After loving Every Summer After, I was so excited for this book. I really enjoyed this story, and can see the progression in Carly Fortune’s writing!

The relationship and characters feel really fleshed out, I couldn’t put this down.

Thank you for my copy!

I did actually try reading this on multiple occasions but just couldn’t get past my dislike for the fmc. Unfortunately, the romance didn’t keep me invested either and for those reasons, I had to DNF this book.

One of my new all time favourite romances - I adored Will and Ferns journey - this book was beautifully written and made me feel everything. It was perfect.

Gosh, I loved this book so much. This is my first Carley Fortune book and I am so excited to read more !! This book is part of my #readingnicolesfavorites challenge and I absolutely agree with her ( @bridgefourbooks !!! )

🍉What I loved: 🍉

•Second chance romance/insta-love : I loved this !! Fern and will met 11 years ago, and reconnected after all that time- each still madly in love with the other… perfect !

•The atmosphere: I loved the lake atmosphere and how peaceful Carley made it feel. I felt like I was sitting right by the lake on vacay the whole time.

•DIRTY DANCING !! This book gave me such strong #dirtydancing vibes- not only because Fern’s nickname was “baby” but the resort, the love story, the cute old couple… loved it!

•June 14th: this is mine and my husbands wedding anniversary so it thought that was super special and I loved it even more!

•I also really loved how you could feel the love between Fern and her mom even though her mom was gone. The resort was kind of felt like her mom- since she put her whole soul into it and than left it for her daughter.

• I was lucky enough to get this on audio through @prhaudio ! I loved the narration and how much life and depth @ajbridel added to the story

3.5 stars
Unfortunately this was a little bit of a let down for me.
I found it quite difficult to root for these two as a couple.
I just couldn't get on board with them spending one day together ten years ago, to what essentially feels like insta-love in the present.
I couldn't connect with either of them.
It was also overly long and slow in parts too, making the pacing feel off.
I did like the setting and it was an easy read. I would be interested in reading more from Carley Fortune in the future. But this was just an average and somewhat forgettable romance.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely adored this book and gave it four out of five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m a big fan of second chance romance tropes and this novel was exactly what I needed. I loved the realistic element this book gave from our two main characters; messy, unpredictable, cute and imperfect.

Fern and Will, our two main characters, had a lot to figure out and to unravel with one another but I thought it was all worth it and although this book had me reeling at one point, I really enjoyed learning about their past and present.

I really enjoyed Carley Fortune’s writing and look forward to reading more of their books in the near future!

I think the romance was adorable and messy and real. I liked learning about each of the characters, especially Peter, and the found family vibe made me so happy. I haven't read Ms. Fortune's first book, but I intend to because this was such a fun read.

The only complaint I have is that I feel like there could have been a bit more warmth and knowledge shared about the people that surrounded Fern - Jamie, some back story on Peter and/or some sweet moments between the two of them, a little more of Fern and Whitney bonding, etc. Overall though, each character was unique and this was a great read

I wasn’t too sure about Carley Fortune as I’d heard mixed things, but I actually quite enjoyed this one! It was a nice easy romance read which highlights stress related issues and believable problems with good character development and an incredible setting. Was a good book I would recommend!

What’s with Carley and the mf cheating trope??? I though there’s enough of that in ESA, my God. If she plans to make it as her “brand” then it’s over for me sorry

I loved these books. Both of them were so good, so full of women power. I ope more and more people will reach for them. I will defo read more by the author.

Every Summer After was one of my favourite books of 2022 so I was so excited for Meet Me At The Lake but I was kind of let down by this book.
Meet Me At The Lake has so many of my favourite romance tropes, such as second chance romance and past and present timeline. But something about this book just did not hit the way that Every Summer After did.
I still really enjoyed Carley Fortunes writing, it was so easy to fall into the story and it made it so that I finished this entire book in a few hours. I also found the plot of the book very interesting, but I could not connect with any of the characters and the romance felt a little lackluster.
I will read future books by Carley Fortune but I think this one was just a miss for me.

