Bawdy Language

Carley Fortune knows a thing or two about words. She spent 15 years climbing the ranks at various magazines (including Toronto Life, where she worked as a digital editor) before ditching journalism to write romance novels full time. Since 2022, she’s released a book a year. Prolific output, however, is the least surprising thing about her second career.

Despite being an unknown quantity, Fortune’s first book cracked the New York Times bestseller list and stayed there for 13 weeks. Its wild popularity helped her second novel debut in the top spot—a feat that secured her a pair of royal fans (with a book-worthy romance of their own) in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who partnered with Netflix to option the film rights. The author’s latest twisty-turny beach read, This Summer Will Be Different, is a sun-kissed tale of lust, forbidden love and enduring friendship set in Prince Edward Island and Toronto. On the eve of its release, Fortune weighs in on anti-romance snobbery, what makes a good sex scene and how sudden fame has changed her life.

You worked as a magazine editor for 15 years. Then, in 2021, you decided to leave journalism and write fiction full time. It was obviously the right choice: your first two books have sold 1.5 million copies in North America alone. What propelled you to make that kind of change? I was the executive editor at Refinery29 CanadaAfter working as an editor at Toronto Life and Chatelaine, Fortune was hired by Refinery29 to help the US media and entertainment site tap into her demographic peers: millennial Canadian women. at the time. While I’m incredibly proud of the team I built there and the work we did, I was burnt out and deeply frustrated with the corporate side of things. In the summer of 2020, I made a “should I quit/should I stay” list. Then I received the worst phone call of my career.

What happened? It involved personnel issues that didn’t have to do with me but that did push me to my limit. At work, I’m someone who does what is asked and does it well. That’s my personality—I want my gold star. But, if I’ve done everything and it’s still not enough, I break. That’s what happened and that’s when I decided to write my first book. All the creative work I’d done as a journalist was for my employers. And I had nothing to show for it except a massive amount of stress.

Did you waffle about making the move official? I waffled a lot. I was postpartum and had a lot of anxiety. I was scared that going out on my own would destroy my family’s finances. But both my husband and my therapist reminded me that I’d wanted out of journalism for a while. So, in the spring of 2021, I crunched the numbers to see if I could give myself a bit of runway, and then in October I quit. A week after I resigned, Refinery29 announced it was shutting down the Canadian franchise anyhow.

Where were you when you took that phone call?
At the lakeside cottageFortune’s rental cottage is 25 minutes from Barry’s Bay, the small town near Algonquin Park where Fortune spent most of her childhood and where her parents still live. my husband and I have rented for the past seven summers. Now I also go up by myself in the fall when I’m beginning to write a new book, to spend a week cracking into it. I wake up with the sun and put on coffee, then sit down at the table by the window or work outside bundled in layers of clothing and blankets. When evening hits, I head out to my parents’ place to mooch dinner off them.

Given your newfound success and affinity for cottage life, do you have any plans to buy a place rather than rent one? One day. My husband and I have visited a couple of places, but we don’t have the bandwidth right now for the upkeep. Besides, the cottage that we rent feels like home. I’ve installed light fixtures, bought a microwave, opened and closed the place for the season. We have two sons, ages three and seven, and it’s where they swam for the first time.

Lakes and oceans figure prominently in your work. What’s your deal with water? I’ve always been a water baby. I was born in Toronto, but we had a cottage on the lake in Barry’s Bay where my parents made me a little kiddie pool by the shore with rocks. Then we moved to Australia, where my dad’s family is from, and I went to the beach all the time—until we moved back to Canada when I was eight and relocated permanently to Barry’s Bay.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that your rise to fame has been stratospheric. Your first two books were on the New York Times bestseller list. Last August, it was announced that you had sold the film rights to your second book. Beginner’s luck? It used to feel that way. My first book, Every Summer After, was magic. Writing it felt effortless, and editing it took two weeks, which is almost unheard of. I found an agent, we sold it at auction and it went on to become much bigger than anybody anticipated. It all happened so fast. Then one day my editor and I were pinging cover ideas back and forth over email and I told her that the process reminded me of working in magazines. She said, “It’s so fun to watch you in this moment, because you’ve been training for this your whole career.” And I thought, Yeah, that’s right. I’ve had extraordinary luck, but I’ve also been telling stories and packaging them for an audience my entire career. It’s a different industry, but so much of it is applicable.

