One Golden Summer With Carley Fortune

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Welcome to the shit show.

Things are going to get weird.

It's your fae villain, Kale Lower.

And you're listening to Barely Famous.

Welcome back to another episode of Barely Famous Podcast.

Today I'm sitting with the lovely author Carly Fortune.

Welcome to Barely Famous Podcast.

Thank you.

I'm so excited you're here.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through one golden summer.

Love it.

And I'm so excited because

I go back to the lake in my hometown every single year.

And so I feel like this is right up my alley.

You get it.

Yeah.

You're a lake girl.

I love it.

So congratulations on the release of your new book.

Thank you.

Are you excited?

I am so excited.

I think I'm most excited, like more than any other book.

this book I'm most excited about.

Why do you say that?

I think it's because I like as this is my fourth book and I've become more confident with every book and also because readers have asked me for this book and

ever since my first book came out it's it's like a companion novel to that book it has characters from that novel

and people have been asking me for this book for years and I finally felt like I was in a place where I could tackle it like I felt confident enough to tackle it and so I'm just excited that it's out there.

And it's the beginning of, like, it's, it's the beginning of May.

So it feels like it's time for summer reading and some escapism and a happy ending.

Like, I feel like we need this kind of book right now.

What inspired this book?

I know you said the readers were asking for it, but how do you, when, when readers are asking you for something, how do you actually bring it to fruition?

Yeah, that's a good question.

So they, the character, one of the characters in this book, his name is Charlie.

He was a brother in Every Summer After.

And

after that book came out, people wanted more of the main characters, but they also wanted him to have a love story, a happy ending.

And I had

people approach me at book events.

I had two women wait at the very end of the signing line for like an hour and a half.

And they looked at me and they said, we have a bone to pick with you.

And I said, what?

And they said, well, we've waited here all night to tell you, like, we need a happy ending for Charlie.

Justice for Charlie.

Justice for Charlie.

And I would have pitches for who he should be with.

People were were like matching him with characters from my other books and they were in my DMs all the time.

And so I had him, like I knew that I could write him.

I felt like I had been thinking about him since I finished Every Summer After.

Like even before I had an agent, even before I had a book deal, his voice was in my head.

And back then, when I got my editor, we had talked about maybe a book for him, but I didn't really have an idea.

And then

the, you know, when I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my fourth book, I thought, you know, it's time.

I've been thinking about Charlie.

I feel like I can kind of put all the expectations of readers and opinions, of which there were many aside and kind of tell the story that I wanted to tell.

And Every Summer After is really about like my relationship with the lake, where I grew up.

I grew up on the lake in Barry's Bay, the setting of the book.

I lived in the bush, down a dirt road, and cottagers would come in the summer.

They would come to their lake houses in the summer and the lake would kind of explode.

And so that book is about my my like teenage years, whereas this book is really about kind of what the lake means to me as an adult.

And it was really a matter of figuring out who the protagonist would be because I had Charlie and I did not know who she would be.

And all my books have started with settings.

All of them have started with the heroines.

And now I was like, I have to figure out who she is.

And it was so hard to do.

I love Alice.

I think she

resonate with her a lot.

I feel like I see myself in her.

So I I loved, I love her in this book.

Yeah.

But so how do you come up with the names of your characters and stuff?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So for the men, the male characters, they're usually names that my husband vetoed when we were naming our boys.

I love that though.

That's so creative.

You're like, I love this name.

So I'm going to use it somehow.

It's like, some people name their dogs after the children that they didn't get to use those names, right?

So that's perfect.

Yes.

I love it.

Yes.

And Charlie was a name that I really loved.

Even when I was pregnant with my second, I was like, could I name them Charlie?

I'm like, no, Carly and Charlie is too similar.

It's too close.

So that's where Charlie came from.

And then Alice, like the female characters are all a bit different, but Alice is a girl's name that like one of my favorite girls names.

And we don't have girls.

So I gave it to Alice.

And then I was trying to, I wasn't sure about her name because I wasn't sure it fit with Charlie, Alice and Charlie.

But then when I came up with her last name, which is Everly, Alice Everly, I just loved how that sounded.

And then I was like, Oh, Charlie would say that in such a sexy way, yeah, so it fits, and he does, or at least in my head, when I'm reading it.

And she goes, Um, Heather calls her Allie, which I think is cute.

I've never heard that nickname for Alice, yes, which I think is cute.

It's a nice little twist of names, yeah, because I think, um, what is it called?

Vintage vintage names are like coming back, totally.

So, I feel like that's perfect, it's like a modern spin-on

vintage name.

Yes, that's so true.

Yeah, so do you still go back to Barries Bay?

I do, my parents still live there.

Really, yes, yeah.

So, we had this house on the lake and they sold it 15 years ago.

And I

hadn't got, they still live in town.

They had an inn and a restaurant which they sold.

