once i realized this wasn't actually a sequel to fortune's first book.........

i really enjoyed this one. buuuuut also? there are so many similar themes to "every summer after" with two love interests and familial loss and coming back home and the lake being a character and... on and on? as i think about it now, it feels almost too similar?? but while reading, i was really into the story and liked it a lot... so maybe as long as you have forgotten the plot of ESA, you'll be great here?

didn't think this review was going to be critical but i think i just wanted something really new and fresh in the end, and what i got was just a spinoff of the same story i had already read and loved!!!

Gave me all the summer nostalgia feels! I don’t love the miscommunication trope, so that part was not my favorite. But I read this in a day, just like Every Summer After. I look forward to suggesting this title to readers, and for Fortune’s next book that I am going to have to wait forever for!

Drum roll please….I read a total of ONE book on vacation. But it’s one of my most anticipated reads if 2023. Meet Me at Lake is out May 2. I’m bringing you this review early because why not? 🤷🏽‍♀️


Fern Brookbanks spent just twenty-four hours in her early twenties with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, Will. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn’t.

Carley Fortune’s writing has the ability to transport you to the Kellerman’s Resort in Dirty Dancing. I love how atmospheric her books are. This book has some heavy topics like grief and anxiety which she handled well. The one thing that didn’t sell me was how connected Will and Fern were after only one day together. It kinda felt like instaLove. Overall I liked this book and if you love Fortune’s Every Summer After I think you’ll like this one too!

I'm usually skeptical of follow-up novels after big hit debuts... but the worry was all in vain in this case. It was just as addicting (if not more so) the Every Summer After. Carley is 2 for 2, and I can't wait to read EVERYTHING she releases from here on out.

This book was such a cozy read!

After reading and loving Every Summer After, I was so delighted to return to Carley Fortune’s storytelling with this novel. I am a sucker for a “second chance romance” story and this absolutely delivers the best of that trope.

What I loved best about this book was the characters themselves. Fortune always does a fantastic job writing characters who feel like real people that you’d want to get to know. It makes the chemistry between the romantic leads that much more endearing and believable.

My only qualm with this book was how the female main character acted toward the end of the book. The “climax” point where they decide if they are going to make it or break it felt really unnatural to who the characters were throughout the rest of the novel and the conflict was really confusing and not believable. I’m still confused as to why they had a falling out in their past and it seemed like the characters themselves really never reached a point of clarity on that either. Just a very odd conflict point.

Overall, I really enjoyed this read and would recommend to anyone looking for a quick, cute romance! ♥️

For sure this is one of the most anticipated reads of 2023 for a lot of people! Every Summer After is such a great romance, and I freaked out when I saw @ carley had a new book coming.


I love the setting in all of her books. It’s so beautiful, relaxing, and I wish I was physically there. Because mentally, I was! Lol


Fern’s mother passed away just as they were getting close.
Now Fern is responsible for their lakeside resort in Muskoka. It’s not something Fern wished for, but she can’t really disappoint her mother’s wish - can she?


In this same dreamlike resort, nine years ago, she was supposed to meet Will Baxter at the docks. They spent the most magical day together when they were in their early twenties, and they were absolutely smitten with each other.


But he never showed up ten years ago.


Fern’s life moved on, and now, Will is back.
He’s back at her mother’s request to help with the resort.


Fern and Will start a plan for the resort, at the same time they start bringing their feelings back to the table.


I loved the romance in this book, but I think I liked the mother-daughter relationship development even more. It was so beautiful.


4 stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️

✔️ second chance
✔️ dual timeline
✔️ found family
✔️ dealing with grief

Fortune's debut novel can be controversial for a few reasons. I was ecstatic to read Meet Me at the Lake and neither of those topics come up once throughout the story. Things got dicey there at the beginning and made me say out loud "I will put this book down if that trope is used again" and I finished the book so....

Meet Me at the Lake is no sophomore slump for Carley Fortune. Just like with Every Summer After, this book instantly transports you to the setting and while it might have been February in Texas while reading, it sure felt like I was on the Canadian lakeside.

Will and Fern both meet in their early 20's and have the instant chemistry that you find in many Romance novels but doesn't feel contrived or forced. Fast forward to 10 years later and that chemistry is still there. This story is just as much a contemporary fiction as it is a romance.

Will and Fern are two extremely fleshed out characters but I don't want to get too much into details because I don't want to spoil anything!

Between the perfect chemistry and the supporting characters, Meet Me at the Lake is a must-read for any romance fan!

Meet Me at the Lake is about a boy who meets a girl in the city and spends a full day together then parts ways promising to meet exactly one year later at a resort the girl's mother owns. However, a year later, she waits for him in the promised location and he doesn't show up.