You’ve said that the second book, Meet Me at the Lake, was much more difficult to write than the first. Why? In March of 2021, my family and I moved from a semi-detached in the west end into a bungalow in Don Mills, I sold my first book as part of a two-book deal, and I was nine months pregnant with my second son. In April, I gave birth, finished edits and then had to develop a new idea for the second book. I had an agent and an editor and publishing teams, and I was terrified of disappointing them. I remember looking back through the notebook I used during Every Summer After and trying to figure out how I’d written a book. The first one had just flowed through me, and now it felt so hard. Every day working on Meet Me at the Lake was a slog and filled with self-doubt: You can’t do this again. This book sucks. You suck. It was almost paralyzing.

Nevertheless, you’ve written three books, soon to be four, in remarkably little time. Are you permanently caffeinated? I’m a hard worker. It’s one of my strengths, and I credit my parentsFor more than 20 years, her parents ran Fortune’s Madawaska Valley Inn, where she worked at the front desk, in the dining room and as cleaning staff. for that. But I’m also good at managing my time, and I’m ambitious. When I do something, I give it my all. Last year, my husband and I were both working, so I was parenting our sons while writing. It was very difficult. This year, my husband took a sabbatical from teaching grade school, and that has made things a lot easier.

And more fun, I’d imagine. My goal with this third book was to have fun. I’d put on music and dance while I was doing chores, and I started doing things creatively outside of writing, like painting, pottery and photography. I plan to keep writing a book a year for as long as I can without burning out. I don’t want what happened with journalism to happen with writing, where I put so much on the table that I end up feeling taken advantage of, whether that’s true or not.

So do you have a fifth book planned out?
Planned is too strong a word, but I do have an idea I’m excited about. I’m trying not to get too attached to it, though. I work closely with my agent and editor at the conception stage. Once my fourth book goes to copy-editing, we’ll begin discussing book five. I’ll present my idea, and my editor will poke a thousand holes in it, and I’ll eventually end up with something far stronger.

After giving birth, you experienced anxiety and postpartum OCD, both of which play a part in Meet Me at the Lake. Why did you want to share that with readers? I hadn’t heard of postpartum OCD when I went through it. No medical practitioner had mentioned it to me as a possibility. You hear about things like postpartum depression, baby blues, even postpartum psychosis, but you don’t hear about postpartum OCD and intrusive thoughts. Those things are very difficult to talk about when you’re a new parent—I thought I was going to be institutionalized. I included some of that in the book because romance fiction is a safe space for exploring hard experiences. The reader knows they’re on a journey that will have a happy ending.

Archewell Productions—run by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle—is producing Meet Me at the Lake for Netflix. Did that come as a shock? I would sob uncontrollably watching one of my books come to life on screen, but that’s not the reason I write. The rights to books get snapped up all the time, and in many cases the books never make it to the screen. It’s the nature of development and Holly­wood. So I’ve taken the screen stuff as icing on the cake. Still, I have confidence in ArchewellIt has been widely reported that Archewell secured the film rights for roughly $5 million. and Netflix, and I’m thrilled with how things are progressing—it’s very exciting.

What was it like speaking with royalty? I had several meetings about selling the rights, including with the team at Netflix and with Meghan and producer Tracy Ryerson at Archewell. They’re mostly relaxed, creative conversations, but they’re also an opportunity to get a vibe read—to figure out whether you have a shared vision and whether everyone likes each other. Meghan and Tracy are brilliant, and they understood exactly what I was trying to accomplish with the book. We gabbed for ages. In other words, we were creatively in sync. Then I had a lovely call with Meghan and Harry on the evening the deal closed. I can’t play it cool—that was surreal.

Any royal watchers in your life who were particularly jazzed when they found out? I am bummed that my father’s mother, Hazel, isn’t still alive. Australians, like Canadians, are very into the royal family, and my grandmother would have been over the moon. She would have bragged to every single person she knew.

