Hello, it’s your friendly neighborhood five star read! 👋🏼

Fern is taking over her family’s resort in Muskoka after her mother Maggie’s sudden passing. She can’t deny the history and connection she has to her lake home, but it’s not what Fern expected to be doing with her life. Still working around her grief and partially managing the hotel, she’s surprised to be staring at the grown up version of the boy she spent the whole day with almost ten years prior, and who stood her up after they made a pact together.

Will Baxter is staying at the Brookbanks Resort for a whole month, hired by Maggie to consult and help improve the property and now Fern will need all the help she can get to sell or bring it back to its original charm. Begrudgingly they work side by side but their strong connection can’t be severed. Fern has so many questions for Will but he is closed off, it will take a family intervention and her support to bring him back to the creative boy she used to know.

I mostly read (listened to) this in one sitting, comparing it to Every Summer After is slightly different, where I thought that book was straight up gut wrenching, this was lower on the emotional impact scale but still very bittersweet. I loved the flashbacks to Maggie and Fern’s relationship, sitting by the lake even if they were mad at eachother. Maggie had a huge presence in the resort and I found that so heartwarming and sweet.

Quite a few of the side characters, like Whitney the best friend, were hilarious (Dirty Dancing jokes!), and Peter, Fern’s sort of stepdad, was an unsung hero (can I get that bread?). I would visit Fern’s coffee shop right now because her vision sounds so great!✨

Lastly, Will. Creative, caring, super uncle, amazing human being, Will. The dude can wear an apron, cook and sacrifice babies with the best of them (this is a joke from the book- no real babies were harmed!!!) 😅

I was very emo finishing this novel, it was a slow burn second chance romance and I’m a sucker for the personal themes Carley wrote into this book. The acknowledgements and behind the book letter at the end cannot be skipped! Highly recommended as a beach read ☺️

Title: Meet Me at The Lake
Author: Carley Fortune
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️