And now they have a house in town.

And before I wrote every summer after, I visited our house on the lake for the first time since my parents had sold it.

And it brought back a lot of feelings and nostalgia.

And so I still go up there to visit my parents.

And I also, every year, my husband and my sons and I stay at a cottage on a lake nearby.

So I'm like, it's still, and it's where I start writing all of my books.

Like it's where I started to write One Golden Summer and it's where I wrote every summer after.

And I just like love being at the lake so much.

It's where I feel like, I feel like I take a deep breath as soon as I, like, I step inside the cottage and I look at the water and it's like,

the air smells different.

The air smells

so fresh.

I was telling you, like, I go back to my hometown.

I'm actually going next month.

And I, as soon as I hit like the, I guess the county line, it just smells different.

So, it's like the nostalgia.

Yeah.

Yes.

I love that.

But your first book was a New York Times bestseller.

Okay.

It had this like slow build and then it made, then it made the list and was on for a while.

Yeah.

So, and I would imagine that each one of your books is like a baby to you, right?

So, how does it feel when you're like, okay, my first book made it?

And then do you feel pressure or do you just, it's whatever happens, you're excited either way.

No, I feel

pressure.

Yes, yes.

And

when I, when I was writing my second book, Meet Me at the Lake, Every Summer After hadn't come out yet.

It hadn't been,

I didn't know that it would be a hit, but I still, like at that point, I felt pressure because I wrote Every Summer After just for myself.

I didn't intend to publish it when I started writing it.

Really?

Yeah.

So what was the final push that you were like, okay, I'm going to publish this?

When I started, like, I was about 14,000 words in and I was like, it's starting to feel like a book.

And I feel like I'm going to finish it.

And

then I sent the first few chapters to my best friend as I was still writing it.

And she was like, you are going to be an author.

And she was right.

And she was so encouraging and just like, she was certain.

Yeah.

And she's a huge reader.

Oh, good.

So she like a, what are they called?

A beta reader?

Is it called a beta reader?

She was a beta reader.

She was one of the people that I sent the, when it was done, I sent her her and three friends, the manuscript.

I love that.

Yeah.

So nice.

Yeah.

So what were you doing before you started writing?

I was a journalist for 16 years, but I wasn't writing.

I was editing.

So I was assigning the writers and like coming up with the ideas for packages.

And in my last role, I was overseeing Refinery 29 Canada.

So I launched that brand in Canada, hired the editorial team, oversaw that team.

And it was so wonderful.

Like I was so proud of what we're doing.

I loved the team, but it was so stressful.

And in 2020, I got off a really stressful stressful work call, furious.

And I was at this cottage at the lake.

And I remember it so clearly because it has a landline.

And I slammed down the landline, which is like the best feeling.

And I was like, I'm going to write a book.

I've always wanted to write a book.

It's 20, like in 2020, I need to do something for myself.

I need to, I've, all my creativity has gone to my employers.

I'm going to write a book.

I'm going to finish it by the end of the year.

And that you did it.

And that became every summer after.

Yeah.

So then what was, did you self-publish that one or did you go look for an agent?

No.

So then I found an agent and I was very lucky.

I ended up signing with my dream agent, Taylor Haggerty.

And

then she we sold the book after that.

That's so exciting.

Yeah, it happened very, very fast.

And did you already have kids when that happened?

I know you don't talk about your personal life a super lot.

Yeah, I'm happy to talk about my kids.

Yeah, I would, I had one boy.

Then I have two boys.

Max is eight and Finn is four.

And so Max was, we had Max, and then I became pregnant when I was writing Every Summer After.

So Finn was born right when we were like finishing the edits on Every Summer After.

So so much was going on.

So much.

And we moved houses at that time.

Oh my gosh.

And it was like so wild.

Like I

got a book deal, moved homes, finished edits on the book and had a baby within six weeks.

And my husband was in quarantine in our house because it was like the pandemic.

So I was like super pregnant and like packing up our house.

And so it was just

your world sort of flipped upside down in a very short time.

It did.

Yes.

But what is that trend on TikTok right now?

It's like the butterfly effect.

If you did not make one decision or you made one decision differently, your entire life would be different, but for the for the better for you, right?

Yes, absolutely.

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Do you do journalism at all anymore?

Just

writing.

No.

I love that.

Yeah, I do too.

I love that for you.

And it was, thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

Yes.

I don't know how you guys do it with all the critique and criticism with books, especially with Goodreads.

I'm new to Goodreads like the last like year or so.

Do you ever get on Goodreads and read?

I'm much better than I used to be.

I used to be when before Every Summer After came out, I read every single like early review.

And I remember a super negative review came in before the book had come out around, it was like Christmas Eve, and I was at home in Barries Bay with my family.

And I was like,

and it was, it was like, and it felt like a very professional sounding review too.

