About the Book:
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.
My Review:
Help this book has ruined me! 100% lived up to all the hype.
‘Every Summer After’ is one of those books that has that elusive “it” factor and deserves all the accolades! This heartfelt story has it all: the ache of first love, friends-to-lovers romance, and two very flawed characters who were messy, funny, sweet and just very relatable.
Percy and Sam grew up spending summers on a lake in the small town of Briar Bay, Canada. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to spend any time in the summer in Canada, this part of the book will inspire nostalgia for the peaceful beauty of summers in Canada.
The two timelines worked perfectly for me. “Before” takes place beginning when Percy and Sam first meet 13 years ago. They way the author develops their first love reminded me of my early romance-reading days and could not have been sweeter or more emotional.
”The way I felt about you was always so clear to me—even when we were young I knew you and I were meant for each other. Two halves of a whole. I loved you so much that the word ‘love’ didn’t seem big enough for how I felt.”
Something happened and Percy and Sam stopped speaking. The “Now” chapters take place after an event brings Percy back to Briar Bay. All of her old feelings for Sam come flooding back. My heart ached for them! This book had me all up in my feels. It’s crystal clear they two still have powerful feelings for each other but something happened all those years ago to come between their love for each other.
”Betrayals don’t cancel each other out. They just hurt more.”
MY HEART! Carley Fortune has written a sweet, sexy and complicated romance that perfectly captures the emotions and nostalgia of first love. Kudos to the cover designer as well for the lovely book cover design. ‘Every Summer After’ is the perfect summer romance!
”I don’t take things for granted anymore. I don’t take people for granted. And I know time is not infinite.”
(I received a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.)