Bestselling author Carley Fortune discusses the television adaptation of her beloved novel, Every Summer After: “Somebody described Percy and Sam’s story as, ‘Giving you nostalgia for a summer you never had.’”

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While I've never considered myself a huge romance reader, I flew through Carley Fortune's Every Summer After and binge-watched all eight episodes of Every Year After in record time. There's something magical about Barry's Bay. Whether it's swimming in the lake, grabbing a meal at The Tavern, or simply spending time with Percy, Sam, and the rest of the crew, the world has a way of pulling you in and making you want to stick around for a while.

To celebrate the premiere, I sat down with Carley to discuss adapting Every Summer After for television, expanding characters like Delilah and Charlie, casting Percy and Sam, and the fan-favorite scene she was most nervous to see brought to life.

Note: This interview has been modified for length and clarity. This is mainly spoiler-free, though we do discuss high-level changes/plot points. If you want to go into the show completely blind, bookmark this and come back later!

Carley: It was interesting because I initially saw Every Summer After as a film. In the book, there's a very tidy ending, and it was easy for me to imagine it as a movie. When I spoke with the team at Amazon back in 2022, I was thinking, "How could this possibly work as a show?" They very roughly laid out how it could unfold, and even though it's evolved since those early conversations, I could suddenly see it.

The biggest thing I knew would have to change was making it more of an ensemble. There are secondary characters with expanded or entirely new storylines, and that was really exciting to me.

Another challenge is that the book is told solely from Percy's point of view. You're in her head, everything is very interior, and that does not work on screen.

The question becomes: how do you make what is interior come to life on the screen? I think [showrunner] Amy [B. Harris] has done such a beautiful job.

Carley: I love that you love Delilah, because I do too. 

She's not in Every Summer After a ton, but I felt like I knew so much more about Delilah than what ended up in the book. At one point, I even considered writing a book about her. 

Giving her a place at the lake and a role in the present-day storyline allows her to really come into her own. She feels like the Delilah from the book, but with this completely new storyline. Abigail [Cowen] plays her so well.

This is an example of Amy's brilliance — taking kernels of who this character was and creating women who can be great foils to Percy, such as Chantal and Delilah. The three of them are quite different, and all are grappling with their lives in different ways. They play off each other really, really well. 

I was excited by that because I love creating secondary characters, but you don't often get to do as much with them in a book.

Carley: I think show Charlie and book Charlie are so similar. When we were filming Every Year After, One Golden Summer had come out. That book is about Charlie, and Michael [Bradway] was reading it while we were shooting.

Charlie is a character who has so much going on beneath the surface. He's very funny, and people sometimes assume there's less depth there than there really is, but that's actually how he's learned to protect himself.

Amy is an incredibly empathetic writer, and she really understood Charlie. We talked a lot about what it was like for him being the older brother when their father died. That loss landed on him differently than it did for Sam, and he felt a responsibility to keep things light.

One of my favorite parts of the adaptation is that we have access to the brothers in a way that we don't in the book, but it feels so true to Charlie and Sam. We get to be there when Percy's not there.

Charlie has always been a character I thought about a lot. After I finished writing Every Summer After, even before I had a book deal, I started writing from Charlie's point of view because he's the easiest character for me to write. Out of all my characters, he comes to me so naturally. I think Amy found the seeds of all that and brought them to life beautifully. 

She really set us up for what Charlie's story could be in a second season. I really, really cannot wait — knock on wood — for a second season.

Carley: When I saw Sadie's tape, I thought: "She's unreal." She is so talented. The layers of emotion she can create in a scene, and the way she brings Percy's interior life to the screen, are remarkable. She just embodies her. 

When I'm writing, the characters are a blur. I could tell you that Percy had a certain hair color, but I couldn't pick her out on the street. Sadie really brought Percy to life for me. 

Matt's tape made me cry. They'd written a eulogy for him to read, and he obviously brings so much lightness and charisma — but I was just watching it, sobbing. 

Their chemistry read was virtual, but even in different cities, you can see how much chemistry there was. It was undeniable. Matt and Michael also did a chemistry read, and there was this incredible energy between the two of them. They really felt like brothers. 

Carley: It wasn't planned at all. It was my second time visiting the set, and Amy and I were watching them film the tavern scene, which is a big celebration of life for Sue. Amy turned to me and said, "You should be in there."

Suddenly, wardrobe found me a dress, someone did my hair and makeup, and I was just going to be an extra in the background.

Then Sadie, completely unscripted, pulled me onto the dance floor. We ended up filming that dance several times. (Laughs) I'm a terrible dancer, but it's such a sweet moment. I also love that it's interspersed with Percy and Sue dancing.

Carley: I feel like they might be one and the same — the "you came home" scene. That scene, when Sam and Percy meet again as adults, is such a pivotal moment in the book. 

I didn't do a book tour for Every Summer After because it was still the end of the pandemic, but later that summer, I did my first reading. I read that scene, and the audience gasped. 

When I went on tour for my second book, people would still talk about that scene. It's a beloved moment, so I was really excited to see it, but also nervous, because you really want it to hit. I think it does.

Carley: Their story is so woven into Barry's Bay. It's about the love they have for each other, their connection to the lake, and how inseparable those things become.

Somebody described their story as, "Giving you nostalgia for a summer you never had." It's about our attachment to places, to summers, and to the people we connect with during those moments in our lives.

Barry's Bay is very much a character in the story. When Percy loses Sam, it's not just a bad breakup. She loses a place that means everything to her.

I think that's what makes the story feel a little different, and why it resonates.