And it was like, this is unimaginative, unimaginative, and this, that, and the other thing.

And it was so devastating.

And I was like, oh, people are going to hate this book.

And

I, I, you know, I've really struggled.

I've struggled with it.

Like, I used to sometimes go on, like, I, my second book, I had so much imposter syndrome writing.

And I, I, with both births, have suffered with postpartum OCD.

And so my anxiety is super bad.

So I was writing it in this like bad mental state.

And I felt like I couldn't do it.

Like the first book had been a fluke and everything was going to blow up.

And in like, when I'm in that kind of bad place, I like to try to like prove to myself that things are not going to go well.

Or, or it's like, if, if I can think of all the bad things that could happen, maybe like it'll be okay.

And I would like purposefully look at bad reviews.

Really?

I do feel like that is a little bit relatable, though.

Like, I like, some people will say I'm a pessimist.

I think I'm more of a realist.

Like, I like to think of like what could go wrong.

So that way when it goes well, or if it does go well, then I am like pleasantly surprised.

So I feel like that's relatable.

Yeah.

But it turned out well for you.

It did.

And I've stopped doing that.

I've stopped doing that.

I did not do that with One Golden Summer.

I am like, don't seek out reviews.

They come, they come to you.

Like they're all in your, and I like, you know, right now, this is publication day for me.

And there's so, there will be so many like happy like reviews and comments.

And it, and it's, and it's wonderful.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't,

it's not for you.

They're like, these reviews are for the readers and for the community of readers.

And it doesn't help you as an author either to have all these opinions in your mind.

You have to be so focused when you write on just what you want to bring to the world.

For sure.

I don't like to leave bad reviews on books because if I don't like it, I always still tell people, like, it wasn't for me, but you should read the reviews.

You should definitely check it out.

Like, I don't, because what's something that's not good to me might be so good to somebody else.

It's so true.

And I don't want someone to, especially now that I we've done like the chapter seven book club on Barely Famous.

I like, you know,

I still want to give everyone a chance.

And I love all the authors that I get to talk to.

And so, just because, if there's ever a time where something isn't for me, it might be for someone else.

It's so true.

Yeah.

My best friend and I might like disagree on books all the time.

Yeah.

So we were just having that.

Alessandra and I were just having that conversation.

She was like, I didn't love it, but we differ.

So you might like it.

And so I'm not going to not recommend a book simply because I, you know, didn't love it.

Yes.

But when you're writing your books and you have very realistic characters, how do you do that?

Are you putting yourself in a setting?

Are you picturing people that you know?

How does that work?

Oh, that's a good question.

So I, um, I can't see the characters very clearly.

Like I try to describe them so that you can picture them, but I'm not envisioning like an actor playing the role.

Okay.

But I, the setting, like the spaces, I...

I can see very, very well.

It's like almost like a movie set for me.

And I do draw out the like exteriors.

Did you do this?

I didn't.

That the painting on the cover is by Elizabeth Lenny who's done all my covers.

Very good.

It's thank you.

It's she's so talented.

I'm so grateful for her.

But

yeah, I draw like the buildings.

I draw the shoreline.

Like I like to be able to move my characters through the spaces.

I love that.

And that's, that's kind of how I how I do it.

Do you pull any inspo from yourself or people that you know in real life and put them into your characters ever?

I think there's a lot of me in all the characters.

And there are like bits and pieces of people I know for the characters.

So in One Golden Summer,

Nan, who is Alice's grandmother, she's inspired by my grandparents.

My mom's parents died before I was born, but they had a cottage when my mom grew up going to a cottage.

And my grandmother would have the kids by herself during the week at the cottage with no car, no like, you know, laundry machine.

And her husband would come up on the weekend when he was done work.

And there were these amazing photos of my grandmother at the lake and in her bathing suit and at this little cottage.

And so Nan is really like my homage to my grandmother.

I love that.

Yeah.

And she feels like everybody's grandma.

Oh, I'm so glad you think so.

Like, you know, there's, there's certain people that you meet in your lifetime and you're not related to them, but they feel like your grandma too.

Yeah.

That's what Nan feels like.

Yes.

Oh, I'm so glad.

Yeah.

I'm so glad.

And I also picture, because I was really close to my grandmother growing up and I was like, if my grandmother was still alive, this would be the relationship that I have with her, you know, and I just love that it's so relatable and feels real.

So I think that,

you know, I did get to start reading it before it came out.

But I think a lot of people will resonate with that because it really is the wholesome.

I saw the collage that you posted or your team posted on your Instagram that it was so cute.

And I was like, this really is the wholesome granddaughter-grandmother relationship everybody needs.

Yes.

Truly.

Yes.

I loved it so much.

Yes.

And you write escapism novels.

So can you explain for people that might be new to reading what that is?

For me, it is a book that no matter where you're reading it.

So maybe you're on the beach or maybe you're in your apartment, you feel like you're transported into the pages.

And so I want you to feel like you're on the lake, you can like smell the pine trees, you can feel the breeze on your face and the sun on your skin, and that you are with the characters, like you are watching these characters

interact with each other.

They feel really real to you.

So you're like snooping on them and you are just just in that place.

Like you are immersed, like you are away from whatever your life may be.

And you are in the pages of this book.

And

for me, like my books all have happy endings.

Like there's, hopefully, there's big emotions and you're feeling a lot, you're, you're in your feels in lots of different ways.

I want you to laugh and cry and like there's steamy bits and I want it to run the gamut, but I also like want like readers to feel safe at the end.

Like there's, there's, there's a happy ending and hopefully you walk away feeling better about humans and our ability to empathize with each other and relate to each other.

And I think we really need that reminder right now.

I agree.

Yeah.

I'm where I'm at right now and I don't want to give any spoilers.

I'm stressed out.

Yeah.

I'm stressed because I don't know where this is going.

Okay.

It'll be okay.

But I, yeah.

I love it so much.

And I'm like, I just, if this has a not happy ending, no, you're good.

Do you ever see any of your books coming to the big screens tv netflix movies yeah so every summer after

um is being adapted by amazon as a series okay um and that's green lit the first season is shooting very soon are you excited i'm so excited what is that feeling like though if you do you get a say in characters that were casted do you get a say in production do you get any of that or do you sort of have to like sort of let go of the reins a little bit um i have like a bit of a say okay um but it's not my adaptation.

So it's like not the Carly Fortune

version of this book.

And because it's a series, it's not, it's, it has to be bigger than the book, right?

The world, the characters develop.

Yeah.

Um, but it's, it's pretty cool to see how it all comes together.

So that's the furthest along.

Um, Meet Me at the Lake is

been optioned by Archwell, which is uh Megan Merkel and Prince Harry's production company.

That's awesome.

Yes, in conjunction with Netflix.

Okay.

And

that is in development.

There is like a beautiful script for it.

And I'm so, I'm so excited about that.

That was my toughest book to write.

And there's a really important mental health story in that book.

And I feel like from like the first conversation about this adaptation, it was going to be treated with such care and respect.

And that's like how I I felt every step of the way.

For sure.

So I'm really, really excited about that.

And then my third book, The Summer Will Be Different, has been optioned, but we haven't announced who it's with yet.

That's so exciting.

It's very exciting.

What does that feel like when you get these calls or these emails or your team tells you, hey, like, by the way, do you just freak out?

Like, what do you, what does it feel like?

Yeah, I mean, it's all seems like there's always, you know, this person might be interested in it or this this person.

And it's like, oh, that's so fun.

And I try not to get too excited about any, because you know how it is.

Like, there's a lot of talk and there's a lot of, you know, possibilities.

But until you are, you know, having that Zoom call with a team or with a group of people and like seeing whether they really are interested or you really connect with them and their vision with them.

And then until everything's signed and sealed, I try not to get like too,

but it's, it's been very surreal.

Like having, you know,

four years ago when my first book came out um

i

like had no i didn't even know i was gonna have a book like so to have all of this happen it's just like takes it's taken a while for it to sink in i would i would imagine so but it's all happening so fast i mean you're we're talking about 2020 to 2025 all of this is happening and you have

I guess almost all your books are being auctioned, essentially.

Yeah.

What is that?

How does your family feel?

Do they feel like you are like, you went from being mom and a wife to celebrity overnight?

Um, I think, well, my kids don't get it.

They don't know, um, which is great.

And my son, my oldest son, kind of is starting to get it, but, um, and he just wants to act in everything.

He's like, can I be in the

can I be in this?

If you need an extra, I'm here.

Let me know.

Okay.

And, but for Marco, it's been like, I think the first thing for him was how I started writing every summer after, which was I wrote every single single day.

Like I would get up at 5 a.m.

and write before I started work.

And sometimes after Max went to sleep, I'd write or on the weekend.

And like I had just transformed and I finished it in four months.

And he was like, what is going on?

And it was started as like a passion project?

It was a passion project.

So when it became, you got a book deal for it, what was his reaction to that?

He was so excited.

And he like, he has been like, of course, like, of course.

Like, it makes so much sense.

But it had, like, sometimes, I think it was like last summer, maybe the summer before, sometimes we just look at each other like, what is going on?

Like this is

so wild.

Like feels surreal.

Surreal.

That is so cool, though.

Like I cannot imagine what it would be like to see a book come to fruit like on the big screen and see it all come to life.

Yeah.

That's so cool.

It is.

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Do you think that Book Talk has had an influence on your books or your readers or even maybe your book, your books being adapted?

Oh, like I have no doubt that like book talk has an enormous influence.

Yeah.

I

like, I'm not on it.

