Author Carley Fortune has begun her foray into the TV world with the adaptation of her debut novel, Every Summer After, titled Every Year After now streaming on Prime Video.
Helmed by showrunner Amy B. Harris, the first season of the show follows Percy (Sadie Soverall) and Sam’s (Matt Cornett) arc from friends to lovers and the eventual second chance romance wrinkle, told in the present timeline and interspersed with flashbacks of their childhood summers growing up by the lake in Barry’s Bay. Percy’s life changes when she meets both Florek brothers — younger versions of Sam (Blue Clarke) and Charlie (Carson MacCormac) — who were raised by their single, widowed mother Sue Florek (Elisha Cuthbert) after their father died unexpectedly of a heart attack.
“I felt pretty strongly that [Sue] needed to be a Canadian actor, and that’s when Elisha Cuthbert came into the mix,” Fortune told Deadline in an interview ahead of release. “She’s phenomenal, and [I’ve been] such a fan of hers for almost my entire life.”
The show follows another big hit book adaptation on Prime Video, that of Elle Kennedy’s Off Campus, which falls in the new adult genre and space while Every Year After can be considered young adult as well as older adult because it returns to its characters when they are in their late twenties and early thirties.
I love writing people at all stages, which is the case with Every Summer After. We have this idea when we’re younger, that we’ll reach a certain age or milestone and things get figured out, and then we’re grown-ups, and we were done, we’re cooked, and it’s just not the case,” Fortune said. “We’re always figuring things out. We’re always coming of age, and I love that. I see it in my mom’s generation, I see it with people in their 80s still entering new phases of what life looks like. I think the 30s are particularly interesting because you have made so many decisions that have set you up for where you are, and it is a great time to sit back or be forced to take a look at what those decisions, where they have put you, and is that where you [want to] be? The stakes go higher.”
Michael Bradway portrays the older version of Charlie in the show, who is in his thirties in his sequel book One Golden Summer, which gets a major teaser at the end of the season one finale. As for who she would want to play Alice, though, Fortune wouldn’t name any names.
“I’ll keep my lips sealed on that. It’s interesting because Alice is a redhead. She’s got curly red hair, and Abby, who plays Delilah, is a beautiful redhead, and Sadie, who plays Percy, has dark red hair. I’m like ‘Will we have a trio?’ I’ve always wanted to be a redhead like Anne Shirley and Anne of Green Gables,” she said. “There’s still way more Sam and Percy to play with there while bringing in a new storyline from One Golden Summer. That would be so exciting to me. I want to see Alice and Nan for sure.”
As for a return to Barry’s Bay in book form, Fortune has given it much though, but she wants to honor the show and where it is taking her characters like Jordie (Joseph Chiu), Chantal (Aurora Perrineau) and Delilah (Abigail Cowen).
“I have filed my first draft of my sixth book. It’ll come out next year. I can’t really say much more about it. I do know that readers want more Barry’s Bay, and I have, spent a lot of time thinking about what that would look like while honoring the fact that there’s [now] a show,” she said. “For example, readers in the past had really wanted a story about Delilah, and I would not do that because there is a wonderful story being told about Delilah, and that’s going to take place on the screen. I wouldn’t dip into a book and take a character somewhere else. That just seems confusing. I’ve thought a lot about what, what that could look like, for sure. My heart is definitely in, in that place.”
Aside from One Golden Summer, the author recently made a return of sorts to Barry’s Bay and specifically to Sam and Percy.
“I have written two bonus chapters from Sam’s point of view, just as a treat, and we haven’t figured out what we’re gonna do with them yet,” she said. “But there’s one from young Sam’s point of view and one from adult Sam’s point of view, just sitting at the computer.”
RELATED: Netflix Greenlights Adaptation Of Carley Fortune’s ‘This Summer Will Be Different’
In the below interview, the author responds to certain chances made from book to screen, teases her other adaptations in the works like Meet Me At The Lake and This Summer Will be Different and describes her writing process and themes.
DEADLINE: What was the extent of your involvement in the adaptation? Did you go in the writer’s room? I think I saw you went to set, but what was the process like for you?
CARLEY FORTUNE: I did go to set a couple of times. I wasn’t a writer on the show. I visited a writers’ room early in the process. I read different versions of scripts along the way. The thing that I was really most involved in and took most to heart was making sure that we ended up with a show that felt really true to the book.
