this novel because I just couldn’t put it down. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* One Golden Summer

Copyright 2025 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

The first time Lucy met Felix, she was grabbing a bite to eat alone while waiting for her friend to arrive on their island vacation. She spent an amazing night with Felix and the next morning put the pieces together that he was her friends brother, Wolf. Each year when she escapes to the island, she vows to stay away from Felix and every year ends up in his bed. Despite their intense connection, Lucy always kept her heart out of it until the week before her best friends wedding, when Bridget asks her to come out to the island.

Carley Fortune writes wonderfully emotional beach-centric novels. Or lake-centric, but the local always involves sand, water, and great seafood. Those things certainly set that laissez faire mood which I think is required for a great beach read. This Summer Will Be Different felt, well, different, more intense and kind of frustrating.

Lucy, our heroine, is dealing with the trauma of losing her aunt and trying to make a go of the flower store her aunt left her. She is also harboring the secret of a years-long vacation relationship with her best friends brother. Felix, or Wolf, is on the island going about his life but you just know that he’s living for those moments with Lucy that are few and far between. This novel had boat-loads of conflict to work through and despite my impatience to get to that final conclusion, it was done really well and my turbulent feelings were worth the experience. But it was exhausting, truly. I needed a vacation after reading my vacation book!

Every year I look forward to Carley Fortune’s newest book release and this year is no different. There were so many great moments in this book (the chemistry! the great best friend relationship!) but there was something holding me back from an all in five star rating. I liked it a lot, but I’ve liked other books by this author more. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* This Summer Will Be Different

Copyright 2024 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: Meet Me At the Lake by Carley Fortune

Fern’s life is not what or where she thought it would be, back where she grew up, running her mother’s lakefront resort. Her dreams of opening up her own coffee shop left behind in Toronto, along with her memories of a 24 hours she spent with Will Baxter. A 24 hours that had changed her life. Both of them young, and the timing wrong, they spend a day exploring Toronto together and agree to meet one year later at her mother’s resort. A meeting that does not end up happening until 9 years later. Will shows up at her door offering her the help she desperately needs, to fix this failing resort that her mother had loved so much.

After having read her debut novel, Every Summer After, I knew that if Carley Fortune kept writing I would keep reading her books. Her style of writing is deep, emotional, yet also has a lightness that reflects the settings that she keeps choosing- the lake. In this novel, Fern’s life has imploded with her mother’s death and her being left the resort to run. A resort that is failing and needs a new life, one that Fern isn’t sure she has to give. Until Will shows up. This 9 years older Will is much different than the artist that she fell in love with long ago. He now wears suits and runs a company, and seems to have given up his own dreams. Despite these differences their feelings for each other still lie beneath the surface waiting to be explored.

Meet Me At the Lake is one of those sneaky novels that has layers of emotions that are revealed slowly one chapter at a time. Sometimes I feel impatient when reading a slow moving novel but Carley Fortune sets a smooth pace that feels exactly right, each emotion and particular about a character revealed when it should for the utmost impact. Fern and Will’s reconnection built slowly towards that moment when they gave in to these feelings, but giving in didn’t solve all of their problems and the story didn’t end. I loved that! There were more reveals awaiting the reader and more emotions to be explored.

I’m reading this book in March but it definitely has that vacation beach vibe feel. It is the perfect novel to read when you can occasionally glance up to check the view of the ocean (or lake!) in front of you and then delve back into these fantastic characters who were meant to be together. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I was given a copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* Meet Me At the Lake

Copyright 2023 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

Persephone Fraser spent six idyllic summers on the lake at Barry Bay with her next door neighbors Sam and Charlie. Percy was the same age as Sam and as two awkward 13 year olds they formed an immediate bond and friendship. As the years passed their friendship changed but only spending the summers together they each had nine months living their “normal” lives before they were together again. Percy was a horror movie lover and want-to-be writer while Sam wanted to be a doctor after seeing his father pass away at a young age. Despite all obstacles and differences the two of them knew they had each other until one summer when Percy made a life-changing decision that severed their relationship. It’s now 12 years later and Sam’s mom has died of cancer and Percy decides to go to the funeral and face the past, and the boy she once desperately loved.

Every Summer After is the debut novel by Carley Fortune and wow does this novel pack an emotional punch! I am so impressed with the intricacies of the plot and how this author wove flashbacks to their childhood with current time holding the reader captive and in suspense. You know from the synopsis that something huge will happen, and she keeps the reader on the edge of their seat waiting for that explanation. It’s been awhile since I was so captivated by a story that I stayed up reading way past the time I should’ve put the book down. I just had to finish it in one night. Despite my lack of sleep and having to get up and go to work, I am not disappointed in my decision at all.

I loved both Sam and Percy. Meeting as 13 year olds, Percy had just gone through a difficult year at school being cast out of her group of friends and kind of floundering. Sam immediately became the person she could rely on the most. Even when she went back to Toronto, school, and making up with her clique of friends, no one took Sam’s new place in her heart. Sam was an old soul. Having his dad die not only changed the trajectory of his life but also made him super responsible. This sense of responsibility and seriousness drew Percy in but also contributed to their separation. I can’t talk about the characters in this book without mentioning Charlie. He’s Sam’s older brother by two years and is the complete opposite of Sam. He’s a charmer with the ladies, and is the character with one liners who always lightens the mood. Although he’s also Sam’s brother and causes a bit of conflict by association. I loved all three of them!

As I stated before, you know that something happens and since it’s been twelve years since Percy has seen Sam and the story is told through flashbacks, you have to wait awhile to find out what and why. Carley Fortune does a great job of building that relationship up so that the reader is completely invested and wants to see that happily-ever-after that we know is waiting for us on the last page. In this book, I’m not really bothered by the wait because the characters keep me vastly entertained.

This book is coming out just in time for summer vacation and is the PERFECT beach book. My hope is that someone else will read this book, or has read it so that I have someone to talk to about it. So please, put it on your TBR’s, it’s an easy bet that you’ll like this story. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

Click this link to purchase this book!* Every Summer After

Copyright 2022 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

*Amazon Associate- if you purchase this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads