Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Meet Me at the Lake

I thought this was really sweet! I really liked Fern and her complicated relationship with her mom and the resort where she grew up. Very lite spice, and I didn’t really get the Will has anxiety subplot, I guess it was meant to excuse/explain behavior? I loved that t I got a strong sense of place, I had such affection for the resort and the lake. I got chills when Fran finds the drawing and cried through the last 20 pages.

Content Warnings

kelly_e's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Title: Meet Me at the Lake
Author: Carley Fortune
Genre: Romance
Rating: 4.00
Pub Date: May 2, 2023

T H R E E • W O R D S

Warm • Wistful • Pleasant

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Fern Brookbanks has wasted far too much of her adult life thinking about Will Baxter. She spent just twenty-four hours with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, a chance encounter that spiraled into a daylong adventure in Toronto. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn’t.

At thirty-two, Fern’s life doesn’t look at all how she once imagined it would. Instead of living in the city, Fern’s back home, running her mother’s Muskoka lakeside resort—something she vowed never to do. The place is in disarray, her ex-boyfriend’s the manager, and Fern doesn’t know where to begin.

She needs a plan—a lifeline. To her surprise, it comes in the form of Will, who arrives nine years too late, with a suitcase in tow and an offer to help on his lips. Will may be the only person who understands what Fern’s going through. But how could she possibly trust this expensive-suit wearing mirage who seems nothing like the young man she met all those years ago. Will is hiding something, and Fern’s not sure she wants to know what it is.

💭 T H O U G H T S

After reading (and absolutely adoring) Every Summer After last year, Meet Me at the Lake easily became one of my 2023 most anticipated releases. Carley's quintessential Canadian summer settings are unlike anything else, and I could easily read her books all day long.

Carley Fortune has a unique gift of transporting me into her rustic settings and into her characters lives. Well-written in a dual timeline format, it follows Fern and Will in both Toronto and Canadian cottage country known as Muskoka. Throughout the narrative there are some comical quips about Toronto that felt like inside jokes, and the many Canadian references made this book feel like home. The resort setting came across so welcoming and idyllic, possibly because I could envision it so well.

While I didn't necessarily enjoy the lack of communication and thought there was going to be more of a love-triangle angle, I connected with Fern is a variety of ways. Will and Fern's second chance love story was riddled with past traumas and at times it detracted from the narrative. Yes, I loved the inclusion of Will's journey with post-partum OCD/anxiety and depression and Carley's explanation as to why she included it. But there were other aspects that felt overly drawn out.

And then there was the supporting cast - Jamie, Maggie, Peter, Whitney- I loved them all (more than the main characters)! I'd love for any of them to get their own book sometime down the road. The underlying theme of love between mother and daughter held my interest, as did reading about Peter and Maggie's unique love story. And parts of me were secretly hoping Fern and Jamie would end up together.

While I didn't love this one as much as this author's debut, mainly due to personal preferences, I am still glad to have read it, and will continue to pick up everything Carley Fortune writes in the future. This is sure to be a summer hit!

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• readers looking for a summer read
• fans of the second-chance romance trope
• anyone needing an escape

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"Let me tell you something about me: I am extremely picky about people. Most of them, I don't particularly like. I have very high standards for the ones I let into my life these days. And you, Will Baxter, are my favorite of all of them."

Content Warnings

brazenbookbabe's review

Go to review page

medium-paced

2.5

I struggled with this one. I felt like the characters were very flat and didn’t have a lot of chemistry. I feel that the romance part of the story was forced.

Content Warnings

sdupont's review against another edition

Go to review page

I wanted to like this book but I honestly just could not get into the story. I did not find Will and Fern to be a believeable pairing. They didn’t have chemistry. I don’t see how the foundation of this relationship was spending one day together. Not a second chance romance I can get behind. I liked Jamie much more and wish he had gotten more page space. Unfortunately this book was not for me.

Content Warnings

jilljemmett's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful medium-paced

4.0

On June 14, ten years ago, Fern Brookbanks spent twenty-four hours with Will Baxter. He was an artist who took her on a tour of Toronto for one of her final days in the city. They hadn’t met before that day, but they made plans to meet exactly one year later at Fern’s family’s resort in Huntsville. The following year, Fern waited for Will but he didn’t show up. Now, thirty-two year old Fern is returning to her family’s resort because her mother died in a sudden accident. Fern is trying to take over the resort with no experience or desire to work there. Then, Will shows up at the resort with an offer to help her figure it out. Fern needs the help and she has been waiting for Will for ten years, but she must decide if she’s willing to open herself up to possibly getting hurt again.

It is very hard not to compare this book to Every Summer After. It’s by the same author and has a similar storyline: a woman who grew up in Ontario’s cottage country, moves to Toronto as an adult but must return home after a death in the family and face the love of her life who she hasn’t seen in years. Probably if I hadn’t read these books back to back and if they hadn’t come out a year apart they wouldn’t have seemed as similar. Every Summer After was relatable and had a lot of strong emotions. Meet Me at the Lake didn’t evoke the same emotions in me but I liked the ending. I appreciated how much the author said in the acknowledgments that writing this one was more difficult than her first book. Every Summer After would be a hard book to follow up due to its huge success, but this one is a good summer beach read.

Meet Me at the Lake is a great second chance summer romance!

Thank you Tandem Collective and Penguin Random House Canada for sending me a copy!

Content warnings: death of parent, anxiety, marijuana use, death by car accident, parental abandonment, teen pregnancy

Content Warnings

midnightrose_reads's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

thatswhatshanread's review

Go to review page

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Aw Carley Fortune, making me cry again!! This book was so sweet. And familiar somehow. I’m not a lake person, but this story made me feel like I was, like I’m the type of person who spends hours on end at the lake or the surrounding parts, always on summer time. Like I’ve lived all my summers at a family-run resort (Dirty Dancing vibes are off the chart), eating the best sourdough bread and people-watching the other regulars over tea and dancing.

I’ve decided that dual timelines are one of my favorite things for a romance novel. I loved reading about Fern and Will’s meet-cute ten years ago alongside the present of meeting again and all the secrets and feelings between then and now. While Will really frustrated me at times with his mystery, I also found him soft and gentle, a safe balance to Fern’s fire and passion. I really liked the side characters as well, especially Fern’s surrogate father figure Peter.

Ultimately, the love story was a little lacking for me. I kept waiting for more. More history there or more angst, maybe. The resolve seemed a tad flat, like more needed to be said. Still, I really related to the anxiety/depression/OCD rep and the need to be perfect for others above yourself. Both Fern and Will felt like real adults with real problems.

This was a great summer read. Fortune’s writing is breezy and comforting, sweet and coaxing, sexy when it needs to be but not overly so. I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next :)

Content Warnings

More...