So that is, I don't know, it's everywhere.

But it's everywhere.

And I think it's so wonderful.

Like

I

having been in journalism and worked in magazines and newspapers and really like

wanting to connect with an audience and sometimes publishing really wonderful stories that nobody was reading.

And so, having like all this passion on BookTalk with people, like readers connecting other readers with stories and showing, you know, and I think what I love about romance and romantic readers on book talk is there's no shame about what they love.

And I think that's so wonderful.

And

yeah, and I like, I was on book, I was on TikTok as a journalist and then was still on when Every Summer After came out and it was so fun to watch it start to explode and then at one point there is a video that was like

It just is like slams down the book and it's like worst romance book ever and it had 64,000 likes and I was like, oh, this place is not for me.

It wasn't yours though, was it?

It was mine.

And I was and it was like, like, for one, it's kind of amazing.

Like I have, I have created this book that people feel so, so many people have opinions on, but it was, it was a real moment where I was like, okay, Carly, you are going to delete this and this is not a place for you.

But was that maybe a moment of like, at least the book was getting out there?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Silverlining.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Because

I mean,

to be fair, I have never read a bad review about any of your books.

So I don't know.

I mean, thank you.

I'm not seeing them.

So they don't exist.

I love that for you.

How do you balance your home life and writing books, especially when you're talking about getting up early in the morning or maybe when the kids go to bed and stuff?

How do you balance that?

I'm really lucky.

My husband

has pulled away from his work.

And so he

is able, and I write at home.

So my office is at home, but he is able to like do the drop off and pick up in the morning.

He does lunches, he does dinners.

And so I'm able to just like go like after the kids leave in the morning, I go to my office and I write all day.

I break for like exercise and then I stop when the kids come home at 4 30.

Sometimes I work a little bit longer,

but that's that's it.

And because, you know, because he's home, because I don't have to worry about food, I don't have to worry about laundry.

I don't have to worry about pickup.

If the kids are sick, he

will like take them to the doctor.

It's become so much more manageable.

I wrote my third book with like the kids being, Marco was still working and the kids were sick all the time and I was sick all the time.

And I think we had three weeks of good health between like September and March.

And by the time I was, that's kind of my writing period.

And by the time we got to spring, I was, I just had a full breakdown.

I was like, I can't do this work as a mom looking after these kids.

Like I can't write with sick kids at home and I'm sick all the time.

And that's when Marco stepped back from his job.

But I love the place that we're in right now in terms of like the no gender roles or,

you know, I feel like looking back at like my grandparents and stuff, it was a very different dynamic where today, like men are more willing and able and it's not really super frowned upon for men to step up and let women do what they want to do in their career.

So that's amazing that you have that support.

Yeah.

I am, I'm so glad.

Like that's really cool.

Couldn't do it without him.

And you're putting Canada on the map.

I think this is the only book that I've read so far.

I mean, I can't remember any other books that are based out of Canada, yeah, which is kind of cool because we hear about like celebrities and pop stars that come from Canada, but like putting Canada on the map.

So, was that important to you that you wanted to talk about Barry's Bay?

Yeah, when I started writing the book, like I wanted to write about where I grew up and how I grew up, and that was Barry's Bay, and because it was just for me.

But then, when I started thinking about publishing the book, um, Canadian writers historically have been told that, um, like I cared about getting an audience, like I wanted the book to, if I was going to publish something, I wanted people to read it.

And Canadian authors have been told that Americans are not interested in books set in Canada.

So

a lot of the time you'll see authors

setting their books in the States.

And so when I was out to agents, I asked everyone, like, is it okay that my book is set in Canada?

And I had varying opinions about that.

What was that?

I don't understand that.

Well, outside of America, the kind of like take is that Americans aren't interested in anything other than America.

I read,

have you heard of Liz Nugent?

No.

She wrote Strange Sally Diamond.

Yeah.

And Pretty.

And then Alice Feeney, they write in Scotland, Ireland.

Obsessed.

I love it.

I mean, literally obsessed.

I like when I went out, when I went and spoke to readers about Every Summer After and relayed that, like they were so offended by this notion.

Literally.

But I had also talked to authors who had said, yeah, my book that was set in Canada didn't sell as well as my book set in the States.

And it's just this long, like Canada is so bombarded with American media.

And there's like, you know, Canadian musicians have a hard time breaking in.

And there's just this like, there historically, there was this idea that if you want to break in to that market, you have to like talk to that market more.

Like the book shouldn't be super Canadian.

And so I was not willing.

I had an agent tell me, a Canadian agent tell me that I should set the book in like a coastal East Coast town in the States.

And I was like, I've never been there.

I can't.

Like, you can't.

I cannot.

Like, I can't.

I won't.

I guess it could be like Barry's Bay Nowhere.

But I like that it's like it's a real place.

