Carley Fortune has five novels, and the reading order is almost flexible. Four are full standalones, so pick any one to start. The exception is One Golden Summer, which follows a character introduced in Every Summer After and works best read second.
Here's each book in publication order with what it's about and what to expect, plus a mood-based start guide at the end. Coming from the Amazon Prime adaptation? Every Year After (premiered June 10, 2026) is based on Every Summer After. Start there.
The Quick Reference: Carley Fortune Books in Publication Order
- Every Summer After (2022)
- Meet Me at the Lake (2023)
- This Summer Will Be Different (2024)
- One Golden Summer (2025), connected to Every Summer After
- Our Perfect Storm (2026), newest
Do You Have to Read Carley Fortune's Books in Order?
Short answer: no, but yes for one pair. Four of the five books are full standalones, with different characters, different settings, different summers. You can pick any of those four as your starting point without missing context.
The exception is One Golden Summer (2025), which follows a character introduced in Every Summer After. Reading Every Summer After first gives you the emotional context that makes One Golden Summer hit harder, and it also avoids a few spoilers you'd rather not have. If you only follow one rule from this guide, make it this one: read Every Summer After before One Golden Summer.
For everyone else? Publication order is the simplest path. You'll watch her writing evolve, and you'll get the lake-country world before she heads to PEI and then the Pacific coast.
The Five Carley Fortune Books in Order
1. Every Summer After (2022)
Every Summer After by Carley Fortune Book Cover
Published: May 10, 2022 (Berkley) | Setting: Barry's Bay, Ontario | Series: Standalone (connected to One Golden Summer)
The book that put Carley Fortune on the map, and the one most readers discover first, for very good reason. Persephone "Percy" Fraser is summoned back to her family's lake house in Barry's Bay after a decade of avoiding it, and the first person she has to face is Sam Florek, the boy she fell in love with over six summers and lost in a single moment. Told in dual timeline (six golden summers in flashback, one weekend of reckoning in the present), it's the kind of slow-burn second-chance romance that aches in your chest. If you've ever loved a place and a person at the same time and lost them both in one night, this is the book.
Tropes: Second-chance romance, friends-to-lovers, dual timeline, lake town summer, first love, family secrets
Read it if you love: The Summer I Turned Pretty, People We Meet on Vacation, or any romance where summer means something it doesn't mean to anyone else.
If you loved it: Our comp guide to books like Every Summer After lists nine more nostalgic-summer romances in the same emotional register.
📖 Amazon | Bookshop | 🎧 Audible
2. Meet Me at the Lake (2023)
Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune Book Cover
Published: May 2, 2023 (Berkley) | Setting: Toronto and Smoke Lake, Ontario | Series: Standalone
Fern Brookbanks and Will Baxter share one perfect day in Toronto and make a promise to meet again in ten years at her family's lake resort. One of them shows up. The other doesn't, until he finally does, nine years late, when Fern is now running the resort she swore she'd never take over and Will arrives with secrets she didn't know existed. This is Carley Fortune's second-chance romance for grown-ups: less first-love nostalgia, more "what do we owe each other after almost a decade of silence." The grief layer hits harder than you'd expect from the cover.
Tropes: Second-chance romance, dual timeline, missed connection, family business inheritance, found-family grief, slow burn
Read it if you love: the question of what could have been, an FMC who's furious and right to be, and a hero whose explanation actually justifies the wait.
📖 Amazon | Bookshop | 🎧 Audible
3. This Summer Will Be Different (2024)
This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune Book Cover
Published: May 7, 2024 (Berkley) | Setting: Prince Edward Island | Series: Standalone
Lucy and Felix have been doing this for years. Every summer she escapes to Prince Edward Island, and every summer it ends the exact same way, with a quiet confession of "never again," a flight back to Toronto, and a promise broken before the next June rolls around. The problem is that Felix is her best friend Bridget's older brother, and Bridget cannot find out. This is the spicy entry in Carley Fortune's catalog and the one where the will-they-keep-pretending tension is wound tightest. It's also her PEI book. The setting is a love letter to the island.
Tropes: Best friend's brother, forbidden romance, summer fling that won't quit, friends-to-lovers, secret relationship, grumpy/sunshine vibes
Read it if you love: a heroine whose loyalty is divided three ways, a man who's been waiting the whole time, and the kind of trope soup that just works.
📖 Amazon | Bookshop | 🎧 Audible
4. One Golden Summer (2025)
One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune Book Cover
Published: May 13, 2025 (Berkley) | Setting: Lake country, Ontario | Series: Connected to Every Summer After (read that first)
This is the one where reading order matters. One Golden Summer follows Alice Everly, a side character introduced in Every Summer After, and reading them in sequence gives you both the emotional payoff and the absence of spoilers. Without giving anything away: it's a coming-of-age romance about the one summer that defines everything that comes after it, set against the same lake country that made her debut iconic. If you loved Barry's Bay, you're going back. If you haven't been there yet, fix that first. Then come for this one.