For some unknown reason, I didn't feel connected to this book as I did with Carley Fortune's first book, Every Summer After. I felt maybe this book was not as exciting or as eventful as the first. This book also felt a little rushed at the end of me. Nonetheless, I finished the book and thank NetGalley for the ARC!

Not often does a book make me emotional but also happy at the same time. This book is so much more than a romance novel in the sense where it also deals with loss and depression. It was amazing and I was rotting for the couple the whole book through. All the characters were so real and I loved it. A new insta buy author for me for sure.

Meet me at the Lake
by Carley Fortune
Pub Date: May 2, 2023
Berkely
Thanks to the author, publisher, NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
Fern Brookbanks has wasted far too much of her adult life thinking about Will Baxter. She spent just twenty-four hours in her early twenties with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, a chance encounter that spiraled into a daylong adventure in the city. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn’t.

At thirty-two, Fern’s life doesn’t look at all how she once imagined it would. Instead of living in the city, Fern’s back home, running her mother’s lakeside resort—something she vowed never to do. The place is in disarray, her ex-boyfriend’s the manager, and Fern doesn’t know where to begin..
Great book!

It personally felt too much like an attempt to recapture the success of book one, however, I know many people who will love it regardless!

Oh how I just love a second chance romance! Loved the lake setting and deeper themes of grief, family, mental health, and so much more. I wish there had been a little bit more chemistry/tension between the main characters - a little bit more groveling would’ve gone a long for me with this one! Still such an enjoyable, heartfelt read.

Read if you like
🛶 Lake vibes
2️⃣ Second chance romance
😍 Instalove
🤫 Strong silent MMCs
⏱️ Split timelines

Every Summer After was one of my top 10 books of 2022 so naturally Meet Me At The Lake was one of my most anticipated books of this year and am so grateful to get my hands on an advanced copy!

My thoughts 💭
- I really loved Fern’s character and enjoyed following her healing journey after the loss of her mom and finding out what she truly wanted
- I loved the setting and I think my favorite thing about Carley’s books and writing is that you can truly picture yourself at this places. Like I felt like I was at the Brookebanks resort living my best.
- This book is definitely on the slower end as far as pacing goes, not much happens and it did drag a bit for me in the middle.
- I had a really hard time connecting with Will and understanding the pull between him and Fern. They met once ten years ago and never got over each other? It just felt a little extreme for me. I loved Will by the end of the book but it felt like we didn’t learn anything about his character until the last few chapters so I just spent most of it feeling like they knew nothing about each other. I also 100000% think there needed to be more groveling from him but that may be a me thing.


Overall, this one didn’t do it for me like Every Summer After did but it’s still a solid read and I’m looking forward to reading more by Carley!

I binged read Every Summer After and Meet Me at the Lake was no different. I think what I really like about the authors style is her ability to create characters that just resonate with you. The book is written dual timelines, when the main characters Fern and Will meet and then years later. Fern and Will spend an entire day together and they just connect and you feel the connection right along with them. So as you read further, you also experience the disappointments, the regrets but also the happiness and love along with them.

I thought this book was a great follow up and would definitely recommend!

It is rare for me to read a second chance romance that I like, and Meet Me at the Lake was NOT the second chance romance we need. I could not believe that our alternating time line was from ONE DAY SPENT WITH A BOY. She dragggggged out that 24 hours. It was murder. I thought her writing was poor. Development was poor. And there was very little redeeming about this story. The only likable person was Peter.

I've decided to put this one on hold or even DNF it. I think I might revisit it at another time, but I'm really struggling to get into Meet Me at the Lake. I loved Every Summer After and was hooked in the beginning of Meet Me at the Lake, but at 50% in my interest is waning. I'm not super invested in the characters and I'm struggling to see the romance aspect of the plot.

Fern and Will meet and had a whirlwind day together in Toronto. Fast forward nine years later, Fern's mom has just passed away and has left the family lake resort to Fern to run. Her ex-boyfriend, Jamie, is the manager. The resort is not doing well and needs a renovation. In walks Will one day and Fern is shocked. He tells her, he was there a year earlier and Fern's mom, Maggie, hired him to help get the resort back on it's feet. Fern was devastated all those years ago when Will had promised to meet her at the lake a year after they met and he never showed up. Will they be able to rekindle what was the beginning of something special?

MEET ME AT THE LAKE, is such a beautiful story of loss and forgiveness. I really liked Fern and her dedication to Will. Her love for her mother and the resort are shown as well. If you enjoyed Carley Fortune's debut novel, you're sure to enjoy this one! I will say the ending made me teary eyed!

4.5 stars rounding up to 5!

Many thanks, to NetGalley and Berkley for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This review will be shared to my Instagram (@coffee.break.book.reviews) in the near future.

