This interview was originally published on Audible.com.
Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly
Margaret Hargrove: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible Editor Margaret Hargrove, and today I'm excited to be speaking with bestselling author Carley Fortune about her latest work, This Summer Will Be Different. Welcome, Carley.
Carley Fortune: Hi.
MH: I'm so glad you're here. I'm a huge fan of your stories. I've listened to all three of your novels and I really loved the premise of This Summer Will Be Different. Set on Prince Edward Island off the coast of Nova Scotia, Lucy has a vacation fling with island native Felix, only to discover that he's the brother of her best friend, Bridget, who would definitely not approve of their relationship. What was your inspiration for this story?
CF: I traveled to Prince Edward Island with my best friend many years ago. We were in our early 20s and it was the first time that we traveled together, and I not only fell in love with Prince Edward Island but I fell in love more with my best friend too. We had the best time together. We ate the most amazing food. PEI is so beautiful. There are red cliffs and the beaches. The people are genuinely the nicest people in the world. And I had this romantic notion of Prince Edward Island from Anne of Green Gables, which I loved growing up, and it just exceeded every one of my expectations. And so when I started writing fiction, I had in the back of my head that I wanted to set a book there, and when I was coming up with ideas for This Summer Will Be Different, genuinely, the idea was only “Prince Edward Island girls' trip.”
MH: So that's one thing about your novels that make them so enjoyable are the settings. Like you said, this time you're whisking us away to Prince Edward Island, which serves as a really beautiful backdrop for Lucy and Felix's secret hookups and Lucy's journey of self-discovery. Prince Edward Island almost feels like a character in the story. For example, there's this really great scene at the oyster shucking festival, and you've written it so vividly I feel as if I'm really there. So, you mentioned that you went there with your best friend, but did you go back to Prince Edward Island during the writing of the book? Do you revisit as you're writing?
CF: I did go back as I was writing the book, and I'm so glad you felt like you were there and that you found the island to be a character, because I really wanted that experience for the reader. I really wanted you to be able to like feel the wind on your face and taste the oysters, so I'm so happy you said that. I traveled to Prince Edward Island twice more when I was writing the book. Once with my husband and then once with my whole family, my kids—I have two young boys—and my parents, and we were out there in a vacation home for a week.
"I really wanted you to be able to like feel the wind on your face and taste the oysters."
But when I went with Meredith all those years ago, I attended the Tyne Valley National Oyster Shucking Championship, and it really stuck with me. But then I watched more recent versions of the competition on Facebook—the videos are posted to Facebook—so it's a real event. It's a big event in the oyster shucking community.
MH: Your other two novels are also set in real places. Every Summer After in Barry's Bay, and Meet Me at the Lake in Muskoka, which are two small lakeside communities in Ontario. Are those also places you had visited as a child or had a personal experience with?
CF: Yeah, so Barry's Bay, the setting for Every Summer After, is where I grew up. I was born in Toronto and my parents had a cottage on the lake in Barry's Bay, and we actually left Toronto, we left Canada, for several years when I was younger. I lived in Australia, my dad is Australian, and when we came back to Canada, my parents decided not to live in Toronto, but to relocate back up to the lake. So that's where I lived from fourth grade until the end of high school. And it's a very small community, 1,200 people, and we weren't in town, we were on the water. So it was down this dirt road in the bush, very isolated and on the lake. And most of the residences on our road were cottages, so people who would come up in the summer for their vacations. And that is the experience I wanted to write about with Every Summer After.
And then Muskoka, which is this kind of big lake area north of Toronto, very populated. It's where Cindy Crawford has a cottage. It's a lot glitzier than Barry's Bay. It's our most famous cottaging region, and a character in Every Summer After takes a bit of a stab at Muskoka. And so I felt like when I was setting my second book, I was like, "You know what? I should do the good people of Muskoka a solid and set the book there." But also because I really wanted to write about an old-school, Dirty Dancing-style resort, which really did exist in Muskoka. They were built kind of turn of the century. It's where Clark Gable vacationed back in the day. And so when I was dreaming of Brookbanks Resort, it just felt natural to put it there.
