I haven’t been able to take a deep breath since I finished Every Summer After. It still has me in a chokehold. I am gutted, in a good way.
Every Summer After is Carley Fortune’s now incredibly popular debut novel, following Persephone “Percy” Fraser and Sam Florek after the two of them meet at Barry’s Bay when they were 13. Years later, now in her thirties, Percy receives a phone call from Sam’s brother Charlie telling her of their mother Sue’s passing, she returns to the lakeshore and reunites with Sam.
The two of them, clearly still having feelings for each other, try to navigate the biggest mistakes of their past and find their way back to each other. Wrapped in the summer nostalgia, you can just see two kids, best friends, falling in love with each other, and the mistakes they make growing up together are inevitable and raw.
I read my first Carley Fortune last week, since its Prime adaptation is releasing this week on June 10th. Now that I’m caught up on Every Summer After, we’ll be covering the book vs TV changes between the Barry’s Bay universe and the Prime show, so make sure to sign up for our newsletter.
This post contains a complete review and summary of Every Summer After by Carley Fortune and will contain spoilers.
Every Summer After
Description
• A breathtaking revamped cover
• Beautiful endpapers and sprayed edges that will transport you to Barry’s Bay
• A stunning foil stamped case, and…
• A new introduction from the author and an exclusive bonus chapter
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.
Tropes
- Friends to Lovers
- Second Chance
- TW Cheating
- Angst
- Slow Burn
Review
What is your favorite Carley Fortune novel?
What is your favorite Carley Fortune novel?
Overall Impressions 😊
Well, simply put, I am unwell. The whole time I was reading this book, my chest was tight, and I just had to see where Sam and Percy would end up.
Having read so many contemporary romances by now, I was keeping my expectations pretty neutral, especially since these super popular books are sometimes overhyped. This definitely thwarted all of those hesitations.
The summer nostalgia mixes with the yearning and angst, and the time jumps are placed at the correct times, so you can see how the past is influencing the present day. The baggage both of them carried for 12 years is still excruciating all this time later. You can kinda guess what happened, but it’s like a slow-moving accident, inevitable but still hurts like hell.
They met, in my opinion, too early, so they had to have a second chance. You watch these two kids grow up with no choice but to grow apart before they come back together, and you root and root for them. Their fallout is explosive because they resist it for so long.
I wasn’t able to put this down. It’s been over 48 hours, and I still can’t stop thinking about this book. This is an overwhelming 5 star for me.
Heads up: one of the tropes in this book is hard for a lot of people. More on this in the plot and characters sections below. I thought it was handled well, but I know that’s a hard line for some people, so I wanted to call it out.
Perfect For Fans Of… 🌟
Welp, after finishing Every Summer After, Carley Fortune sits up there for me with Emily Henry and Ali Hazelwood, romance authors who knock yearning out of the park. They build these sweet relationships that destroy their readers and make me ugly sob in the third act.
With the time jumps and friends to lovers, this gave major People We Meet on Vacation vibes, which I adored, but Every Summer After landed a bit higher for me because I found the characters more real and flawed in a relatable way. This made me feel exactly like Book Lovers did: two characters who are just perfect for each other and challenged by life to work through to be together.
If you like Emily Henry, Carley Fortune will be a Great hit for you.
This is such a good summer evening read, curled up on the couch during sunset with the critter bugs and the smell of warm summer nights in the air. I just couldn’t stop reading it.
It’s majorly character-driven and has a great amount of yearning and angst, AND has that big trope that is a hard line for people, cheating . I’m spoiler-blocking this in case you don’t want to know the reason for the big fallout, but keep an eye out for that.
Characters 👥
Spoiler heads-up: from here on I’m getting into the fallout which is kind of impossible to not talk about. If you’re still deciding whether to read the book, this is your spot to bail.
Persephone “Percy” Fraser might be my new favorite messy contemporary girl. I’ve been dying to have a new FMC I can ground in real life. Poppy from People We Meet on Vacation, a pretty close comparison to this book, is up there too, but Poppy gives a bit pick-me at times to me.
Percy, on the other hand, is just a girl growing up in the shadow of her best friend Delilah, who peaked sooner than her, and in the orbit of Sam Florek, the boy she loved for so long and thought he didn’t want her. When she grows up with that kind of insecurity and has internalized rejection, mostly from teenage miscommunication, it doesn’t surprise me that she did what she did with Charlie, Sam’s brother. It is easy to understand her mistake without having to condone it.
Her self-inflicted punishment, exiling herself from Sam’s life and friendship because she just can’t stand the guilt and shame she feels from it, felt very raw and real to me. I think that’s what made this book so special, the characters, their flaws and mistakes feel like they could happen just around us. I love Percy, mistakes and all. It’s unique for me to prefer an FMC to an MMC in these books, and Percy without a doubt feels authentic and real to me.