I read and enjoyed (for the most part) Carley Fortune’s previous summer romance Every Summer After right before diving into this latest release, so I was highly anticipating the same kind of heady, captivating love story from Meet Me By The Lake. I did have my issues with Every Summer After but sadly, I enjoyed it quite a lot more than its successor.

Ten years before, Fern and Will met and had an unforgettable day together. Although they vowed to reunite a year later, Will never showed. Now, Fern is running her late mother’s holiday resort by the lake but she is in dire need of help. That’s when Will decides to show up with an offer than could be what Fern needs. But how can she trust this man who is nothing like who she fell for all those years ago?

I was undeniably drawn to Will but I really didn’t think this love story came at a good time for him. He has multiple things going on in his life that are important to him and realistically, I didn’t think a budding relationship with Fern would have been healthy for him. Carley Fortune certainly knows how to write hot men though!

I was a bit taken aback to realise that Fern and Will had only ever really spent a day together before reuniting at the lake. Fern speaks about their past as if they had months together but the fact that their connection was so brief made it hard for me to really believe in them. Fern’s ex boyfriend (who she was with for years) seemed a much better and more sensible match for her, so I was actually hoping for a bit of a twist at the end that saw that relationship restart!

I think I would have preferred the romance if it didn’t have the ‘we spent a day together ten years ago and haven’t stopped thinking about each other since’ origin. If it was a brand new romance between a bereaved daughter struggling to continue her mother’s legacy and a saviour in the form of a suited gentleman, I might have enjoyed it more!

Meet Me By The Lake will almost certainly be devoured and loved by readers of easy summer romances. However, I just couldn’t connect with the characters or their relationships and I lost interest reasonably early on. BookTube and BookTok seem to love Carley Fortune but I’m not sure she’s really for me!

I had only recently read Every Summer After, and was left wanting more from Carley Fortune and I was not disappointed.
It was the perfect mixture of summer, romance and holidays.
I really loved the character of Fern, and her growth and increased emotional complexity as a character throughout the book only made me love her more.
The small, humble lakeside resort of Brookbanks Resort was perfect and I could picture myself there during Fern’s journey through the book.
The love story between Fern and Will was brilliantly written and I would thoroughly recommend this novel to anyone who loves romance and growing love. This book was a dreamy, easy-to-escape read!

What a cute summer read this was! I loved every summer after so ofc I had to jump on the hype and get this one too

I loved the dual timeline and the diary entries from her mother added depth to the story and it felt more wholesome to me with this addition. The relationship between Will and Fern was a tad quick in my opinion since they are now supposed to be in their 30’s with 10 years having passed but I really enjoyed the flashbacks to the day they met when they were young and full of energy and excitement

Overall, very cute book and a perfect companion on your summer holidays

This was an exceptional book. I loved Every Summer After and couldn't wait to get my hands on Carley Fortunes next book.
This gave me dirty dancing vibes with the stunning lakeside holiday venue, the summer party and the main characters nick name, baby. I read this book in a few days and loved the two main characters, following their story from when they first meet until the present day.
Beautifully romantic, this is by far one of my favourite reads this summer. I cannot wait for more from Carley.

This was like the equivalent of a mug of hot chocolate in winter, except its the summer version.
Something about the setting of the lake and the resort was romantic, and made their love feel teenage-ish, despite them being in their 30's, and I loved it.
I liked the plot; what's meant for you will be yours, no matter the distance. Will's character development was very good.
Peter is so cute, I cannot cope.

I don't have a lot of thoughts on the book itself, other than I like the wholesome warm feeling it gave me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group for this ARC! It took me a bit to read this because I have been really ill and also because I kind of struggled with this one.