MH: I actually just rewatched Dirty Dancing on a plane a few weeks ago. I hadn't seen it in a few years and, I don't know, I feel like as I'm older, I'm like, "Ah, this movie was so much better than I even remember it being."
CF: Oh, yeah. I should rewatch it. It's so delightful, but also good and deep and emotional, and, oh, yeah, it's just such a terrific, terrific movie.
MH: So, I feel like you have a little bit of a journalistic spin on how you are creating your storylines, and I know you worked as a journalist for 16 years before becoming an author. Does your former career help inform your storytelling in any way? Are there any overlaps?
CF: I think so. The more time I spend writing, the more I see the overlap. I think some of the issues that I really cared about as a journalist and as an editor were issues pertaining to women and our relationships to ourselves, to our mental health, to our finances, our career, and I see those things that I tackled in a different way. As an editor, I would assign somebody to a story, but I see those interests coming into my work, for sure.
And then, certainly, I approach research with a journalist's eye. I was a little bit nervous about setting a book in Prince Edward Island because I'm not from there and I didn't want to get it wrong, so I was visiting again, I was doing my fact-checking calls, I had an islander read it for me because it was very important for me to get it right.
MH: What made you decide to change careers and start writing novels?
CF: Well, I wrote my first book while I was still working as a journalist. It was in the summer of 2020 when I started. I started because I had always had this dream of writing a book, and I never thought I would get around to it, and I was very frustrated in my career. My job was becoming very challenging, and so I decided to kind of take back my creativity. Since high school, everything I had done had been for a school or an employer, and I wanted to do something for myself, and that's why I wrote Every Summer After. I didn't even intend on publishing it, and it was just important to me to show myself that I could do it.
MH: Well, we are certainly glad that you did. Another signature characteristic of your novels is the dual timeline, which really helps us to get to know and fall in love with your characters and their love story. In This Summer Will Be Different you alternate between present and flashbacks to the five summers Lucy and Felix hook up whenever she visited PEI. Can you talk to me about how you came to that structural decision for your stories?
CF: Yeah, I love now-and-then timelines. It made sense with Every Summer After. I really wanted to write a story that was about young people, teenagers, children. Their characters meet when they're 13, I believe, so they're kids. And I wanted to write about what it's like to be a teenager, but for an adult audience, and so the now-and-then timelines really worked for that. And then I just liked playing with time, and Meet Me at the Lake has that too, except the past timeline is just 24 hours. So, playing with time is fun for me, and I liked that difference.
"I really liked writing about a relationship between an aunt and a niece because I think those connections are really, really important, and not necessarily relationships we see that much on the page."
And with This Summer Will Be Different, the past sections were only meant to be little bits of these vacations Lucy took, and they ended up being more like chapters. They are several chapters, because I find when I get into backstory, I just love digging in, and so there's more of those past summers, and they help you really get a sense of the journeys the characters are on, which is something that I love exploring. And This Summer Will Be Different is very much a story of Lucy coming of age in her 20s, and we get to see her through those past moments really find herself as an adult, not just in romantic relationships, but in her friendships and with work and even in her self-confidence, and I like being able to do that.
That said, the book I'm working on, it has no past timeline. It is all one timeline, just a straight, chronological story, and that has been delightful to work on. It turns out it's much simpler [laughs].
MH: Well, do you plot out your timelines or are you more of a “pantser,” where it just comes together naturally?
CF: Naturally. After many, many, many drafts. I can't plot it out. I would get so bored. For me, there's so much fun in the discovery. When you're writing and something just pops into your head and it feels like magic, truly, and I love that. I did do a bit more planning in terms of who the characters are and what the tension of the story would be with the book I'm working on now, because I think we went to eight drafts with This Summer Will Be Different, and we're like, "That's too many drafts."
MH: So, mentioning your new book you're working on, could you tell us what fantastic setting we’ll be in? Spoiler alert.
CF: No, I can't tell you. I'm still very tight-lipped about it. But I can say that it is a romance. I can guarantee people will love the setting, and it will be out in 2025.
MH: Okay, great. Something to look forward to. So, AJ Bridel has narrated all three of your novels. How did you first come to work with her for Every Summer After?
