Book Review: This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

After reading both Every Summer After and Meet Me At the Lake by Carley Fortune with alternating success, it was time to pick up her newest release, This Summer Will Be Different. The weather finally agrees that it’s summer as well, so it was the perfect moment to read this novel. Did this romance deliver or is it all getting samey-samey?

About the book

Book Review: This Summer Will Be Different by Carley FortuneThis Summer Will Be Diferent by Carley Fortune
Published by Berkley on May 7, 2024
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780593638880
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

This summer they’ll keep their promise. This summer they won’t give into temptation. This summer will be different.

Lucy is the tourist vacationing at a beach house on Prince Edward Island. Felix is the local who shows her a very good time. The only problem: Lucy doesn’t know he’s her best friend’s younger brother. Lucy and Felix’s chemistry is unreal, but the list of reasons why they need to stay away from each other is long, and they vow to never repeat that electric night again.

It’s easier said than done.

Each year, Lucy escapes to PEI for a big breath of coastal air, fresh oysters and crisp vinho verde with her best friend, Bridget. Every visit begins with a long walk on the beach, beneath soaring red cliffs and a golden sun. And every visit, Lucy promises herself she won’t wind up in Felix’s bed. Again.

If Lucy can’t help being drawn to Felix, at least she’s always kept her heart out of it.

When Bridget suddenly flees Toronto a week before her wedding, Lucy drops everything to follow her to the island. Her mission is to help Bridget through her crisis and resist the one man she’s never been able to. But Felix’s sparkling eyes and flirty quips have been replaced with something new, and Lucy’s beginning to wonder just how safe her heart truly is.

My review

Expectations

Since I had such different reading experiences with books by this author, I was a little cautious with this new novel. I’ve learnt the hard way that Fortune doesn’t write YA books, something I didn’t know when reading her debut. This is totally the curtasy of the Dutch publisher who normally publishes YA and this was so different. Anyway, I was a bit cautious, because I found both earlier books by this author a bit formulaic. I was affraid that this would also be the case for this time.

Characters

Lucy and Felix are our main characters. They meet five years before this story starts, and they can’t deny their chemistry. However, they can’t fall in love, because Felix is Bridget’s brother and Bridget is Lucy’s best friend. The story is told from Lucy’s point of view and switches back and forth between past and present. This wway, we get to see a lot of both characters and their undeniable chemistry. Unfortunately, they both didn’t interest me and it felt like they were comparable to Percy and Sam and Fern and Will from Fortune’s previous work. Nevertheless, they grow as characters, they actually should as main characters. It was very predictable though. I was more interested in Bridget, because she remains a mystery for nearly the entire book. Why is she escaping the city all of a sudden just days before her wedding? And why is she avoiding these conversations about it and leave Lucy and Felix in the dark? That mysterious aura made her interesting enough to want to find out what’s going on in her mind.

Writing

This book is written fine. It’s – and I say this a lot lately – quite generic and doesn’t manage to distinguish itself from all the other books out there. It’s easy to consume, and probably that’s why it’s so successful. However, you are able to forget it pretty quickly. The switches between past and present timeline work well, this way we get to know Felix’ and Lucy’s story completely. It built up tension to the conclusion of the storyline and it’s actually necessary to get to know these characters better.

Plot

My fear unfortunately became reality, because this book is indeed pretty formulaic. The structure of the book is very similar to this author’s previous books. Therefore it’s quite predictable and this time, Fortune didn’t get away with it for me. Still, I ate it all up, because I managed to finish the book pretty quickly once I took the time to actually read it. Still, it was easy to zone out for me and put it aside. This means that I haven’t been fully intrigued by all that is going down and I just didn’t feel the chemistry between the main characters. However, this book is character driven and the plotline is subordinate to the characters in their development. And in that case it delivered well. Lucy and Felix get all the space to grow because of all the events happening in the plot. So, even though it is not as intriguing, it is logic.

Final thoughts

Even though This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune is pretty generic and similar to this author’s previous books, I still had an enjoyable time reading it. I mean, this book definitely has its flaws and it’s definitely not perfect. Moreover, it’s actually pretty predictable. However, I still ate it all up. Nevertheless am I hoping that this author is trying something different in the future, because the structure of the plot is the same and therefore you know what you will get. This makes this book easy to consume, but also pretty boring as you already know what’s going to happen. Formulaic books work the first few times, but after a while, they all become the same and boring. However, the plot still supports the characters in their character developments. So, not a bad book per se, but I’m in desperate need of something new and refreshing.


Comments

2 responses to “Book Review: This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune”

  1. This was my first book from this author and I did feel it felt generic and just okay but I still want to try more from her. What book do you recommend I read?

    1. I really don’t know, because they’re all so comparable. So I think it’s best to decide for yourself. What you like most.

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