Book Review: Every Summer After By Carley Fortune

Main Characters

Percy Graser
Sam Florek
Charlie Florek

Publisher’s Summary

Six summers to fall in love. One moment to fall apart. A weekend to get it right.

They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. 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 she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s 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. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic story of love and the people and choices that mark us forever.

My Thoughts

Every Summer After completely swept me away. I picked it up just as One Golden Summer—the sequel—was being released, and I’m so glad I did. This book gave me The Summer I Turned Pretty vibes, especially with the dynamic between the Florek brothers, and Percy.

The dual timeline was incredibly well done. I loved getting to know Percy and Sam as kids—how their friendship grew during those golden summers at the lake—and watching it transform into something deeper. The emotional pull between them in the present day was just as strong, and the tension kept me turning pages.

But let’s talk about Charlie for a second—he completely stole my heart. The summer he spent with Percy while Sam was away at college gave him a special place in my heart, because we got to see a different side to him—one that was vulnerable, kind, and completely unexpected. His story was one I needed more of, which made reading this before One Golden Summer even more perfect.

If you enjoy second-chance romance, small-town summer nostalgia, and emotional character-driven stories, this one is a must-read.

Favorite Quotes from Every Summer After

I loved you so much that the word ‘love’ didn’t seem big enough for how I felt.

― Carley Fortune, Every Summer After

Sometimes I felt sure he was—like there was an invisible, unbreakable string that ran between us, stretching vast distances and keeping us joined.

― Carley Fortune, Every Summer After

She told me to call you,” he says, serious again. I stop breathing. “Before she died. She said he’d need you after.

― Carley Fortune, Every Summer After