CF: We recorded the audiobook for Every Summer After here in Toronto, where I live. There's so many talented voice actors in Toronto, I've learned, and we did an audition. My publisher did an audition, and I heard, I believe it was five actors read for the part of Percy and the narrator. It's Percy's narration, but you have to do all these other character voices in that narration, and it wasn't until that moment—I love audiobooks—but it wasn't till that moment where I realized what a performance it truly is to narrate an audiobook. And AJ's voice was, as soon as I heard it, I said, "That's Percy." I didn't have an idea for how Percy sounded. I didn't have an actor who I pictured when I wrote, but when I heard AJ's voice, it was it. I didn't want anyone else to do it. And so when it worked with her schedule, I was so relieved. And then we've just loved her so much that I’ve fortunately been able to get her to do Meet Me at the Lake and This Summer Will Be Different as well.
MH: So now that she's become your go-to narrator, do you hear AJ's voice as you're writing?
CF: No. Oh, my goodness. No, I haven't. That would be so funny. I listened to the audiobook of Every Summer After because I was so curious, I wanted to hear it, but I have not listened to the Meet Me at the Lake audiobook because I have my own voice is in it and I don't want to hear myself. But I was listening to The Dutch House audiobook recently while I was working on my fourth book, which Tom Hanks narrates, and as I was working on my book, all I heard was it in Tom Hanks’s voice [laughs]. And I was like, "This book is excellent. Or is it just that Tom Hanks is reading it in my mind that it sounds so wonderful?"
MH: Yeah. A great narrator can make a story really come to life.
CF: Absolutely.
MH: So, how would you describe your relationship with AJ? Do you talk about the narration before she records?
CF: Yeah, before Meet Me at the Lake, she had asked for some guidance. You know, how is Fern different from Percy? What's kind of the overall tone? Just so as she was reading she could have that in mind. And we did the same with This Summer Will Be Different, and it was just very simple. Like, Fern was pricklier than Percy, someone who was very guarded. And then with Lucy, she’s cheery and an optimist. And just to have, I think, that kind of very simple instruction, it was helpful for her. And then she asked if she could message me while they were recording if anything came up, and nothing came up. She doesn't even need to ask me ahead of time. She's such a pro.
MH: Has anything surprised you? I know you said you've only listened to Every Summer After, but anything surprising about her narration, like hearing your work in audio?
CF: Oh, it's pretty incredible, honestly. As you said, it really does bring it to life, and I love her voice. I just much prefer hearing her read my work than I do myself. I had a message from a friend, actually, this morning. She started listening to the Meet Me at the Lake audiobook, and she was like, "Your narrator is amazing," and I hear that a lot, and I agree.
MH: Second-chance romance is a major theme in your work. This Summer Will Be Different has a second-chance vibe, but with a twist of forbidden love. So what draws you to the second-chance romance trope?
CF: I'm trying to decide if I think it's a second-chance romance or not, or if they like never get their chance, or if it's like a five-chance romance [laughs]. I don't know, but I think what I love about second-chance is that the characters have a history, and that is certainly true for Lucy and Felix. You're kind of seeing their history come together, and I just feel like there's so much drama in that, and I find myself, as a reader, when I'm reading a good second-chance romance, there's just inherent tension with characters who have history. And I love that. It feels real, too, because I think there are people that come into our lives that really touch us and shape us, and you see it all the time, when people are getting together with people from their past, and I love it. I just love it.
MH: Lucy and Felix's love story is, of course, central to This Summer Will Be Different, but the friendship between Lucy and Bridget is just as important to this story. Can you talk a little bit about how found family plays a role in This Summer Will Be Different?
CF: Yeah. I think it plays a role in a few ways. Certainly Lucy, she felt like she never quite fit into her family, and she also didn't really have a group of friends in high school or in university who were quite right for her. And it wasn't until she met Bridget, they were working together, that it was like, "Ah, this is my person," and she really hung on tight. She hangs on tight to Bridget. Bridget is confident, where Lucy isn't. Bridget is organized, where Lucy isn't. And they have so much fun together. And so Lucy, who leaves home to live in Toronto, her family there is Bridget. But it's also her aunt. She has an aunt who lives in Toronto who she feels very, very close to. And Bridget, her Aunt Stacey, and Lucy form a family together, because Bridget's family is back in Prince Edward Island. And I just love that. I think family has so many definitions.
