Carley Fortune’s novels should really be sponsored by Tourism Canada.
The Toronto magazine editor turned author exploded onto the book publishing scene in 2022 with “Every Summer After,” set in the cottage country of her childhood. The story of a young woman and the brothers next door in Barry’s Bay, Ont., has left more than a million readers craving swimsuit-clad days on the dock and clear lake swims.
Her second novel, “Meet Me at the Lake,” toggled between a hazy, nostalgic version of Toronto and a Muskoka lakeside resort similar to the one Fortune’s parents ran.
Not content to stay within one picturesque Canadian pocket, Fortune’s third book branched out east to Prince Edward Island, where a Toronto summer visitor and a local oyster shucker — her best friend’s younger brother — try to resist their attraction.
After revisiting Barry’s Bay for her fourth novel, Fortune brings us west for her latest, “Our Perfect Storm,” out May 5, to Tofino, a surfer’s paradise on Vancouver Island where the rainforest meets the ocean.
Fortune has achieved blockbuster success both at home and abroad for her crushable books centring on sweet, deep love stories, but their sunny settings are alluring characters in themselves. “When I go on book tour in Canada, Canadians always thank me for setting my books here,” Fortune told the Star. “Last year, a woman in Toronto told me she never wanted to travel within Canada until she read my books, and she had since gone to the places in the books and was planning to move to Prince Edward Island!”
The enthusiasm extends to Americans, too — one told Fortune she got in a car with her best friend after finishing “This Summer Will Be Different” and drove 14 hours across the States to P.E.I. It’s common for readers who visit to bring a copy of the book with them. “The Indigo special edition had a map in the back of some of my favourite spots, and they would go to all the places on the map.”
In fact, the P.E.I. tourism board is trying to add a question about the novel to its “exit survey” of visitors to the island, to see how many heard of it that way.
Falling for Vancouver Island
The B.C. effect has already begun. “I’ve heard from readers who have booked their trips to Tofino — someone’s going there to read the book the day it comes out,” Fortune said. “It’s very meaningful to me.”
This is not at all surprising. “Our Perfect Storm” makes this oceanfront destination seem like heaven on earth, a rugged idyll where disillusioned chef Frankie and intrepid environmental reporter George stay in a luxurious lodge overlooking the crashing waves, hike through the rainforest and are dropped off by boat at a secluded sauna built over the sea, alternating steamy sweat sessions with cool, salty dips. “The floating sauna is real,” Fortune confirmed. “My husband and I went there on my last trip to Tofino, which I took after I’d written the first draft. I knew I wanted to have a scene at the floating sauna, but I needed to go there and adjust my scene as necessary.”
The hotel, complete with treehouse-style villas, balcony hot tubs overlooking the forest and a sassy, superlative concierge, is sadly an invention but it draws from some of Tofino’s landmark lodgings. “It’s little bit like the Wickaninnish Inn, a little bit of Pacific Sands, it’s a little bit like Long Beach Lodge. It’s also a little bit like a beautiful hotel Marco and I stayed at in Lyon, which had the most charming guest services person.”
Against this breathtaking backdrop, Fortune’s most fully developed characters yet navigate their evolving relationship from childhood best friends to loves of their lives. There’s the spark and chemistry Fortune is known for — one memorable scene involves the pair’s first kiss as adults during a hike mid-rainstorm on the old-growth forest floor. But there’s also Frankie’s difficult history with her marine-researcher mother, who left the family during her childhood to study endangered North Atlantic right whales for 18 months, and George’s poignant relationship with the eccentric grandmother who raised him in his parents’ absence.
Part of their friendship plays out amid the terror of the devastating wildfire season of 2023, which George covers as a journalist. “I remember that summer, when I was in New York on book tour, Manhattan becoming dark because of the ash from the Canadian fires,” said Fortune. “Kids were being kept inside at school. I remember flying into Toronto on that trip and the sun was this dystopian shade of red. There’s always been forest fires, but not like this.”
Beyond the romance genre
It’s all part of Fortune’s drive to pack her books with ideas and themes beyond the meet cute and happily ever after of the romance genre she’s been so successful within. “If you love romance, you will hopefully really enjoy my books, and if you don’t, if you’re not a romance reader, you also might love the books,” she said. “There’s the central love story, but there’s also stories about career and family, and I think every book is a coming of age in a different way. There’s the settings. And so I sit at this intersection between the genre and fiction.”
She resists the notion that novels that are fun to read are somehow less significant than literary fiction. “I think there’s this idea that there are books worthy of our time or books that we ought to be reading,” she said. “I’ve noticed readers often use this term ‘guilty pleasure’ for books that we think are frivolous. And I think we use the term without really thinking about what a guilty pleasure refers to. I would say it refers, 90 per cent of the time, to books written by women, largely for women, about love. The sexism of that obviously drives me bonkers, but also this idea that we feel badly for enjoying ourselves as readers.”
Her books on screen
Fortune’s readers do enjoy themselves — so much so that all of her novels bar the newest release have been optioned for the screen. The first, “Every Year After,” based on her debut novel, hits Prime on June 10. Then “This Summer Will Be Different” will shoot on P.E.I. and in Toronto this summer, for Netflix. “Development is such a wild west, but a show coming out and another being shot is really rare,” Fortune said. “I’m really, really excited about ‘Every Year After.’ I enjoy it as a fan.”
Fortune doesn’t describe her characters physically in too much detail when she’s writing them, preferring to allow readers to conjure their appearance for themselves. So seeing her earliest characters Percy, Sam and Charlie embodied in actor form was surreal. “Sadie Soverall (of ‘Saltburn’), who plays Percy, is so, so talented, and Matt Cornett, who plays Sam, his audition made me cry; he can run through so many emotions within a scene. Michael Bradway just felt so Charlie, he’s so funny. And the chemistry is so good, not just between Sadie and Matt but also between Matt and Michael, that brother relationship.”
Fortune’s second book, set between Toronto and cottage country, was optioned by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Productions for Netflix in 2023. “There is a director, and it’s still in development,” Fortune said. “It’s moving along. The director’s name hasn’t been released, so I can’t do that, but it’s tugging away.”
Fortune is currently finishing up the first draft of her sixth book, due out in 2027. “I can’t really share anything about it yet. But I’m not suddenly writing a horror,” she said dryly. “It’s in keeping with the Carley Fortune universe.”
After an extensive North American tour to launch both book and show, Fortune plans to spend her own summer in some places that are very special to her: in Tofino, where she and her husband will bring their two kids for the first time; in France with friends; and then by the lake at her very own Ontario cottage, purchased last fall, near her family’s home in Barry’s Bay that started it all. It’ll be good to be home.
Summer reading list
Carley Fortune’s 5 ultimate Canadian beach reads.
“Anne of Green Gables” by L.M. Montgomery
“There’s no greater influence on my work than Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic. If you haven’t revisited Anne as an adult, you’re missing out.”
“Sunshine Nails” by Mai Nguyen
“This debut novel is my kind of beach read: a propulsive family drama about the Tran family’s misguided attempts to save their Toronto nail salon. It’s poignant, funny, and one of a kind.”
“My Person” by Téa Mutonji, out August 11
“If you love Judy Blume’s ‘Summer Sisters’ like me, then you might also take nostalgic pleasure in reading novels about female friendship in the summer. In this case, it’s the story of the very messy breakup between Tania and Margo after more than 20 years of friendship.”
“How to Survive a Bear Attack” by Claire Cameron
“This memoir, which weaves Claire’s obsession with a fatal Algonquin Park bear attack in the 1990s with her cancer journey, was awarded a Governor General’s Literary Award last year. My cottage is near Algonquin Park, and this is what I’ll be reading at the lake this summer.”
“It’s Different This Time” by Joss Richard
“This debut novel solidified Joss as THE rising star of Canadian romance. The book was a Canada Reads finalist, and centres around my favourite trope: a second-chance love story. Yes, it’s set in the autumn, but why let that stop you?”
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