You’ve featured Toronto landmarks like Sneaky Dee’s and Graffiti Alley in your books. After two decades in the city, what are the top spots on any tour you give to out-of-towners? The AGO for sure. I love the Galleria Italia—it’s one of the most spectacular places in the city. We’d do a Queen West shopping crawl. For dinner, we’d go to one of Jen Agg’s restaurants, Bar Vendetta, for their amazing take on cacio e pepe.Jen Agg’s Bar Vendetta does a royal spin on cacio e pepe: a crown-shaped noodle filled with ricotta, pecorino, black pepper and lemon zest. It is the best pasta dish I’ve ever had, and I’m married to an Italian.

Your books lean resolutely into classic Canadiana: cottages, lakes, small-town life, Anne of Green Gables. Were you tempted to choose more universal settings to appeal to a wider readership? Each of my books is a love letter to a different place. The first thing I knew about Every Summer After was that I wanted to write about Barry’s Bay and growing up at the lake. I had heard that Canadian settings aren’t broadly appealing to international audiences, so once I started talking to agents, I was open to setting the book not in Barry’s Bay, Canada, but in Barry’s Bay, ­Anywhere. Fortunately, almost everyone I spoke to loved the setting. I’m so glad it happened that way, because Barry’s Bay is such a character in the book, and the fact that it’s a real place you can visit is so special. Last year, I met a couple who’d driven from New York to Barry’s Bay in late May for an Every Summer After–inspired getaway. Unfortunately for them, the lake was too cold for swimming and it was the height of blackfly season. Nothing says romance like a mouthful of bugs.

How did you land on romance as your chosen genre? A few years ago, I started reading young adult novelsJenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before—which became a monster hit for Netflix—kickstarted Fortune’s YA reading frenzy. for the first time since I was a teenager. I’d loved reading them then, and I developed a new appreciation for the genre. Then YA led to contemporary romance novels, which were a big discovery for me. I stopped watching TV. I read more than 60 books in 2019 and more than 90 in 2020. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was reading them with an editor’s brain. So, when I sat down to write Every Summer After, I had just spent the past two years studying romance books. Writing one came naturally.

Is there a formula to creating a bestseller? No. I was fortunate with Every Summer After. It didn’t debut on the New York Times bestseller list—it hit the list afterward, and that’s rare. In the US, your best chance of landing on the list is during the first week of sales. You might have a big book club behind you, like the Good Morning America Book Club or Reese’s Book Club, and that, coupled with your pre-sales, might get you onto the list. But Every Summer After exploded after six weeks of word of mouth. There was a steady climb, and then it just went bonkers. Of course, some books are set up for success more than others. There are budgets and other factors that determine how much publicity a book gets, but there are no guarantees. If an author could snap their fingers and create a bestseller, they would, but there’s only so much you can do.

Mainstream success means more readers, more money, more fame. What have been the most pinch-me moments of the past couple of years? There have been so many. Landing my dream agent, Taylor Haggerty, and hearing her tell me why she loved my writing; the moment I found out Every Summer After had hit the New York Times list (I was shopping on Queen West with a friend, and I freaked out on the sidewalk); and, yes, joining a Zoom meeting with Meghan Markle. One of the best moments was meeting Taylor and my editor, Amanda Bergeron, in real life. They’re based in Los Angeles and New York, respectively, and the three of us didn’t get together in person until last summer. These two women changed my life, and hugging them meant the world.

What has been the single biggest change? I’ve discovered that writing fiction is the thing I love doing more than anything else. I’m well compensated for my efforts, and I’ve struck a chord with readers. It’s a profound shift. Also, my head is massive now, and I never leave home without my bestselling-author sash.

But of course. I imagine there are drawbacks to massive success too. I’ve found it challenging to go from being an editor behind the scenes to someone whose name is on the cover of a book. I went on a publicity tour last year with Meet Me at the Lake, and that’s when I realized there’s a “me” Carley—the person who gets up every day and sees the kids out the door and then sits down and writes—and there’s the public persona who signs autographs, engages with readers and brings energy to events. People sometimes cry when they meet me, and they share really personal things, whether it’s in person or on Instagram.