Tropes: Coming-of-age, connected standalone, single-summer romance, lake town nostalgia, second-generation lake story
Read it if you love: the Every Summer After universe and want to spend more time there with characters you only briefly met.
📖 Amazon | Bookshop | 🎧 Audible
5. Our Perfect Storm (2026)
Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune Book Cover
Published: May 5, 2026 (Penguin Random House) | Setting: Toronto and Tofino, British Columbia | Series: Standalone
The newest, and the first time Carley Fortune leaves her lakes for the Pacific. Frankie's wedding implodes when her fiancé walks out days before the ceremony. George (her best friend since childhood, the person who knows every version of her) proposes the only thing that makes any sense: take the honeymoon to Tofino anyway, just the two of them, and figure out the rest of her life from a rented cabin on the coast. What was always supposed to be a wedding turns into something neither of them is brave enough to name. The vibe is friends-to-lovers in the saltwater air, with a slow realization that wrecks both of them.
Tropes: Best friend's-the-one, after-the-breakup, road trip, destination travel, slow realization, friends-to-lovers, repair
Read it if you love: the moment when two people who've known each other forever finally let themselves look.
📖 Amazon | Bookshop | 🎧 Audible
The Amazon Prime Adaptation: Every Year After
Every Summer After has been adapted as an Amazon Prime Video series titled Every Year After, which premiered on June 10, 2026. The cast includes Sadie Soverall as Percy Fraser, Matt Cornett as Sam Florek, and Michael Bradway as Charlie Florek. The series leans into the same dual-timeline structure as the book, with the six summers at Barry's Bay alternating with the present-day weekend that brings Percy back.
If you're coming to Carley Fortune through the show: start with the book that started it all, then come back to this guide and pick your next.
For a scene-by-scene breakdown of what the series kept, cut, and changed, read Every Year After vs. Every Summer After: Every Change the Show Made.
Where to Start, by Mood
If you want the most-loved entry point: Every Summer After. Her breakout, her most reread book, and the one most readers point to as their favorite.
If you want grown-up grief and a slow burn: Meet Me at the Lake. The most emotionally complex of her novels.
If you want the spice and the trope soup: This Summer Will Be Different. The hottest of the five.
If you've already read Every Summer After and want more of that world: One Golden Summer. Required reading order matters here.
If you want the newest and a setting change: Our Perfect Storm. The Pacific coast detour and the only friends-since-childhood-best-friend story in her catalog.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have to read Carley Fortune's books in order?
No, with one exception. Four of her five novels are full standalones and can be read in any order. The exception is One Golden Summer, which follows a character introduced in Every Summer After and contains spoilers for that earlier book. Read Every Summer After first.
What is the best Carley Fortune book to start with?
Every Summer After is the safest starting point. It was her debut, it remains her breakout book, and it gives you the clearest introduction to the nostalgic-summer-romance style readers come to her for. It's also the book that became the Amazon Prime adaptation.
Are Carley Fortune's books connected?
Only one pair is meaningfully connected: Every Summer After (2022) and One Golden Summer (2025). The other three are standalone novels with separate characters and settings.
Is there a Carley Fortune TV show?
Yes. Every Summer After was adapted as Every Year After, which premiered on Amazon Prime Video on June 10, 2026. The series stars Sadie Soverall as Percy Fraser, Matt Cornett as Sam Florek, and Michael Bradway as Charlie Florek. For a side-by-side of what the show changed from the book, read our Every Year After vs. Every Summer After comparison.
What is Carley Fortune's newest book?
Our Perfect Storm, published May 5, 2026. It's her first novel set outside the Canadian lake country. Most of the story takes place in Tofino, British Columbia.
How many books has Carley Fortune written?
Five novels as of 2026: Every Summer After (2022), Meet Me at the Lake (2023), This Summer Will Be Different (2024), One Golden Summer (2025), and Our Perfect Storm (2026).
What genre are Carley Fortune's books?
Contemporary romance, often with strong women's fiction elements: emotional growth, family dynamics, and protagonists working through grief alongside the love story. Her novels are character-driven and tend toward slow burn rather than instant connection.
About Carley Fortune
Carley Fortune is a Canadian author and former journalist based in Toronto. Her debut, Every Summer After, became a New York Times bestseller in 2022 and remains one of the most widely read romances of the last several years. She has published a new novel every year since her debut, and her books have collectively spent significant time on bestseller lists across the US, Canada, and the UK.
If you read your way through this guide, I'd love to hear which one wrecked you the most. Drop a comment or tag me @inkandimaginings on Instagram. And if you want more reading order guides like this one, The Weekly Bookmark newsletter is where I send them first.