An adaptation is not putting a book on the screen, and especially when you’re taking a romance story that has a very tidy bow at the end, and we’re trying to build a show that has a multi-season arc and arcs. It’s the question of how to preserve the heart and soul of the book, how to give fans that experience that they felt with the book while building it into a larger universe. From the beginning, that’s what I had my eye most on, and then when Amy B. Harris, our showrunner, was brought onto the project, that really was such an exciting moment for me because she was a true fan of the novel, and I remember our first conversation.
RELATED: ‘Every Year After’ Showrunner Amy B. Harris Talks Approach To Adaptation: From Importance Of “Precipice” Moments To Carley Fortune Cameo
She was giving me her thoughts on how the show should open, and it was perfect, and it was a little bit different from the book, but it gave me goosebumps, and I think she just did such a brilliant job. I would read the scripts that she and the writers were creating and give feedback, but once Amy was involved, it really felt like it was in the right hands. She had a natural sense for the moments that fans really wanted to see.
DEADLINE: What about the opening gave you goosebumps? Could you go into more detail?
FORTUNE: [Amy] was describing how Percy would be making a speech at Chantal’s engagement party, while we would be flashing back to moments from the lake, and she’d be swimming across the lake. You would see that, in her speech, she is talking about more than Chantal’s love story, and you would immediately have a sense that Percy has lost something and someone and a place, and it was such a beautiful way of immediately setting up the emotional stakes of the story. It felt so true to the book.
DEADLINE: Were you appraised of casting? Did you see any chemistry reads? What were your thoughts when they landed on who plays the main trio?
FORTUNE: I saw all the tapes for our cast members. When I was given, “Here’s our top pick for Percy, here’s our top pick for Sam. We feel really strongly about them. We hope you do too.’ In every case, I was like, ‘Yes, I love these actors.’ I saw Sadie was cast first. She is unbelievable, which you will see in the show. She is such a perfect Percy, and brings the nuance and depth to the role that’s required. Matt’s audition tape was next, and it was great, because Sam is a character who really wears his heart on his sleeve. One of the scenes that he had recorded in his tape was a eulogy, and it made me cry. It was so emotional, and he and Sadie had a chemistry read virtual[ly], and you could feel the chemistry, even though they’re in different cities on Zoom.
I was like [fans herself]. “I’m feeling the chemistry between these two in in this environment, so what they are they gonna do together with onset chemistry?” There was also a chemistry read with Matt and Michael, because Sam and Charlie’s relationship is so important, and I think one of the great things about the adaptation is that we get to be with those brothers. In the book, it’s all Percy’s point of view, so we don’t get to see Sam and Charlie when she’s not there. It’s only her observations of the brothers, and we get so much more of them in this, and Matt and Michael are so good together.
DEADLINE: Did you have any input, or say in the soundtrack selection for any specific scenes or moments?
FORTUNE: I didn’t contribute songs, but there’s a Weezer song that’s on my Every Summer After playlist that is in the show. I’m a huge Harry Styles fan, and there is an incredible Harry Styles musical moment that I know Amy wrote the scene with that song in mind, and it was really exciting when we got the rights to it, and it makes me cry when I watch it. Amy has incredible musical taste. Sue, the character, is a big Dolly Parton fan, so there’s Dolly in there. I love Lana Del Rey.
DEADLINE: You were a journalist before you started writing books, so I’m curious if you can talk about that transition and how it’s portrayed in the adaptation with the changes in the industry. What did you think of the choice to make Percy an obituary writer?
FORTUNE: I thought it was really smart. I think the point of her being a journalist in the book is that she has turned away, when she loses the lake, she loses so much of herself. It’s not just that she had a bad breakup, it’s that she loses the second family, she loses the person who really encouraged her as a writer, and she, as a journalist, has lost that creative side of herself.
RELATED: 10 Major ‘Every Year After’ Book Changes From Carley Fortune’s Novel ‘Every Summer After’
As we all know, there is creativity in journalism, but that’s not how she views her writing. Her writing is a completely different thing now, and that’s the point of her being a journalist. I think Amy having her be an obit writer is so smart because it gives her a reason to to be interacting with the Floreks more, and it makes so much sense for the storyline, and in the book it’s just a weekend where Percy’s there, but it’s grown into a week, so we have to have a reason for them to stay in each other’s orbit, Sam and Percy.