With the advent of things like BookTok, Bookstagram and BookTube—basically, all the lit-obsessed corners of social media—there seems to be more pressure than ever for authors to connect with their fans online. There’s a partnership between an author and their publisher, and it’s different depending on who you are and when you started publishing. Because I have a background in media, I see the power of these platforms. I want to be an active partner, and I have endless ideas for how to grow my brand—the business, my community and myself as an author. I’m also an extrovert who likes people and likes to interact with them through my Instagram and my newsletter. Another author might feel differently—maybe their publisher is encouraging them to post more online. But I was already there, and I see it as part of my job.

Meet Me at the Lake was a 2024 Canada Reads finalist. You wrote in an Instagram post that you were honoured to be recognized by Canada’s “biggest celebration of authors and reading.” It was a big deal.

Following the first round of debates, your book was eliminated. You responded with an Instagram post about how romance is undervalued in Canada and you didn’t care if you had a seat at the country’s literary table. Was that bluster? I meant it. On the one hand, it’s an honour to be part of Canada Reads, which unites readers. It was especially meaningful to have Mirian NjohWhen Mirian Njoh, a Toronto-based fashion influencer, chose Meet Me at the Lake, she became the first panelist in Canada Reads history to defend a romance novel. stand up for the book, because preparing arguments for the debates is a tremendous amount of work—I’m so appreciative of that. However, I do not care if I am considered “literary.” The conversation in Canada around books has long alienated me as a reader. I’ve never sought the approval of so-called literary thinkers. I just don’t give a shit.

Can you elaborate? In my fourth year of university, I was working 35 hours a week, editing the Review of Journalism and reading a ton of books for classes. I started to hate reading. And then I began working in media, and I found the conversation around what books were worth reading—which was largely about signalling ­intellect—to be so off-putting. I don’t like being told what to do, so I moved away from books for a long time. Canada has a reputation outside of the country for being snobbish in the way it looks at books.

How so? If I say “CanLit,” I bet it conjures a certain kind of book. I loved The Stone AngelA finalist in the 2002 edition of Canada Reads, Margaret Laurence’s 1964 CanLit classic is about a nonagenarian looking back at her life on the Prairies. as much as anyone, but if you look at what Canadians are actually reading, our taste is much more varied. There’s an explosion of authors writing fabulous commercial fiction in this country. But the cultural conversation often excludes or dismisses them and therefore excludes and dismisses certain readers. There’s a value judgment about genre and commercial fiction that has nothing to do with quality. Last summer, I saw a books roundup from a Canadian media outlet with the headline “Beyond the Beach Read.” Why aren’t we celebrating reading in all its forms? To be a reader is a wonderful thing, regardless of what you’re into. With Canada Reads, I knew my book would be voted out in the first round. That’s fine. But I take issue with panelists saying things like, “We’re happy to have a romance book as part of Canada Reads so we can introduce romance readers to other kinds of books.”During the first day of debates, author Heather O’Neill (who repped the winning book, The Future) said, “As far as the romance readers, I want them, and I was excited [Meet Me at the Lake] was on the list just because we’re going to have that huge audience listening, and they can try out new things.”

Where does this disdain come from? The romance genre is a huge piece of the publishing pie. I believe it’s called the patriarchy.

So the disdain is systemic. There’s this assumption that romance books are shitty, poorly written, anti-feminist, silly. I think stories that are written and read by women have, by and large, a tougher time being taken seriously. It’s a problem that exists in other industries, including journalism, where I experienced this same thing.

In a past interview, you said, “I can’t count the number of times we were told to ‘stick to the recipes’ at Chatelaine. But defying expectations is part of the fun.” Do you want romance novels to be recognized at a so-called higher level? That’s not the point.

What is the point? To give readers a story to escape into. I want readers to feel transported to a beautiful setting. I want them to feel like they’re snooping on real people who are going through real stuff, like falling in love and dealing with life issues. When I started reading romance, it was at a very stressful time in my life. I needed a lifeline. That’s the reason I wrote romance. When I was writing my first book, in 2020, all I could handle was a happy ending. It’s easy to be cynical, and I am, but we need hope and optimism too, and we need a reminder that not everything sucks. There are still good things in this world.