Man, I cherish Sam. Losing his dad at a young age, driven toward being a doctor, wanting to be good at life and not die young like his dad, meeting his best friend and partner at the age of 13.
I can see a young boy internalizing someone into his life so deeply that he doesn’t even realize Percy might feel taken for granted. Again, the mistakes he makes by accidentally ignoring Percy’s feelings for him, because he just has such a deep conviction in their inevitable happily ever after, feel real. I don’t love miscommunication as a trope, but this one time it feels grounded in reality.
Of course this wouldn’t be complete without talking about their relationship, and this how you do second chance. Just coming from a non-fictional perspective, I don’t foresee how two kids meeting at 13 can be together till the end without some sort of fallout. I also don’t believe it would’ve been healthy for their relationship to only know each other.
But of course, as two young adults in love, they didn’t want to separate, and when life dragged them in different directions, the fallout was explosive and they kept loving each other. How many of us have friends, or have been the friend, who broke up with their high school sweetheart because they had to go to different colleges? It’s just so true to life.
Now I want to make this clear: I’m not excusing Percy’s behavior, that’s not what this is. What she did was awful and horrible, and she knows it too, which is the whole point of her 12-year exile. She messed up big time. But I get how she got to where she is, and I see how she made that mistake through her 18-year-old goggles. And I was glad Sam and Percy were able to work through the fallout, because not many couples would’ve been able to, understandably.
This is a good time to segue to Charlie, what a sweet, misguided character. He clearly had it bad for his brother’s girlfriend. Maybe because they grew up together too, or maybe because Percy was his brother’s and he wanted what he saw as his, just going after her out of sibling rivalry. One thing I can’t wait to see is how One Golden Summer is going to unpack all of this, or at least I hope it does. I can’t wait to read about Charlie and Alice.
Plot 🗺️
I love all time tropes: time travel, interweaved timelines, and storytelling via flashback vs current time. Seeing today, figuring out why things are happening the way they are and what happened in the past that got us there, is a great reading experience that really itches that special place in my brain.
You can kind of see where the plot is going. It’s relatively easy to put it together once you start seeing the dynamics. What I didn’t expect, though, was the final twist from Sam, and it gutted me even further.
Outside of that, this is one long stretch of summer packed with nostalgia, yearning, and angst between characters who are perfect for each other.
It’s also the right length, by the way. Contemporary has this new trend of being 500 pages, and 320 is the PERFECT length for this.
It annihilated me and left me feral for more all the same.
My Favorite Quote📣
“I loved you,” he whispers.
Carley Fortune, Every Summer After
“I know,” I say.
Hurt eyes move across my face. “You broke my heart.”
“I know that, too.”
Synopsis
Who's your favorite Florek brother?
Who's your favorite Florek brother?
For time jump books I prefer chronological order of events, so this is not going to be a chapter based summary.
Percy and Sam Meet at Barry’s Bay
Percy’s family buys a cottage in Barry’s Bay when she turns 13, on the lakeshore where she ends up spending every summer after. She meets Sam Florek, who’s her age, and his older brother Charlie, who’s fifteen both boys living at the Bay full time. The three of them click fast and become inseparable.
Sam and Charlie lost their dad to a heart attack when they were little. Their mother, Sue, raises them on her own and runs the family restaurant in town, the Tavern. Sam is the steady one who wants to be a doctor, and Charlie is the older brother and the family flirt. Percy and Sam settle into an easy best-friendship, and she starts coming up for the hazy afternoons on the water and the warm summer nights at the lake.
Percy’s First Kiss
Percy’s school friend Delilah, who bullied her back in middle school before they made up, comes to visit. One night out watching fireworks from the boat, Delilah gets cold and Sam gives her his hoodie. Percy’s jealousy catches her off guard, and that’s when she realizes she has a crush on Sam.
Later that night, they play truth and dare. Delilah dares Sam to kiss Percy, and he won’t do it, which Percy takes as a rejection. Then Charlie kisses her instead. It’s her first kiss, and Sam is not happy about it. A few days later he tells her that her first kiss should have been special, and when she asks whether his first kiss was special, he admits he’s never kissed anyone.
Percy’s Writing and the Years Between Summers
When she returns to school, Percy’s English teacher takes an interest in her writing, and she leans into the work-in-progress horror short stories she’s been making up her whole life. She enters a competition and she wins. Sam supports her the entire time.
By now the lake is part of her whole year. Her family spends Thanksgiving with the Floreks, and Percy is up at the cottage for every break. One Christmas she gives Sam the board game Operation since he wants to be doctor. Sam gives her a photo of the two of them at thirteen on the dock so she can take the lake home with her.
They almost kiss, until her mom walks in.