This is a romance book following Fearn who’s mother has just passed away suddenly and left her their family’s resort by the lake. The story is told in a dual timeline. We get chapters from ten years ago detailing the day Fearn met Will Baxter, a man she’s convinced was her soulmate but never turned up at the time they agreed to meet a year after. The rest of the story takes place in the present where Fearn is now managing the struggling resort and Will makes a sudden reappearance as a consultant to help with the business side. Fearn is obviously still angry about being stood up all those years ago but she can’t deny that there are still sparks between them.

Yeah this was…just okay. In fact I found it annoying at times. I really enjoyed the resort setting and the summery lake vibes. That’s about it honestly. I do believe in love at first sight but the author was all tell and not show, I didn’t really believe in these character’s chemistry. After a few hours together they’re already saying things like “you get this look when you do this” and I just couldn’t believe that you would know that about someone so quickly.

That leads me on to the characters. We’re told repeatedly through other characters how “incredible” and “interesting” Fearn is but she was the most boring, jaded and one dimensional character. She hated everyone and we’re supposed to believe she has this beautiful friendship with her “best friend” Whitney but all I got throughout the book was how annoying Fearn found her. Will was not a compelling love interest in the slightest. The only thing that could possibly make these characters perfect for each other is the fact that they both have the personalities of wet socks.

Let’s not even get started on the romanticised emotional cheating and the god awful reason as to why Fearn went off the rails. So many of the “plot twists” had me thinking “wait wasn’t that obvious? I thought we knew this”. The way the plot ends up going completely conflicts with what we’re told about these characters and it was kind of a mess.

I am still looking forward to reading Every Summer After by this author but I’ve heard she likes to use cheating as a plot twist/trope so not sure how much I’ll enjoy that one. If you want to check this one out it came out on 2nd May 2023 but I personally wouldn’t.

I've heard a lot about Fortune's debut, Every Summer After, so I was excited to read this newest work of hers, and I have to say I really enjoyed this. It was a bit more of a slower read but I liked the pace of it as I felt it really allowed the characters to develop and the story to expand more naturally. The setting was amazing, and I felt really envious that I wasn't there at the resort, by the lake! I don't know why but I have such a soft spot for stories about business owners, especially family-run ones, so I loved reading about the legacy Fern's mum left her. In terms of the romance, I'm not normally the biggest fan of second-chance ones, but I was rooting for Fern and Will the whole time and I did really like the impact they both had on each other over the course of only one day, even if I did prefer the present-day chapters. I will definitely be going back and reading Fortune's debut!

Fern grew up on a rural lake resort north of Toronto, however, she couldn’t wait to get out of there and be in the city. After college she was about to head back to work on the resort when she meets Will who reminds her it’s her life and she shouldn’t do anything she wants to do. The young pair have an instant attraction, but when he doesn’t turn up a year later to their pre-arranged meeting Fern is heart broken.
Fast-forward 10 years, and Fern’s Mom is killed in a tragic accident, requiring her to return to the resort to consider its future. However, the last thing she is expecting his Will to turn up as a business consultant.

I liked this book, it was easy and fun to read. There was nothing particularly different about it grabbing my attention but I still enjoyed it. And look how pretty the cover is!

I haven't yet read this author's first book Every Summer After, but now I am DESPERATE to read it. Meet Me at the Lake was SO GOOD. I loved how we flipped back and forth between ten years ago, when Will and Fern first meet, and present day, where they meet again after the death of Fern's mother. It was really poignant and hopeful, and I love a good second chance romance so much.

A massive part of the story is Fern's relationship with her mother. Coming to terms with her death, after they'd had a tumultuous relationship throughout Fern's life, was really hard to read but also really beautiful. Of course, the romance is also incredible - I adored the love interest Will, and the vulnerability that he and Fern displayed together. This truly was a second chance romance done right, with longing and heartbreak and hope and spark. The timing wasn't right for these two ten years ago, but seeing them rediscover each other in the present day was really gorgeous.

This is like a perfect summer read - easy, nostalgic, sweet, and also emotional. I'm now really excited to read the author's debut, and see what all the hype was about there!