Can we just take a moment to appreciate that a woman who quit journalism in 2020 because she was burnt out now has three concurrent TV adaptations in development, with one of them produced by actual royalty?
I know, I know. It’s a lot. Yet, somehow, it doesn’t feel unearned.
Carley Fortune has published five novels since 2022, and every single one has hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list. She writes the kind of Canadian summer romance that makes you want to book a cottage, stare at a lake, and think about that one person you should have been braver with.
Now the screen is catching up. One adaptation is already streaming, another is filming on a Prince Edward Island beach right now, and a third has been sitting in the very specific, very particular hands of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for the past three years.
Let’s walk through all of it.
The Author Who Turned Journalist Burnout Into a Franchise
Before she was a #1 New York Times bestselling author, Carley Fortune was a journalist.
She spent fifteen years working her way through some of Canada’s most respected mastheads (The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, Chatelaine) before becoming Executive Editor of Refinery29 Canada. It was a career she was good at. It was also a career that eventually broke her.
In the summer of 2020, she made a “should I quit/should I stay” list. Then a phone call pushed her to her limit. She quit, and she started writing her first novel.
Every Summer After was published in 2022 and spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her second book, Meet Me at the Lake, debuted at number one. So did every book after that. In four years, she published five of them.
She grew up partly in Barry’s Bay, a small lakeside town in rural Ontario, and the landscape of her childhood runs through nearly everything she writes. Her books smell like sunscreen and lake water and the particular kind of grief you feel when summer ends and you know something has changed.
She told Toronto Life what keeps her going at this pace:
“My journalism training taught me how to work on a deadline. I love to work, and I’m a hard worker. The trick now, with the adaptations going into reshooting this summer, is finding even more time. With every book cycle, the demands on my time get bigger and bigger.”
And the demands, clearly, are not slowing down.
Back in Barry’s Bay
The first adaptation has already arrived, and it brought the whole town with it.
1. Every Year After (TV Series)
Every Year After, based on Fortune’s debut novel ‘Every Summer After,’ premiered on Prime Video on June 10, 2026, with all eight episodes dropping at once.
The story follows Persephone “Percy” Fraser, who returns to the lakeside town of Barry’s Bay for a memorial service and comes face to face with Sam Florek: her childhood best friend, her first love, and the one whose absence has shaped the past ten years.
The series unfolds across six years and one week, alternating between past and present as the pieces of what happened fall into place.
Sadie Soverall played Percy, and Matt Cornett played Sam. The ensemble included Abigail Cowen as Delilah, Aurora Perrineau as Chantal, Michael Bradway as Charlie, and Elisha Cuthbert as Sue. Amy B. Harris served as showrunner, with Fortune executive producing alongside her.
It debuted at the top of Prime Video’s charts in both Canada and the United States.
Fortune described the experience of seeing the adaptation’s creative team at work, and how much that trust meant to her:
“I’m wildly excited to announce that I’m going to be working with Amazon Studios to turn Every Year After into a series for Amazon Prime. This project has been in the making for two years, and I’m so delighted to be able to shout about it. I can’t wait to see Percy and Sam’s love story expand and evolve for the screen.”
Filming Now, Coming Soon
The rest of Fortune’s adaptations are somewhere in the pipeline, at very different points along the journey.
2. One Golden Summer (TV Series)
Prime Video officially confirmed Every Year After will return for Season 2 during Obsessed Fest on June 27, 2026.
The new chapter will adapt Carley Fortune’s 2025 companion novel, One Golden Summer, which shifts the spotlight to Charlie Florek and his romance with photographer Alice Everly.
This marks a tonal pivot from the first season’s Sam-and-Percy storyline, giving fans a fresh love story while staying rooted in Fortune’s interconnected universe.
While no release date has been announced, the production timeline offers clues. Season 1 was filmed in Summer 2025 and premiered the following June. If Season 2 follows a similar schedule, a 2027 premiere feels like a safe expectation.
Needless to say, Fortune’s novels are quickly becoming adaptation favorites, with One Golden Summer positioned as the next big screen-ready romance in her growing portfolio.
3. This Summer Will Be Different (TV Series)
This Summer Will Be Different is the adaptation with the most momentum; cameras are literally rolling as you read this.
Netflix greenlit the 10-episode series in March 2026, with husband-and-wife writing team Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart attached as co-creators and showrunners.
Fortune is executive producing alongside Jennifer Kawaja, Elise Cousineau, and Samantha Levine for Sphere Media. Karen Maine, who directed Rosaline, is directing the pilot.
Sophie Nélisse plays Lucy Ashby, a twenty-something who falls for her best friend’s older brother, Felix, played by Roby Attal, during a summer trip to Prince Edward Island.
Francesca Reale plays Bridget, the best friend caught in the middle. Production kicked off in August 2026 on location in PEI and Toronto, with filming expected to run through October.
No release date yet, but if production wraps in October 2026, a Summer 2027 debut feels like the target.
3. Meet Me at the Lake (Movie)
This one requires a bit of honesty, because it has been, by Fortune’s own description, a quieter journey than the others.
Meet Me at the Lake follows Fern Brookbanks, who manages her late mother’s Muskoka resort, and Will Baxter, the man she shared one perfect, unexpected day with in her twenties and never quite got over. The story weaves between past and present, between grief and second chances, and it’s widely considered Fortune’s most personal book.
In August 2023, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Productions announced they had acquired the film rights for Netflix, with Fortune confirming the news from the cottage where she wrote the book. Her initial excitement was unambiguous:
“Will and Fern’s love story is dear to my heart, and I can’t imagine a more perfect partnership. Writing this book was a tremendous personal challenge, and to see it recognized in this way is truly incredible.”
Three years later, the project is still in development. In June 2026, Fortune gave an update on Jenna Bush Hager’s Open Book podcast that was cautiously encouraging:
“Meet Me at the Lake is with Archewell Productions and Netflix as a film. And that project is still in development. There’s a director attached, and the script is still being revised.”
There’s already a director attached but not yet publicly named. No cast has been announced either.
Industry insiders have described the timeline as slow even by Hollywood standards, and the project has quietly faced questions about where it sits within Archewell’s evolving relationship with Netflix.
Fortune, to her credit, has remained upbeat about it at every available opportunity.
So Much for Taking It One Book at a Time
Here is the thing that keeps striking me about Fortune’s story: she quit journalism because she was burning out, and the cure she chose was to publish a #1 bestselling novel every single year for four consecutive years while simultaneously managing three TV adaptations across two streaming platforms and one royal production company.
Her relationship with summer is woven into all of it. The lakes, the cottages, the way a single season can hold an entire love story. That specificity of place—Barry’s Bay, Muskoka, Prince Edward Island—is what her readers come back for, and it’s what the adaptation teams keep working to translate.
Needless to say, we’re excited for what’s in store in Carley Fortune’s summer romance universe.
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