Book Review: One Golden Summer

I have been looking forward to Carley Fortune’s One Golden Summer since before she even announced she was writing it. When I read (and loved) Every Summer After, I really wanted and hoped for a book about Charlie Florek, Sam’s brother. And we finally got it and it was amazing!

As mentioned above, the novel’s mmc is Charlie. The fmc and point of view this book is told from is Alice Everly. Alice is a successful photographer in Toronto and feeling a little lost with the projects she’s been taking on lately. She doesn’t feel like her work is as good or as inspired as in the past. When her grandmother (Nan), whom she’s really close with, breaks a hip and is recovering from surgery, Alice decides to take her to a family friend’s lakeside cottage a few hours away. Nan used to go there all the time with her late husband to visit and hasn’t been back in many years. Alice spent one summer there when she was a teenager and it was then that she discovered her love for photography. She still remembers that summer like it was yesterday and the teenagers across the bay that she wished she was friends with. Her photo of them laughing and having fun on their yellow boat speeding across the lake was the one that kicked off her career.

When Nan and her make arrangements with their friend John, to stay at his cottage for the summer since he never uses it anymore, he puts them in touch with the guy who is looking after his property for him. Little does Alice know that the guy she’s spoken to on the phone is the hot guy she ran into at the grocery store upon arriving at the lake. And she doesn’t know that the guy is Charlie and that he’s one of the teenagers she was enamored with that one summer ages ago.

The friendship that grows between Alice and Charlie was so special – I loved every second of it. They both have reasons for not wanting to get into a relationship and the tension and attraction that grows and builds between them is so good. The way they help each other and really see each other is really special. I loved every minute of the book. Most of the time in spin-off books I wish for some more page time devoted to the original couple or couples. But I loved Alice and Charlie so much that I did not care – they were that captivating as characters and pairing. We did get to see Sam and Percy and I thought it was the perfect amount.

Also, Charlie did not disappoint as a book boyfriend!

Read this if you want a slow burn, friends to lovers romance. You don’t have to read Every Summer After beforehand, but I highly suggest that you do to get the most out of this book!

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