Percy Begins Working at the Tavern
Around the time Percy turns sixteen, Delilah sets her up with her cousin Mason, a boy from Toronto. Percy starts seeing him even though her heart isn’t really in it, and she takes a job at the Tavern that summer, so she can hang out with Sam.
One night when her parents are away, Percy watches a horror movie, gets too scared to sleep at the cottage alone. She asks Sam if she can stay with him and he of course, agrees. Percy’s been telling Sam this entire time she likes someone else more than Mason. When she finally admits it’s Sam, they kiss.
The next morning Sue sits them down for a gentle talk about being safe and not rushing things while they’re so young.
But the summer is ending, and Sam wants to slow them down. He tells Percy she’s everything to him and he doesn’t want to mess this up, that he’s never even had a girlfriend and doesn’t want to rush it with college on the way.
He says they should stay friends for now. Percy is gutted. She’s sixteen and in love. But she has no choice but to agree.
Percy and Sam Finally Get Together
Percy goes back to school and starts officially dating Mason since Sam seems not be wanting to be with her. The next summer, Sam can’t hide his jealousy, especially once Mason comes up to the cottage for a week. Sam finally tells Percy he wants to be with her.
Percy holds her ground and asks him to respect her space, because she’s with Mason and can’t trust that Sam won’t change his mind again.
Eventually Percy breaks things off with Mason, and she and Sam finally get together.
Sam Leaves for College
The summer before college, Percy is afraid of the distance college will put between them. She’s headed to Toronto and Sam to Queen’s University in Kingston for pre-med, but she figures they at least have the summer.
But Sam lands a pre-med job and leaves three weeks early, and she’s crushed. Sam didn’t even tell her he applied for the internship let alone being accepted days earlier. Percy takes being left out really poorly and begins resenting Sam for moving on without her.
When he gets to school, Sam becomes distant. His calls get short, a girl keeps answering his phone, and he’s drinking and feeling like a small-town kid who doesn’t belong.
Percy becomes more and more insecure and starts calling at odd hours, what she begins referring to as “crazy girlfriend behavior”.
Eventually, Sam emails asking for a break and some boundaries so he can focus on school. He’s struggling and pulling away, and Percy is devastated.
Percy’s Makes the Biggest Mistake of Her life
While Sam is away at college, it is Charlie who pulls her out of her funk. He’s been helping Percy swim and the two of them have been hanging out. Sam and Charlie’s mother Sue frowns every time he seems them together, but Percy doesn’t put too much weight into it. But they get into an easy friendship, with Percy complaining about Sam to Charlie and him being a good listener.
The same night Sam sends the email asking to take a break, Percy goes to the drive-in with Charlie. Charlie tells her Sam doesn’t know what he has, that he’s taking her for granted.
When they get back to the house, Percy and Charlie sleep together.
It’s the biggest mistake of her life, and she knows it right away. The next morning she has her first panic attack. She screams at Charlie that it was a mistake, tells him she hates him, and starts pulling away from Sam.
The Proposal
Over the next few months, the distance between Sam and Percy grows. She doesn’t know how to tell him what she’s done, and that Thanksgiving, Sam proposes.
He tells her he doesn’t want to live without her, that he made a terrible mistake with the distance, and that he wants to marry her. They’re nineteen.
Percy is so weighed down by guilt over Charlie that she can’t tell Sam the truth, and she can’t say yes even though she is dying to do so.
She turns him down and says they need to take a break, grow up, and spend time apart.
It breaks his heart, and they don’t speak for the next twelve years.
Percy in the Present Day
Twelve years later, Percy is an editor in Toronto. She’s just gotten break-up bangs after seven months with a pretentious guy named Sebastian, and she dates plenty without ever letting anyone close, because she already had the one and lost him.
For the last decade, instead of the lakeshore of her childhood, she’s kept to a stylish apartment in the city and kept everyone at a safe distance. The only person who knows about Sam is her best friend Chantal, who she told one drunken Thanksgiving but she refuses to elaborate.
Then she gets a phone call from Charlie after not hearing from him in twelve years. He tells her their mother Sue has died, and that since Percy was so close to the family, he wants her to come. She says yes without hesitating. She texts Chantal, who freaks out because she knows exactly who Sam is, and drives back to Barry’s Bay.
Reuniting with Sam
Percy puts on a red dress and goes to the Tavern, where she finds Sam. He’s grown now, a cardiologist in his thirties, the same blue eyes and light brown hair, only older. Despite twelve years of silence, after seeing her, Sam hugs her and is beyond happy that she’s come home.
They clean up the restaurant and sit on the dock with cotton candy and ice cream, catching up. Sam moved home when Sue got cancer, after a few years in Kingston, and he’s surprised to find he actually likes being back.
Percy tells him she’s an editor, and when he’s thrilled she’s still writing, she doesn’t have the heart to admit she barely does anymore. They talk about Sue and the past and find their way back to each other a little, without touching the reason they fell apart.