DEADLINE: With Percy and Sam’s dynamic, how did you want to make it feel earned that they rebuild this trust and come back together?
FORTUNE: What was important for me in the book was showing the forgiveness. That’s one of the bigger changes in the show, is that in the book Sam has known all along about Percy’s betrayal, and in the show I think for very wise reasons ,he does not know. And he finds out, we watch him find out, and we watch how much that hurts him. I think you do want to see that on the screen, whereas in the book we don’t have access to that moment.
I think what we would see with a second season is what Sam grappling with what forgiveness looks. They don’t have their happy happily ever after yet in the show, and I think that that idea of forgiving and empathizing with somebody, as the reader, we’re really asked to empathize with Percy and what she’s been through. I think the earning of a happy ending is different in the book than it is in the show, and I think it makes so much sense how it’s been laid out on TV.
DEADLINE: I love Alice and her whole photography lens. Is that something you try to incorporate with all of your books and main characters? Writing or photography, or creativity?
FORTUNE: I think they all have a relationship to work, and that’s something that I think about a lot, and have had different moments in my career, and different of major transition points and pain points, and they’re all grappling with their relationship to their careers. I love work, and I want to love work. So if they’re not all creative, then they’re all passionate, or want to be passionate. Frankie, in [Our Perfect Storm], she’s a former chef-turned-recipe-developer.
DEADLINE: It sounds like it’ll be well worth it if/when you return. And I know you have Meet Me At the Lake, and This Summer Will Be Different in the adaptation development process. They’re both at Netflix? Can you share any updates?
FORTUNE: Meet Me at the Lake is with Archewll and Netflix as a film. It is still in development. We have a director attached, but haven’t announced who that person is, and the script is under revisions right now. That’s where Meet the Lake is at. This Summer Will Be Different is further along. That is a 10 episode season with Netflix. We will be shooting it this summer. Casting is underway right now, and it will be shooting in Toronto and on Prince Edward Island, which is where it’s set. It’s a dream of mine to shoot on Prince Edward Island, so I’m really, really excited about that one, and then One Golden Summer is with Amazon.
DEADLINE: You write from the woman’s perspective. Would you ever consider writing from a man’s perspective, or do you like just keeping it to the woman?
FORTUNE: There are some romance novels that have dual POV, and I don’t like that for me as a writer because I like having the mystery of not knowing what is in his head, and the tension arises in different places. I love reading a dual POV, but I’m more interested, I think, in what’s going on with her, and then also with her life outside of whatever’s happening with the romance.
I feel like a single POV lets me get into that more. I always want to have strong relationships between women, and it just gives me more space for that. So, it’s not that I would never consider writing from another point of view or doing multi point of view, but for a romance, I’m not sure. The story would really have to warrant it for me to like change that up.
I should just add, having said that, I have written two bonus chapters from Sam’s point of view, just as a treat, and we haven’t figured out what we’re gonna do with them yet, but yes, there’s one from young Sam’s point of view and one from adult Sam’s point of view, just sitting on my computer.
DEADLINE: Oh I have to ask about your cameo too! Was that planned?
FORTUNE: It was during my second visit to set, and it wasn’t planned. We were filming one of the scenes in the last episode, where there’s a large group gathered at the Tavern following Sue’s funeral. I was watching on the monitors with Amy, and she turned to me and said, “You should be in there.” Wardrobe found me a dress, I was hustled into hair and makeup, and then I joined the party.
It was supposed to be a quick shot of me among the guests, but there’s a moment in the scene when Percy dances and Sadie, unprompted, pulled me onto the dance floor with her. John Polson, our director of that episode, liked it, and we did a few takes dancing together. I love how it turned out – with a scene of Sadie and Elisha dancing that cuts briefly to [Sadie] and I.
RELATED: ‘Every Year After’ Showrunner, Star And Carley Fortune Unpack That Season 1 Cliffhanger & What It Means For Potential Season 2 In Barry’s Bay
Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy.
Comments On Deadline Hollywood are monitored. So don't go off topic, don't impersonate anyone, and don't get your facts wrong.
Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );