“A summer away from everything, where I could read my books without worrying about being called a freak and swim whenever I wanted to, felt like heaven,” (Fortune 32-33).
Persephone Fraser seems to have an idyllic life. She’s made a name for herself as an editor at a popular Toronto magazine and owns a nice apartment in the city, but she keeps everyone at a distance. Once her life was spent traveling to Barry’s Bay for the summer and befriending and falling in love with Sam Florek, but after messing it up twelve years before she can never go back. Until one day Percy gets an unexpected call and heads back to Barry’s Bay, the lake, back to Sam Florek wondering if she might be able to finally be honest with him after what happened so long before.
Romance is not my genre of choice, but as my family is from the Ottawa Valley and similar to Percy I spent most of my childhood summers visiting the valley and swimming in the lake, I was legally obligated to read this book.
I will note some differences between my upbringing and Percy’s, not that it matters but context feels important. Unlike Percy’s rich University of Toronto professor parents, my parents weren’t wealthy and we didn’t own a cottage. We stayed in a motel in the area and visited family from there, mostly the Eganville, Douglas, Deacon, and Killaloe areas. We only ever visited Barry’s Bay a couple of times during our three week stay in the area, but I know the town. Unlike Fortune I didn’t grow up in the area, but I have a lot of family who, while not in Barry’s Bay, live in the surrounding area and know that summer life is different from year long life in the Valley. It’s why some of the choices she made were a bit confusing to me. The Ottawa Valley is made up of a number of different towns and it isn’t unusual for people to have to travel to other towns whether for school, work, or what have you. As Fortune notes in the “Behind the Book” section of Every Summer After, the Tavern doesn’t exist in Barry’s Bay but is based off of the very real Wilno Tavern which, you guessed it, is in the town of Wilno. According to Google maps, the Wilno Tavern is a ten minute drive from Barry’s Bay. Let’s say in the fictional setting of Percy’s cottage (because while there is a Bare Rock Lane it’s in Algonquin, not Barry’s Bay) that’s about a twenty minute drive to the Wilno Tavern. Basically, my issue is why not just say the restaurant exists in Wilno? Or make a restaurant that has nothing to do with Wilno? I understand that when writing authors will change things, but Barry’s Bay is a very real place and I just didn’t understand the point of basically moving the Wilno Tavern to Barry’s Bay. Either make an unrelated restaurant or make the town inspired by Barry’s Bay but not (call it Cherry’s Cove, I don’t know).
Anyways, I know this is knit-picky, but I love the Ottawa Valley, I love the area. I know I don’t have the same claim to it as Fortune, like Percy I only visited in the summer. But I know the area too, and I know for a book it’s easier to make these changes, but it isn’t realistic.
Now onto my real thoughts.
Every Summer After is a pretty standard romance. Do I think Percy and Sam would survive or be a healthy relationship if they were real people? Hell no, but this is a romance novel, who needs realistic romantic relationships? I liked the nods to Barry’s Bay, though I wish some of the other towns were mentioned. I liked both the Then and Now sections, and I wasn’t all that surprised by the “twist.” I think Fortune did a great job with Percy as a character, she’s messy and unlikable but very much a Fleabag sort of character. It was kind of refreshing to read a character who has so many flaws but is charming nonetheless.
I was going to say that I couldn’t see myself reading more just because these books aren’t my vibe, but Fortune just announced she’s written a sequel/companion called One Golden Summer, and even though it’s apparently set in Barry’s Bay again, I can’t help but hope that with the word “golden” being in the title she’s going to venture away from Lake Kamaniskeg and go to Golden Lake, my favourite in the area.
Every Summer After hits all the marks of a beach read but is unique in that it’s narrator is deeply flawed and unlikable, which honestly makes it stand out. If Fortune keeps writing books set in the Ottawa Valley I’m going to have to keep reading them, but people unattached to the area will love it for the pining romance!
Publication: May 10 2022
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 320 pages (Paperback)
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤
Summary:
They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser that has felt too true for the last decade, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart. Until the day she gets a call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek.
For five summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family restaurant and curling up together with books–medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her–Percy and Sam had been inseparable. And slowly that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.
When Percy returns to the lake to attend Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. Percy must confront the decisions she’s made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, in order to determine, once and for all, whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.
Sarah O'Connor 