Book Review: This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Review is also available on my site: https://roxannacross.com/2025/08/26/b...

Fortune brings a fun summer read that will appeal to fans of Christina Lauren or Abby Jimenez. Fortune’s latest book, This Summer Will Be Different, published May 7, 2024, is available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and audiobook formats, as well as at your local library through the Libby App. The audiobook is narrated by AJ Bridel and the author herself, Carley Fortune. They both do a fantastic job of bringing the characters to live and Fortune’s amazing description of Prince Edward Island are so vivid listeners can smell the salt of sea, the feel the grit of sand under their toes, the lemon squirt over the fresh oysters and all the other excellent sea food and hear the great fiddlers play they can’t help but fall in love with the Island.

The book structure isn’t linear. Fortune built her storyline over five years, summers, going back and forth between now and then, so the audience grows along with the characters. The story opens five years ago when we meet Bridget Clark and Lucy Ashby, who are best friends living in Toronto. Bridget is originally from Prince Edward Island, and this year she’s bringing Lucy with her to meet her family, but she has rules:
1. They must eat their weight in oysters
2. They must leave the city behind
3. Lucy cannot fall in love with her brother, Wolf.
Due to a work conflict, Bridget misses their flight, but tells Lucy to go on ahead; she’ll catch the next one. Bridget instructs Lucy that there is a toad in the garden with a house key hidden underneath it, so she can get into the house. However, upon her arrival on the Island, Lucy doesn’t feel like going up to the house by herself, so she ends up at a local spot, sitting at the bar in front of the sexiest man she’s ever seen. He’s shucking oysters, one by one, they fly by so fast, the way he expertly opens and cleans them to be enjoyed. The electricity between the two strangers is instant and off the charts.

Felix is mesmerized by the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. She’s wearing a gingham-style dress that reminds him of a tablecloth, and yet it suits her. As they chat, she makes a comment about being wide open for the evening, and his knife slips, slicing his hand open instead of the oyster. Felix doesn’t even feel the pain because she is holding a tea towel over his hand, staunching the blood, and all he can sense is her. They spend an incredible night, frenzied, unable to get enough of one another. In the morning, when she tells Felix she must go pick up her friend at the airport, everything comes crumbling down as they both realize who the other is: he is Wolf, she is Bee. And although the electricity between them is undeniable, this can never happen again, Bridget’s rule number 3.

Fortune intertwines the trials and tribulations of friendship and family as year after year, readers and listeners get to know more about Bridget, Lucy, Felix, and their circle of friends, as well as the hardships in the workplace and the loss that follows when Lucy’s aunt and mentor passes away. As much as Felix and Lucy made rules for themselves to never give in to temptation again, their connection is too strong, and they keep coming back to each other. Year after year, they seem to find themselves naked in a steamy bathroom, the family TV room, or down on the beach; they just can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves.

It’s one week before Bridget’s wedding when she flees Toronto to go to the Island and asks Lucy to drop everything to join her. Of course, she goes, her mission: to help Bridget with whatever crisis arises and steer clear of the one man she’s been unable to resist. But Felix’s kindness, easy quips, and sparkling eyes worry Lucy that her heart isn’t safe at all. And she feels terrible about the secret she’s keeping from her best friend. The guilt builds so much before the wedding, Lucy confesses to Bridget that she has feelings for her brother and they start dating only for it to fall apart after the wedding, not because they don’t want to be with each other but because Lucy is attempting to run away from her problems and is using Felix to do so, and he can’t be her scapegoat. He wants her to choose him, for him.

Setting a book on Prince Edward Island, it’s inevitable to include the historical sites of Anne of Green Gables or quotes from Lucy Maude Montgomery’s work. Fortune does so incredibly to describe moments in Lucy and Felix’s relationship, Bridget and Lucy’s friendship, and the camaraderie between the three of them. The way she’s made it easy for her audience to watch them grow into adulthood, make mistakes, learn, or repeat the same errors, along with fabulous descriptions that transport us there and characters so easy to relate to, is what makes this a 3.5-star read or listen.



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