Sam asks Percy back for a drink, and the two of them are clearly still pulled toward each other when a woman in an impeccable white suit walks in. Her name is Taylor, Sam’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, a prosecutor from Kingston. Percy is gutted, and drunk, and rushes home to pass out in her old bed.
The next morning Sam picks her up in his truck and takes her swimming. Percy tries to swim across the lake like she used to, gets a cramp, and Sam has to work it out of her leg. They nearly hook up before he pulls back and says it’s a mistake, because he’s still with Taylor and Percy knows it isn’t fair.
The Funeral and the Wake
Back at the Florek house, Charlie hugs Percy, and there’s an old tension between Percy and Charlie she can’t quite place. Sam tells her he and Taylor only ever dated on and off, and that he ended it for good the night before, after dropping Percy at the bar.
He hasn’t slept since Sue got sick. So the two of them put on a horror movie, the thing that was always theirs, and Sam admits he’s been buying horror movies for years and never watching them without her. He falls asleep on the couch, the first real sleep he’s had in ages.
On the morning of the funeral, Sam breaks down. His dad died young, he’d hoped he would take after Sue, and now he’s terrified he’ll die young too.
Percy comforts him, and they hook up in his truck.
At the funeral, Taylor sits with the family and holds Sam’s hand while Percy watches from the side, and Sam and Charlie give their eulogies.
At the wake, with everyone grieving, Percy is sure Sam belongs with someone put-together like Taylor, not with the basket case she thinks she is. While she’s doing dishes, she overhears Sam’s friends telling him it took him years to recover from what Percy did, and that he’d be crazy to go there again. Sam says they were just kids.
Percy has a panic attack. She sinks to the kitchen floor and can’t breathe, certain she’s about to ruin everything all over again. Charlie gets to her first, then Sam talks her through it.
When she comes back to herself, Sam asks how often this happens and when it started, and Percy says twelve years ago, exactly when they stopped talking.
Charlie is watching her now, and he asks if “it” was a panic attack too, meaning something that happened twelve years ago that we still don’t know at this point in the book.
Every Summer After Ending Explained
When they get back to Sam’s house, he tells Percy he doesn’t want to spend any more time apart from her. She wants to actually talk it out and tell him the truth, but he says there’s nothing she could say that would change his mind, so they end up together again. This is the first time they sleep together, after all these years.
The next morning, Percy can no longer keep what happened with Charlie a secret, and she tells Sam she slept with Charlie.
Sam gets out of bed and goes quiet. He’s furious, and he’s cruel about it, asking how it was. Then he brings up the proposal, about how he proposed to her and she said no. When Percy confronts him about never answering any of her emails or phone calls and that’s why she never came back, Sam tells her, why he wouldn’t it’s because she slept with his brother.
Sam has known the whole time.
Percy spirals into another panic attack and collapses in the driveway of her old cottage. As she comes to, it clicks into place that he knew all along.
Percy wakes up in Sam’s bed. She finds Charlie in the kitchen and realizes he’s the only one who could have told Sam. Charlie confirms it.
He told Sam at Christmas the year of the breakup, thinking it might help Sam understand why Percy ended things, and it backfired badly. The brothers fought over it for years.
Percy also learns that Sue knew, and that before she died she told Charlie to call Percy, because she knew Sam would need her once she was gone.
Charlie asks if Percy hates her, and she tells him she could never hate him.
Percy goes to sit by the lake with Sam, and the full truth comes out. Charlie told him what happened between them, when Sam couldn’t make sense of why Percy broke up with him after the proposal. He thought he had a completely different view of their relationship.
After finding out what happened, he blamed Percy, he blamed Charlie, he blamed himself, and he was angry enough that he slept around to hurt her, even hitting on Delilah at college. When Delilah later told Percy about it, Percy called her a slut and torched that friendship too.
But sitting by the water, Sam tells Percy he doesn’t want to be without her anymore. She agrees, and the two of them finally get together.
By New Year’s Eve the whole patched-together family is in one place, Charlie and Percy and Sam still figuring out how to be okay, and the first gatherings are awkward.
That night, Percy is the one planning to get down on one knee. It’s messy, but it’s theirs.
Spicy Chapters
How Spicy is Every Summer After by Carley Fortune (Barry’s Bay Book 1): 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Whether you want to get to the heat or want closed-door modifications here’s the list of spicy chapters below.
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
Pick this up if you want to feel gutted and leave your heart at the lake 🚤🌻
So that’s everything you need to know about Every Summer After. The summary doesn’t do it justice, please go read it if you haven’t already. The “You came home,” “My mom told me to call you,” and “You broke my heart” will be living in my head rent free.
My next stop is One Golden Summer, Charlie’s book. I’m bracing for being gutted all over again.
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