"I could not write a book set on Prince Edward Island without it paying so much tribute to Anne."
I really liked writing about a relationship between an aunt and a niece because I think those connections are really, really important, and not necessarily relationships we see that much on the page, at least not in my experience. And I know from my own family that there's a lot of similarities. My aunt's passed away now, but there was a lot of similarities between my aunt and myself, and in my house, my boys really look up to my brother. Like, Uncle Ben is a superstar in our household, and I wanted to honor that relationship between nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles. I think it's very special.
MH: I found it really interesting that Lucy and Bridget are enamored with Anne of Green Gables, and you've already mentioned that you are as well. There are so many Anne of Green Gables references in This Summer Will Be Different. Just curious, why is that? Were you interested in drawing parallels between their friendship and the book?
CF: Well, the number one reason is because Anne of Green Gables is set on Prince Edward Island, and if you visit Prince Edward Island, so much tourism is constructed around the legacy of L.M. Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables. There’s museums, there are shops, souvenirs. And so there's a lot of things PEI is known for tourism, but I would say number one is Anne of Green Gables, and people come from all around the world to visit PEI because of Anne.
And also I loved the book growing up, but I particularly loved the 1980s movies starring Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie. I think there is no greater influence on me and my work than those movies, and when I visited Prince Edward Island with my friend, it was like I could see them everywhere. And so for me, I could not write a book set on Prince Edward Island without it paying so much tribute to Anne. Certainly, friendship is a big theme of that book, but it's also so well-known for this very chaste romance, and [I wanted to] set a contemporary, kind of steamy romance in a place that is known for such a sweet, tender one [laughs].
MH: Audible recently did a re-recording of Anne of Green Gables. I'm not sure if you've heard it.
CF: I haven't heard it.
MH: With Catherine O'Hara and Sandra Oh.
CF: Yes. Yes, and Megan Follows, who played Anne in those movies I was talking about, directed it.
MH: Oh, great connection. Cool. So, your novels are known as quintessential beach listens, and I know you say you love audios, but what do you enjoy listening to when you're on vacation?
CF: Ooh, I love listening to memoir on audiobooks, or nonfiction, because I love hearing the person who wrote the book read the book. I feel like that adds so much depth to the narration. One of the books that I love, and I need to relisten to it, and I love it because it's an audiobook, is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which is about creativity. And when I'm on vacation, I really like to kind of take a step back and think. I write a book a year, so I'm very busy, but when I'm on vacation, I like to kind of take a step back and take stock and think about what it is I do, and I think that book on creativity and the creative process is such a good reset for me, to just kind of take a pause and think about what a healthy relationship to making art looks like.
MH: So, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are adapting Meet Me at the Lake for Netflix. I can't even imagine what that must feel like. Just curious, how did that come about? Are there any updates about that you can share with us?
CF: I don't have any updates that I can share, really. Just that it is moving forward. I'm very, very excited about it. I heard that Archewell, which is Harry and Meghan's company, was interested, gosh, I guess last summer. And I try not to get too excited about things when it comes to selling the rights and adaptations because it's icing for me on this journey. Like, I'm here to tell stories, and if anything happens with film or TV, that is so exciting, but it's not why I'm doing what I do.
But, yes, I had heard that Tracy Ryerson, who is the head of scripted projects at Archewell, had read it and loved it, and I thought, "Okay, this is great," and that Meghan was going to read it. And I met with them when I was meeting with all the companies that were interested in acquiring rights to the project, and it was just such a wonderful meeting. I just thought Tracy and Meghan, I liked them as people very much, and I thought that they were both so smart, and their approach to storytelling was so aligned with my own, and they just felt like the exact right fit.
MH: Well, Carley, we're excited for that, and we're also very excited for This Summer Will Be Different, which is a fantastic listen. Thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed our chat. And listeners, you can get This Summer Will Be Different right now on Audible.