It's a real place because I freak out when I like read a book and I hear a place.

Like right now, I'm listening to an audiobook that is set near where I'm from.

And it's just so cool to

have that.

And so I think it's really cool that, I mean, I'm not from Canada, but I think that's really awesome that people that go to Barries Bay or grew up on Barries Bay, like they will be able to connect to this in a different way.

Yes.

You know what I mean?

And I think like for audiences outside of Canada, it adds to the escapism because you've never been there.

And what I found, like when I signed with my agent.

Taylor, she's based in Los Angeles and she's like, I love the setting.

And when we found my editor, Amanda, she's based in New York.

She's like, I love the setting.

And I was like, great.

Like, I'm so happy to hear that.

And then, you know, in hindsight, I was like, oh, the setting is like the care, like one of the main characters of that book.

And I'm so glad that they had the like strength to be like, no, this is fine.

Like, this is going to really work with our readers.

Like, we don't see a problem here.

No, absolutely.

I mean, I want to go there.

Yeah.

Like, if this is a real place, let's take a vacation.

I'll take my whole killer network over there.

Yes.

Like, everyone have a passport?

I love it.

So, do you ever integrate your thoughts and feelings from your own situations into your book?

For sure, for sure.

And sometimes they often find their way in without me really realizing it.

Right.

So, with this book, Alice, she's a photographer and she is a freelance photographer.

So, she's really been hustling to get to a spot where she has a list of clients who love her.

She's always making her clients happy.

She's always saying yes.

She's always like delivering.

And she's realizing that, wait a sec, like, what am I getting out of this?

Like, what like creatively, creatively fulfills me?

And that is something that I really relate to, um, related to as a journalist.

And she's kind of stepping back and trying to figure out, like, you know, what is work for me now and what do I want?

And I think, you know, I'm somebody who I can have trouble figuring out what I want.

It's like, I am like a very hard worker.

I like to say yes.

I like to stay busy.

But then when things get quiet, are quieter, it's like, wait a second, what do, like, is this what I want?

Yeah.

What do I want?

And so that, like, that felt really personal to me in Alice's story.

And so little, like, things like that just tend to, like, I didn't know what her career journey would be

when I started writing, but that like felt like right.

I liked when she does the shoot for the, I think it was Swish magazine.

Yes.

And she decides that she's going to send the pictures that were

sitting right in her own heart.

Yeah.

She was going to send those and she wasn't going to do what the editor asked or what she wanted.

And I was like, I can resonate with that because I'm in a place at 33 years old where I'm trying to tell people no, not to hurt people's feelings, but because this is what feels right to me.

Yeah.

And I don't want to be a yes man or a people pleaser.

And so I resonate with that.

It's really hard to do.

So hard.

It's really hard to do,

especially when we want, we want people to be happy with our work and we want to excel.

but like you have to like how do you so how do you do that while like maintaining your your dignity and like you what you value um it's hard

it is hard but i love that you incorporate that in your books because they that's so real to real life so we're escaping but also maybe finding inspiration in the characters and

we can use it in real life i hope so i for sure like i worked as a in women's media for the last part of my career and a lot of the stories that i would like want to assign as an editor about like our relationships to money or our jobs or to our family or like that kind of comes into the books.

So it's like there is this central romance, but there's also also looking at like our relationship to so many other aspects.

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Have you ever written a scene in your own book and cried?

Yes.

Which ones?

Basically, I cry every book that I write.

For sure.

I cried at one, the scene where everything kind of falls apart between Charlie and Alice.

I cried with this book.

Readers have been crying throughout like the entire end, which I just don't.

Like I didn't, I didn't anticipate that.

The same with Every Summer After.

I remember when that book came out, people were,

and my editor, when she first read it, she was sobbing for like the last hundred pages of the book.

And I didn't, I, I, I cried when I wrote the epilogue to that book, but um, not through the whole ending.

And you just never know how people will react, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

There's always like my editor always wants to cry.

Well, if I cry in a book, it's automatic five stars.

Oh, I love that.

Automatic five stars because if you can like evoke, is that the right word?

Evoke that type of reaction from me.

Yeah, automatic five stars.

That's how I feel.

Like, if I physically respond to a book, that is like that book is 100%.

If I can laugh, cry, anyway.

I mean, I've chuckled so many times at this and I'm like, I see myself here.

Do you know what I mean?

And I, I just love that.

But thank you.

So if you had a dream cast for this book, who would you pick?

I, you know what?

I'm like keeping my mouth shut on that because we're casting right now.

Oh, okay.

Yes.

Okay.

I feel like,

can I say who I think will be a good character?

Of course.

I'd love to hear.

Rachel McAdams could be a good character.

Yeah.

I don't know if she would be Percy or if she would be Alice because I think they're both sort of,

they have cool personalities.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe Scarlett Johansson.

Ooh.

