Book Review: One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune

One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune

Published: May 6th 2025 by Viking Books
Rating: ★★★★★ (5 stars)
Genres: Adult // Romance, Contemporary
Quick Thoughts: Dreamy, romantic and hauntingly emotional to the core. Carley has this way of weaving golden threads of the very being of summer through her books. It’s ethereal, the way, in so little words, Carley conveyed this powerful, larger-than-life love between Charlie and Alice.

This book was self-purchased

I purchased a copy of this book myself. There was no obligation to post/give this book a certain rating. All views are my own. I remain entirely impartial.

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Reader Information: View Content Warnings.

TW: this book contains mentions of family trauma, self-image issues, pregnancy, car accidents, death of a loved one, hospitals, surgery, frequent references to sex and sexual relationships, including explicit content that isn’t suitable for young readers.

Literary Trope Guide

Lakeside Summer

Unexpected Love

Mending Wounds

Captured Memories

About This Book:

A radiant, new escape to the lake from #1 New York Times bestselling author Carley Fortune
I never anticipated Charlie Florek.
Good things happen at the lake. That’s what Alice’s grandmother says, and it’s true. Alice spent just one summer at a cottage with Nan when she was seventeen—it’s where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in a yellow speedboat, the image that changed her life.
Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry’s Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.
Charlie Florek was nineteen when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he’s all grown up—a shameless flirt, who manages to make Nan laugh and Alice long to be seventeen again, when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.
Because Alice sees people—that’s why she is so good at what she does—but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.

First Thoughts

It was only a few weeks ago when I read my last Carley Fortune book (and now I’m realising I have to wait a whole year for more) but this one, I knew, would be extra special because of Charlie, aka Sam’s brother from Every Summer After, Carley’s first book. Charlie played a huge part of the first story I ever read from Carley, and I had always secretly hoped he would get his happy ever after, too. So when I saw this was in-the-works, my heart couldn’t wait for the day I got to dive in.

My Review

Alice uses her camera to hide behind, and always has. It’s easier, she says, to be behind the lens than ahead of it. When she was seventeen, she spent the summer at her grandmother’s friend’s cottage on Barry’s Bay, and took a photograph of three teenagers on a yellow boat that changed her life forever. It was, and still remains, the photo she is most proud of. But now photography is a job, a task, and she’s frustrated. So when her grandmother, known as Nan, is feeling down after breaking her hip and is requiring help for a few weeks, Alice has an idea to escape to that same cottage, which has been sitting empty. She throws herself into making someone else happy, just as she always has, the quietly compliant sibling she’s always been, to create a magical summer for the both of them to reignite a spark for life in the place she loves.

What Alice doesn’t anticipate is Charlie Florek. Flirty, smiley, hot Charlie Florek. She recognises him from the moment she spots him on that same yellow boat from the summer she was seventeen, the one when she wished she knew those three teenagers on the boat, the ones that lived across the lake. Charlie, who’s been taking care of the empty house, sweeps in to safety-proof the cottage and, in the process, makes Nan smile and look spritely for the first time in ages. He quickly becomes a familiar face for Alice, stealing her away to knock some things off her summer bucket list, making her feel alive for the first time in ages. He sees her in the way she sees people, piercingly and deeply. There is obvious chemistry between the two of them, dark room encounters and summer night sleepovers, but Charlie is holding back. Alice is falling quickly, and though she feels caught in the freefall without certainty he feels the same, she sees it in snapshots of their summer together, a feeling captured that he cannot follow through. But when the summer draws to an end and Alice is face-to-face with the reason Charlie held back, she can’t believe she missed the signs—and knows it’s not too late to bring back their golden spark.

Overall, One Golden Summer was dreamy, romantic and hauntingly emotional to the core. Carley has this way of weaving golden threads of the very being of summer through her books, and making the reader feel as though they’re walking hand-in-hand with the characters throughout. Alice felt like my friend. My heart ached when hers did, it healed and broke when hers did. Charlie . . . they could never have made me hate you. After Every Summer After, I knew I wanted to know more about him. His big heart and wild ways. As we peeled back the layers on his backstory beside Alice, there was so much hurt on his shoulders from losing his parents and mistakes he had made, and though he didn’t need redemption, this story just made me love him even more. The connection between Alice and Charlie might just be my favourite from Carley. It’s ethereal, the way, in so little words, Carley conveyed this powerful, larger-than-life love between them. I finished this story on holiday by the beach, in my own cottage, and turned the last page with tears in my eyes and a full heart. I can’t recommend it enough. (And will never shut up about it.) Five golden stars.

P.S. Getting to see Percy and Sam so much (and even a nod to Meet Me At The Lake!!) was so, so sweet and nostalgic.

W H Smith Amazon Penguin