Why Carley Fortune Stayed “Away From Social Media” When Every Year After Came Out

Seven years ago, Carley Fortune and I shared an office. Before the New York Times bestselling author was introducing the world to the nostalgic love of Percy and Sam, and the dreamy summers of Barry’s Bay, she was my boss at Refinery29 Canada. While we sat together in a co-working cubicle in Toronto, Fortune and I gushed about our love of romance novels and bonded over our thoughts on what makes a good love scene (the hornier the better!). Now, the editor-turned-novelist is on her fifth book (the reliably dreamy and horny, Our Perfect Storm) and she’s the executive producer of Every Year After, the TV adaptation of her debut novel, Every Summer After. 

The Prime Video series follows a string of buzzy romance adaptations of beloved books — Heated Rivalry, Off Campus, Maxton Hall, just to name a few — and even though it’s only been streaming for a couple of weeks, Every Year After has been a hot topic of online discourse. Fans are passionately debating whether the show is Canadian enough (the adaptation Americanized one of the main characters but is still set in Canada) and if it lives up to the high expectations of its source material. No matter what you think of the show, the enthusiasm from fans is a testament to Fortune’s work. She wrote a book that people love enough to stress over the details translating to screen and demand a more faithful adaptation. Book lovers are entitled to their opinions, but the series does capture the spirit of Fortune’s novel, and I think the expansion of the secondary characters was necessary and well done (Chantal and Jordie hive, stand up!). Dealing with real time reactions to your work is something authors in a post-BookTok world are used to, but Fortune tells me that for her sanity, she stayed off social media the day Every Year After dropped. 

Fortune also touched on the response to the big secret at the center of this story (also known as Percy’s Mistake) and why the reaction has exposed an onslaught of sexism and “hostility” towards her main character. Sure, the negativity has been there, but that’s the price of popularity, and for the most part, Every Summer After is adored, and Every Year After is another addition to the recent bingeable TV romance canon. Fortune is quickly building a romance empire, with a Netflix adaptation of Meet Me At The Lake in the works, and a potential EYA Season 2.

Here, Fortune talks about her roots in journalism at Refinery29, fighting to keep Every Year After Canadian, and answers one of BookTok’s burning questions: what are Sam and Percy’s star signs?

Refinery29: Hello, Refinery29’s Carley Fortune! We’re taking credit for you. 

Carley Fortune: As you should. [laughs]. 

Talk about how working at Refinery29 and your background in journalism prepared you for all of this. 

CF: Do you want me to talk about how we talked about sex scenes? 

Yes, of course. 

CF: Okay, first of all, I feel like journalism has come into play in every aspect of this job in ways that I hadn’t really realized. Deadlines, for sure, and working with writers like yourself and seeing how much you do in a day, and deciding I could do a fraction of that on my downtime. Knowing that one of the things that writers stumble with is that first draft, and getting to the end of the first draft and handing it over was so helpful. And then honestly working at Refinery29 and covering shows or movies like To All the Boys I Loved Before, reading that book. Then you and I shared a little office together, and we talked a lot about spicy books and what made a good sex scene. I remember when I was writing sex scenes, I wrote them with you in mind, and I would think, Would Kathleen find this hot? 

“Is it horny enough?” was always my first question.

CF: Yes! Is it horny enough? [laughs] But also, what makes us yearn? We used to just talk about crushes. We did a whole ‘Crush Week’ at Refinery29 and I feel like that was all percolating under the surface before I started writing.

You’re welcome, everyone.

CF: It’s all Kathleen’s doing. 

[laughs] Well, we’re all so proud of you. As a Canadian and as a friend, congratulations on all your success. And you’ve been writing romance for awhile now, but now is also a time when romance is really in the spotlight. There have been so many shows recently in this genre, even just on Prime Video. What do you think sets Every Year After apart from those other shows?

CF: It’s so cool, because what’s been happening in books is now making its way to the screen. The hot IP is a romance novel and not a comic book franchise, which is so exciting for me. There’s like something for everyone in these books, and they’re all different. The adaptations are all different, and with Every Year After, I think what made the book stand apart, and what sets the show in a different emotional space and visual tone is this love of the lake, how important the setting is, this feeling of being transported there. Somebody described it as giving you nostalgia for a summer you maybe never had, and I was like, “That’s it exactly.” It’s a story about coming home, and how we change so much, but we’re always still who we were when we were young, and I love that.

Tell me about the process of making this show and how much of it you had to let go of creatively, and how much you were involved.

CF: The things that were most important to me were one, keeping it in Canada. The first script that I read two and a half years ago was set in Barry’s Bend, Wisconsin. That was before our showrunner, Amy B. Harris, got involved. And then I wanted it to make sure that it felt like the book, and Percy and Sam’s story is obviously important. I think it’s obvious you’re going to give the audience the moments that they want, the props department, the set department, they had all the Easter eggs, it looked perfect. And then Amy gave me her idea for the secondary characters, and I just really trusted her. I read all the scripts, but I think we’re similar writers in a way. We’re both empathetic, and I loved where she took them, and then I just got to that part. I was like, now I get to be a fan. That’s where I get to be a fan.