I'm trying to think of people who haven't been in adaptations yet because I think Amanda Seifert is really good, but she is doing, she's in Longbright River, which is an adaptation.

I really like her.

For men,

I can see Chad Michael Murray

as Charlie, maybe.

I can see that.

But for Harrison, I don't know who I would pick for Harrison.

Who is the guy that played?

No, he's been in two adaptations already.

They just casted him for one of Colleen Hoover's.

He was in

he was Atlas in It Ends With Us.

Oh, yeah.

But they just casted him for something else.

I think he, but

Harrison has dark hair, right?

And you you describe him with dark hair.

I'll have to think about that one.

So what was the process for you to find Charlie's love interest?

What was that like?

So

this was really hard.

I've never done, like created the protagonist after I had the hero.

And because I knew Charlie really, really well from having written Every Summer After and also having thought about him for like many years,

I

auditioned characters like it was The Bachelor.

I created over a dozen characters.

I think I counted 18.

Women with like different names, different job titles, different personalities, different ways that they intersected with Charlie, whether they had known him in the past or not known him before.

And then I was trying to figure out like both a character whose story I wanted to follow and then how she paired up with Charlie.

Okay.

I wrote 11,000 words of a book with a different character that I threw away.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Will you use any of those characters in a future book?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

So no.

No, I think that poor woman is

done.

She's dead.

Alice is great.

And I don't know how it ends.

So

I hope it's with Alice, but no spoilers.

You know how it ends.

I hope I do.

Yeah, you know.

Okay.

I'll circle back after.

We'll circle back in book club.

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What is your writing process?

So you get up before the kids, you sometimes continue throughout, you know, the day and when they get home sometimes.

But do you give yourself deadlines?

Do you're like, I'm going to write from this time to this time?

And then I need to have the final like first manuscript, I guess, for my editor on, you know, four months from now.

Like, how does that, what does that look like?

Yeah, so we've kind of changed the process, my editor and I, so that we have, I have more time with my first draft before I send it to her.

So I, I give myself about four months to finish the first draft and like from until I get to the end.

And I don't revise as I'm going along.

Okay.

And I keep a little graph of how many words I've done.

So like once I've got 10,000 words done, I color it in.

Every 10,000 words, I color it in.

That's kind of cute, though.

It's really fun.

Yeah.

I like it.

I like getting a gold star, and it feels like getting a gold star.

Well, it's sort of like, and I really appreciate short chapters.

So thank you for doing that.

And that's something that we talk about in the book, like the reader community is like, I don't want to read chapters that are 35 pages long, 45 pages long.

And so every time you get to a new chapter, it just feels like sort of like what you're talking about with coloring and

making progress.

I love that.

So then, do you have a goal, I guess, for the amount of books that you are doing?

Like one a year at this point?

One a year, one a year.

Um, and that is like plenty because I spend, yeah, I spend four months drafting and then I step away from it for a couple of weeks and then I start revising by my, like on my own.

Sure.

Um, and that takes like a good chunk of time before I, so I just turned in the first draft of my fifth book to my editor.

Um, so would you have a release date for like 2026?

Yes, yes, that's right.

Yeah, we don't have a date yet, but yes, yes, that's the, that's the plan.

Oh, I love that.

That's so exciting.

Yeah.

I don't know how you guys do it.

I think that I would, I told you, I started writing a novel in 20, I think it was 2019, maybe.

Never finished it.

It's still sitting undone.

And I just like, it's so nerve-wracking.

And I just don't know what the process is.

So if anyone else that is listening to this podcast wants to become a writer or, you know, look for a literary agent, what do you suggest?

Where do you suggest they start?

I think in your case, I would tell myself that nobody is ever going to read it

for me specifically, or just any of the listeners?

I mean, anyone, but like, I think for you

as a passion project first, yeah, just write, just write, assuming nobody's going to read it, just write it as like the thing that you, the story you want to tell, without all, you can edit anything, right?

You need the words first, right?

You can make adjustments, you can improve it, but you need to have a first draft done.

And so, whatever you need to do to like give yourself permission to do that and space and confidence to do it, whether that's like, I am going to like give myself an hour twice a week to work on it, or I'm going to give myself a word count goal.

For me, I like, I was like, I'm going to finish it by the end of the year.

And I figured out that in order to get an 80,000-word manuscript done by the end of the year, I needed to write 388 words a day.

Oh, wow.

So that's what I did.

I just wrote 388 words a day.

Sure.

And it got done.

And then

I think having,

it is is so lovely to write with like no anticipation of anybody reading it.

True.

And then read a lot, like read widely, which you do.

And

I found, I found writing my book, I felt so like.

I felt so rebellious about it because it wasn't for my job and it wasn't for my family.

It was just for me.

And I think sometimes it can feel really hard to do things that are just for us.

