Her debut novel was turned into a Prime Video series. Now, Carley Fortune is reveling in the romance renaissance
When Carley Fortune started writing her debut novel Every Summer After, she had one goal: to create something for herself. Frustrated by corporate pressures, the then-executive editor of Refinery29 Canada returned to the lake where she grew up. Everything that followed—five best-selling books published in five years, two projects in development at Netflix, a television adaptation charting in the top 10 on Amazon Prime Video, and the mania surrounding her romances set in idyllic nooks of Canada—she never anticipated. Every Summer After, a coming-of-age romance set in Barry’s Bay—the corner of Ontario where Fortune spent her adolescence—was published in 2022 and has sold over a million copies. The television adaptation of Fortune’s debut, dubbed Every Year After, premiered on Prime Video two weeks ago. Fast Company spoke to Fortune about the series, other projects, how her journalism background influenced her as an author, and the renaissance of romance book-to-screen adaptations. This interview was edited for length and clarity. Your books have become synonymous with summer. What is it about that time of year that keeps pulling you back? [Photo: Berkley] I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I think what it comes down to is how fleeting summer is—especially in Canada where I live. Because it’s so short, there’s this sense of mourning summer even when it begins. It has this magical quality to it. It feels like there’s so much anticipation and hope and nostalgia around summer. I love that. It feels very Canadian in that way. And then what I love about writing summer books is that I’m writing in the fall and winter. So when I write about summer, I feel like I’m experiencing summer throughout those months. I’m not a winter person; I am a summer person through and through. If someone who had never read your work asked what a Carley Fortune novel feels like, what would you tell them? They are very transportive. You are whiske