This is so good I immediately went back and reread some scenes. I really liked Fortune’s first book, but it was messy and a bit over the top. This book, on the other hand, is stronger in just about every way, and the characters are more grounded and mature and truly anchor what’s a pretty contrived premise. Just oof! What a lovely, touching romance. I liked that it’s a grief book that explores and celebrates the complicated, often fraught dynamics in a mother/daughter relationship, but it doesn’t sideline the romance at all. Just A+ reading experience and I can already tell it will be a favorite book of the year. Also kudos to the book for SPOILER surprising me with a hero who had postpartum anxiety, which is something I seldom see in a romance, let alone as experienced by a male adoptive parent, although I wish it had been explored a bit more in depth.

Content notes: parental abandonment; unexpected death of a parent in an accident; depression; anxiety; insomnia; unexpected pregnancy (not the heroine).

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for sending me an ARC of Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune!


I first read Every Summer After last Summer, and while it wasn't a 5 star read for me I did enjoy and feel the overall Summer vibes it gave me. That's exactly how I felt reading this book! While it is late Feb and still extremely cold here in Toronto, you can't help but feel the sun rays and get that ultimate sense of Summer you usually get when reading a Carley Fortune book. While this wasn't my favorite of the two books, I did sympathize a lot with the main character Fern. I think Carley did a great job in showing us how Fern's mother's death extremely impacted her (in more ways than one) and how much she was struggling with the figuring out who she is now that she has to take on the responsibility of running this resort. I did not like Fern's love interest Will if I'm being honest. I found his story to be more on the confusing side, and for some reason I just could not wrap my head around the reasoning to which lead him back to Fern all these years later. Their connection makes up most of the book, so not liking 1/2 characters kind of doesn't help while reading the whole book. Despite that, I do think this is the ultimate Summer book and I kind of wish I waited to read this while on the beach somewhere nice and hot.

Meet Me at the Lake is told in dual timelines; one set in present day, and the other set ten years ago. Ten years ago, Fern and Will had met serendipitously; he’s an artist — charming, albeit a bit arrogant — working on a mural at the coffee shop she’s working at, spent the day together, and altered the course of each other’s lives. Twenty-four hours was all it took for them to share their innermost thoughts, fears, dreams, and secrets. While their chemistry is undeniable; the timing isn’t right. They’d made a plan to meet at Fern’s mother’s lakeside resort on June 14th the following year, but only Fern showed. Ten years later, Fern’s life is completely different from how she envisioned it at twenty two. She’s no longer living in Toronto, but instead, managing her late mother’s lakeside resort, alongside Jamie, her ex-boyfriend. When Will shows up, nine years too late, with an offer to help turn the resort around, Fern hesitantly takes his offer. As they work together to save the resort, old feelings arise, despite the secrets that both of them are still keeping.

Throughout Meet Me at the Lake, we’re reminded that Fern doesn’t want this life — running the resort is the last thing she wants. In fact, she’d told her mother that at twenty two, and has set her sights on opening up her own coffee shop in Toronto since then. When Fern arrives at the resort, however, she realizes that there’s a lot her mother hasn’t told her — particularly, about how the resort is faring. Fern isn’t sure if she’ll stay and fix up the resort, or if she’ll sell it — On one hand, selling the resort will allow her to make the coffee shop a reality; on the other hand, the resort was her mother’s life. By interspersing diary entries from Fern’s late mother in between the two timelines, we get an additional insight into who Fern is — how she grew up, who her mother is, things that factor into her decision. At first, Fern’s memories of the resort are a little more bitter; tinged with memories of canceled girls nights with her mother who had to work late, but she learns more about who her mother is over time. Something that I found particularly powerful in Meet Me at the Lake was the conversation about how what we once wanted when we were younger might not be what we want now, and that’s okay. Our dreams and desires will shift as the environment around us does, and as our circumstances change. I wanted to give Fern the biggest hug as she worked through her grief, and what she wanted for herself.

I’m a lover of the second-chance romance trope, and I really grew to love Fern and Will as a pairing. That being said, something about them felt a little off for me that I’m struggling to identify — perhaps they felt too insta-lovey, maybe the pacing was just off, I wanted them to have a deeper connection in the present day timeline, or all three? That being said, it really is much easier to open up to someone that won’t be a constant in your life — there’s no repercussions, really, and Fern and Will both knew that when they met ten years ago.

I didn’t particularly love the emotional infidelity that took place on both Fern and Will’s part ten years ago, and I also struggled with the amount of secrets they had kept from one another — I just wanted to shake them and say “communicate with each other”. All that being said, I really enjoyed Meet Me at the Lake, and would recommend it to most readers!