You’re 40 years old. The world’s most famous romance novelist, Danielle Steel, is 76 and has written almost 200 novels. Thirty-six years from now, what do you hope to be remembered for? Maybe really good sex scenes? I have no idea. I don’t think that far ahead, and life continues to surprise me. One thing that I am known for, and proud of, is writing about Canada. We don’t tend to brag as Canadians, but I feel like my books are brags.

What makes a really good sex scene? My sex scenes have to play into the larger story. They are there for a reason and speak to where the characters are at emotionally: more than body parts are revealed. Language and consent are really important, as is a woman who feels empowered. And I really try to make them original, which can be tricky. You want to be sure the reader can visualize what’s happening, and you also have to be careful not to repeat the same words. No matter what, you have to evoke ­emotion—that goes for any scene, not just ones with sex. If things get too choreographed, the scene becomes stiff. Ultimately, I find writing sex scenes so fun, but I find editing them horrifying.

Why is that? My inner prude comes out—I become embarrassed of myself.

Do you have to get in the mood to write a sex scene? Do I light candles? No. There are days when I’ll put a placeholder and come back to it later, but usually I just sit down and do it.

What’s the value of a sex scene? Romance books are about finding somebody who makes you feel seen, and the sexual dynamic is incredibly important to that. Sex is a huge part of people figuring out if they’re good romantic partners. Also, women’s bodies are treated so poorly in film and TV and books. There’s so much content out there that treats women’s bodies like objects to be subjected to a bunch of terrible things. It’s refreshing to get to focus on women’s pleasure in the work that I do. I’ve heard from parents who’ve given my books to their teenage daughters to help facilitate conversations about relationships. Having stories that are built around women’s pleasure is still radical.

What do your own parents say about you focusing on women’s pleasure? Have they commented on the sex? Some authors will give their parents copies with passages blacked out or with notes saying “maybe skip this part.” But I don’t censor my books for my parents—they’ve read the sex scenes. And so have a lot of people in Barry’s Bay. If someone tells my dad, “Oh, I read Carley’s book; it’s quite steamy,” he’ll stick up for me. He’ll answer, “Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

In your new book, This Summer Will Be Different, you tell two love stories, one about a pair of best friends. Why spend so much time on a platonic relationship in a romance novel? My books explore romantic relationships, but those don’t happen in isolation. They happen parallel to our relationships with our family and friends and are affected by our mental health and where we are in our careers. All of that shows up in my new book. The friendship angle was actually there before the romantic arc: the book stems from a girls’ trip I took to PEI with my best friend in 2008.

Every writer has authors they grew up reading or draw inspiration from or want to collaborate with. Who makes up your round table? I have to give a shout out to Lucy Maud Montgomery. She’s a massive influence on This Summer Will Be Different. There isn’t a single piece of culture that has had more influence on me than Anne of Green Gables, including the CBC adaptationPart two of the 1985 Anne miniseries drew 5.2 million viewers—the largest audience in the CBC’s history, hockey not included. from the 1980s with Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie. Montgomery’s writing is incredible, and she was so ahead of her time. Anne is a romance, but it’s also about love of place, friendship and found family. It’s about coming of age and growing into yourself and learning to love yourself. All things I’m passionate about and that drive my own storytelling.

So Lucy Maud Montgomery is there. Who else merits an invite? One of my favourite romances is Seven Days in June by Tia Williams.A former beauty editor, Williams worked at Glamour, Essence and Tom Ford Beauty before turning to fiction full time in 2022. She’s so smart, and her writing is glorious, plus I love to talk to people who have switched from media to books. Jane Austen—I mean, Pride and Prejudice is the original rom-com. And Taylor Jenkins Reid, who wrote Daisy Jones and the Six. I want to pick her brain. She’s had such an interesting career with screenwriting and movie adaptations, so I’d like to get her perspective on business.

You’re doing this interview from a rental because your home is being renovated. Is that overhaul your post-success equivalent of buying a Ferrari or cruising the Mediterranean? Yes and no. We bought our house before I got my book deal, with the intention of renovating it one day. Currently there’s nowhere for me to write—there isn’t even space in our bedroom for a desk. Now that I’ve been fortunate to make a good living writing my books, I’m going to get an office. That’s my equivalent. I’m also getting a dishwasher for the first time in my adult life. So I guess you could say the dishwasher is my Ferrari.

This interview has been edited and condensed.