The show’s out now so we can get into spoilers so let’s talk about that part: Percy’s mistake. Fans of your book have been talking about this for a minute and, obviously, it’s not great to [spoiler!] sleep with your boyfriend’s brother, but I do feel like she’s too hard on herself and everyone else is a bit too hard on her. I want you to just take a second to defend your girl.

CF: First of all, Percy and Sam are best friends. As a best friend, Sam is a very safe person for Percy. As a boyfriend, he is not. She’s deeply insecure, and he is kind of wishy-washy with her. I remember being 17, I remember being 22 and feeling so insecure in relationships. I think people don’t really empathize enough with what it’s like to be a teenager and feel like someone isn’t cherishing you and has maybe cast you aside [when it’s] someone who’s so deeply important to you. It felt like such a relatable mistake to me even though it’s not my story. 

What surprised me when the book came out, and now I can see this pattern everywhere, is how some, for some people there is this perception that what Percy did is almost worse than murder. I feel like their relationship was pretty much on ice. It’s kind of a Ross/ Rachel situation. Were they on a break? But some people have called it an infidelity. I wouldn’t even use the word cheating, I use the word betrayal. But semantics aside, I was watching Instagram… Unfortunately, it serves me up videos I don’t want to see, and there was a video of a man who was reading Every Summer After, and he was like, “I’m part way through this book, and if what I think happens happens, I’m going to dive into this book, I’m going to take out a gun, and I’m gonna shoot that person, and that person, and that person, and that person.” It was for humor, but I found it so sickening that is the level of hostility that people have towards women who make mistakes.

Let’s talk about the reception that you get. With BookTok, authors are getting feedback in real time. Prime Video had to release something on behalf of the cast of Off Campus to tell fans to be respectful because there’s been so much intensity around that show and harassment directed at the cast. Talk about how it feels to get that feedback in real time, especially some that does feel dangerous and harmful.

CF: Every Summer After came out in 2022 so I was getting that feedback then, and so much of it is beautiful. What I love is we have readers who are unapologetic about their love of romance, they’re so passionate about these books. I love that people dissect it. I love that people have such strong feelings about it, but I do think there’s a lot of ugliness happening. I don’t know why that is, but fandoms are intense, and we’ve seen that across lots of different fandoms. Like anything, there’s so much beauty, and then there’s the ugly, like truly ugly.

How do you deal with it, though? Is there a self-care practice you have to do?

CF: The show came out yesterday, and I was like, I’m just gonna pretty much stay away from social media today. I try to put the phone down and then do something else. That’s been very easy lately, because in the last month I’ve had a book come out and then a show come out, so I basically have no downtime, and then, as you know, I have two little boys. I have an awesome husband, and I just get to shut everything off and just go be silly with them. The other thing I plan to do is you and I will find time to sit down with each other and have a drink and bitch. 

Absolutely. I’m in. I don’t want to be the person that asks you what’s next so soon after you release a new book and a show. But that Every Year After ending! Naturally, everyone is talking about Season 2. It was such a cliffhanger and we know that One Golden Summer exists. If Season 2 happens, will it be based on that book? 

CF: Fingers crossed we get a Season 2. Amazon has the rights to One Golden Summer. I think we’ve set up this entrance into One Golden Summer. You see Alice’s photograph. If you’ve read that book, there’s major Easter eggs leading into that book. The idea, and my hope and dream is that we can weave One Golden Summer into a second season of Every Year After. Those characters who were secondary characters in the book now have this great new life on screen that’s kind of different. I hope we can weave it all together.

I love that you mentioned secondary characters because I am obsessed with Chantal and Jordie together. 

CF: Me too. Aurora [Perrineau] and Joe [Chiu] together! 

Tell me these characters are going to end up together.

CF: I can’t tell you that. I just can’t. How is it gonna work? She’s not moving to the lake, so he’s gotta leave Barry’s Bay, but that doesn’t work for our show. So, how does this work? Long distance, that’s not good on camera. Somebody was like, “do they stand a chance, because you know this book is about these relationships from your past that are back into your present, and Delilah has known Jordie for so long. So, how does Chantal stand a chance? I really think it’s more about distance, and that Chantal is a badass. I’m worried about them.

So am I now! OK, lastly, you know we love astrology at Refinery29 so I have to ask you, do you think Sam and Percy would be into astrology and what are their star signs?

CF: Sam, no, I don’t think so. He’s such a man of science. Percy, probably. OK, what are their star signs? I’m bad at this game. Ooh, Sam is a Cancer! All I know is Leo and Cancer, because my crush growing up was a Leo, and my best friend was a Cancer, and I’m an Aquarius. So, they’re probably a Leo and a Cancer. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Every Year After is streaming on Prime Video now & Carley Fortune’s new book Our Perfect Storm is available now. 

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