And so we need to kind of like, the first step is figuring out how to like claw out some of that time and like the permission just to have fun and do it.

I think that's good advice.

It's, it's so hard.

I mean, people will always ask me as a mom, and you know, as a mom, people are like, well, where do you find time for yourself?

And this for you, I guess, started as that.

It was.

This was for you to have time for yourself.

That's right.

That's right.

I love that.

Okay.

So that's good advice for anyone listening.

If you want to write a book, just do it for yourself and then see where it goes.

Yeah.

yeah.

Do you have a favorite author that you love to read?

Oh, that's a good question.

I feel like I have so many favorite authors, and all my like my favorite romance authors are all coming out with like new books right now.

Yeah, Tia Williams has a new book that's out today, which is a YA novel that's a spin-off of my favorite romance novel, Seven Days in June.

And this book is about the character's daughter and her

romance.

So I'm really excited about that.

I love Tia Williams.

I love Emily Henry.

I love Annabelle Monaghan.

I just read this book called Sandwich by Catherine Newman.

Uh-huh.

I've seen it.

Does it have the beach cover?

Yes.

I know exactly which one you're talking about.

I think this book is a book every single woman needs to read.

I'll add it.

It is.

So beautifully done.

It's very short.

The writing is incredible and it's about this family going going to this beach house.

They go every year.

And

the mother, she's about 50, and she is really going through the like the hormones.

And she is like, it just feels so relatable.

And it's about grief.

And it's about marriage.

And it's about parenting.

And I felt like I was like in conversation with like womanhood reading it.

And it's a fast read.

Like it's so good.

And it's funny.

Perfect.

So I'm going to have to get that.

I think it's probably on my TBR on Goodreads, but I did, I remember a book talker, speaking of book talk, talking about it last summer because Because it's been out for a little bit, right?

Yeah, okay, I think I know.

And it's like

sort of like a muted.

Yes, it's like kind of yellowy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember that.

Okay, so I will definitely be reading that this summer then.

And do you have a favorite author just in general?

No.

No.

I just couldn't.

Do you read other genres besides romance or do you?

I read a lot of like women's fiction.

I'll read like a couple of thrillers every now and then, depending on what they are.

And yeah, I do read outside of romance quite a bit.

So sometimes like I love, I want to have that comfort.

Um, and sometimes I want to read something completely different from what I do.

I'm more, I'm new to the romance category, the romance genre, because I was so worried that they would all be so cliche.

Yeah.

And I don't know why I thought that because they're all so different and so relatable in so many ways that I actually love that.

Um, do you read historical fiction at all?

I don't.

I haven't been on a historical fiction kick yet.

Okay.

I feel like I need to because I love history.

I cannot stop recommending The Nightingale.

Okay.

Yeah.

By Kristen Hannah.

And The Women is really good too.

Yes, yes.

Love.

And if you want something that's like not a thriller and I don't, what genre is Strange Sally Diamond?

Strange Sally Diamond does not fit into any category and is just, I just love that book so much.

So I would highly suggest that as well.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I'm going to look that up.

For sure.

Yeah.

It's quirky characters, like just something you could have never.

imagined.

Like I truly have no idea where she came up with the story.

Oh my gosh.

So if you're into something that's, I mean, there's a little bit of romance in it, kind of a little mystery, yeah, it's just like it's a good one.

Um, did you read The Husbands last year?

Seven Husbands of Emily, no, The Husbands by Holly Grabazzio.

I feel like you would like it.

It's about a woman, it's British, um, and so it has that wonderful British voice.

Yeah, and it's about this woman who comes home drunk from the pub, and um, there's a man in her flat

and she realizes like she's looking at her phone that they're and her hand, they're married.

It's her husband.

Um, and she's freaking out.

And um, then he goes up to the attic to find something, and down comes another man.

And what is happening is her attic is sending her different husbands.

And if she wants to change the husband, she sends him back up to the attic, and another guy comes down.

And with each husband, her life is slightly different.

So it's like the butterfly effect.

Yes, yes, except it's like it's a comment on dating.

It's like it's

you have to read it.

And it's so good.

Okay.

And it's like, it's a mystery.

It's a thriller.

There's like, like, it's everything.

I just feel like you would love it.

I would probably love it.

I, I am surprising myself when I step out of my comfort zone a little bit with the books.

So I feel like that's.

right up my alley.

Yes.

Actually.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

You guys can get One Golden Summer anywhere you can buy books, Barnes ⁇ Noble, Amazon, your indie bookstores, and anything you want to plug.

Also, what is your, where can people follow you on social media?

I'm on Instagram at CarlyFortune and my website is carlyfortune.com.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

And as always, we run an online book club called Chapter 7 Book Club and you can find that on kale lowry.com.

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These black women are getting pregnant by people that we also consider to be lower than them.

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To a lot of people, Kylie looks a lot older than she really is.

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