#1 NYT Bestseller! Carley Fortune, THIS SUMMER WILL BE DIFFERENT
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of The Novel, Blake,
[0:14]and created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company,
[0:19]reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZippyMedia.com or follow me on social
[0:25]at Zippy Owens or join the community at Zippy Readers.
[0:31]Carly Fortune is the author of This Summer Will Be Different.
[0:34]She also, by the way, has the cover blurb on Blake, my novel. Carly is the number one
[0:40]New Year Times, a number one Globe and Mail best-selling author of Meet Me at the Lake,
[0:45]and every summer after, and now this summer will be different. Her books have sold more than
[0:49]1 million copies worldwide. Carly is an award-winning journalist and worked as an editor at some of
[0:53]Canada's top publications, including The Globe and Mail, Shadowland, Toronto Life, and the Much
[0:59]Beloved, now-defunct weekly paper The Grid. She was most recently the executive editor
[1:03]of Refinery29 Canada. Carly holds a Bachelor of Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University.
[1:10]She spent her young life in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, and in Barry's Bay,
[1:14]a tiny lakeside town in rural Ontario, which was the setting for every summer after.
[1:19]She lives in Toronto with her husband and two cents, and is currently working on her fourth book.
[1:23]Welcome, Carly. Thanks for coming back, and mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[1:27]Just guess this summer will be different, a novel. Congratulations.
[1:30]Thank you, and thank you for having me. Of course, of course. Okay,
[1:34]tell listeners what your latest book is about, please. Sure, yeah, so it is about Lucy,
[1:41]who is from Toronto, and she travels to Prince Edward Island on vacation for the first time,
[1:48]where she meets a very charming oyster-shucker, Felix, and they spend quite a memorable
[1:55]night together only to learn that he is her best friend's younger brother. And every time Lucy
[2:02]travels back to Prince Edward Island, which is where her best friend is from, they go together
[2:06]on their girls' trips, every year they go, she and Felix just can't stop getting together. They
[2:12]try not to, and they just are drawn together time and time again. And the book begins with
[2:20]Bridget, Lucy's best friend fleeing Toronto in the days before her wedding. And she kind of
[2:26]leaves mysteriously and calls Lucy up and says, I need you out here. And so Lucy being the best
[2:32]friend that she is goes out to figure out what's wrong with Bridget determined not to fall back
[2:38]in bed with Felix only to find out that things feel very different between them. And her best
[2:45]friend is being very strange. And Lucy's kind of trying to figure out what is going on.
[2:51]I love how you said that the relationship between Lucy and Bridget is one where
[2:55]usually Lucy's the one falling down and Bridget's there to pick her up. And she's like, yes,
[2:59]wait, now the table is shared. Like, what's going to have it? Like, she's never heard her this way.
[3:04]And, you know, okay, she's ready. She's there for it.
[3:08]Yes, yeah, Bridget is the steady in the relationship. And so like, this is Lucy's opportunity
[3:13]to help her friend out for once. Oh my gosh. And by the way, thank you for all the flight details.
[3:20]Like, I feel like I just flew into Prince Edward Island where I have never been. And everything,
[3:26]you know, I'm just from the flight to the arrival to like all the scene specific things. I'm like,
[3:32]this is great. I've just taken a vacation that I've never gone on.
[3:35]I'm so happy to hear that. That is was my intention for sure. I really wanted readers to feel like
[3:41]they were traveling to Prince Edward Island, which is a place I love very, very much. I wanted you
[3:45]to be able to like, feel the wind on your face and like taste the oysters and just like,
[3:51]feel like you've had a vacation there. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. That was your welcome.
[3:55]The quickest trip I've taken lately. So you do such a good job of jumping through time. Like,
[4:02]eight days before Bridget's wedding. And now here we are, like, three years ago,
[4:05]Thanksgiving. And now here we are. So you're constantly have us learning about their lives in different
[4:10]moments and different scenes and piecing it all together. Talk about that's complicated to pull
[4:15]off. So talk about it. It really is. Talk about that. Did you start it chronologically and then
[4:20]like cut it up and move it around? How did that happen? There was a lot of cutting up and moving
[4:25]around and initially the idea had been to have the moments from past vacations be kind of shorter
[4:32]snippets that as I was digging into their past, there was just more to bring to the surface. And
[4:39]also I just had so much fun with those like past trips. So there, you know, not a most of it takes
[4:46]place in the present, but there's more of the past there. It was, it was a challenge. I did restructure
[4:52]the book. I think around the third draft kind of, I really wanted to. I was inspired in this
[4:58]sound strange because my book is like neither of these things, but I was really inspired by
[5:02]the book. Carrie Sato is back and by the bear, the TV show, which I was watching the first season
[5:08]when I started writing the book and both of those that book that show immers you in the action
[5:14]right away. And I loved that. And I was like, I'm going to start this book with Lucy and Felix in
[5:20]their fight. And like in the present day, this is their dark moment. I'm going to totally like
[5:26]append what what romance structure is. And it just didn't work. And so I did and also
[5:33]try to figure out exactly what Lucy and Felix's journey was romantically, like what the push and
[5:39]pull was how their relationship changed and evolved over time. That it took quite a while to get
[5:46]right. Well, the bear though, I mean, you're in it. I mean, because I only actually watched. I
[5:50]have to admit the first episode because I was like, yeah, this is a lot. I can't do the intensity of
[5:57]this at this exact. But it's you don't learn for a while, but it's not like you're in the kitchen,
[6:03]but it's not like at the most intense moment in his life necessarily, right? No, no, no, but you're
[6:08]like, what is going on? Like this is so like the stuff is happening. And I don't know what it is.
[6:13]And but I'm here for it. And I tried to I tried to do that. I did not achieve. I did not achieve it.
[6:21]That's not true. No, but but you're you it's in a moment, right? You're in like you're going around.
[6:26]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I love how it how it begins now. Like I think it works so,
[6:32]so much better. I mean, you start off with like Lucy's big mistake of sleeping with her best
[6:36]friend's brother. It was accidental. And you're just like pulled into Bridget's drama
[6:41]in the present day right away. So I think I think it works out nicely.
[6:45]I think this is becoming like a thing. The the brother, I like what happens with the brother,
[6:51]like I know in some romance by animal Moynihan. Have you read that yet? It's coming in.
[6:55]I have. Yeah. And even in Catherine Newman's book, that was different. And the thing actually
[7:01]I can't remember if it happened or not. Oh my gosh, blanking on the name. The one about grief. But anyway,
[7:06]like people being attracted to their friends siblings is like thing that I'm glad it's, you know,
[7:12]getting its moment in romcom land. If you have me too, it's very it's very fun to it's a bit of that
[7:19]like forbidden romance thing. And especially like Bridget has explicitly told Lucy not to fall in
[7:25]love with her brother. And we learn in the book why that why that is and why that doesn't seem
[7:29]like such an absurd thing to say. So Lucy's really screwed up. I mean, it happens. What are you going
[7:36]to do? What happens? It happens. It did not happen to me like my best friend when I told her about
[7:43]this idea. She just like laughed uncontrollably because she has a younger brother. His name is Kyle.
[7:49]She's like, Kyle, you and Kyle. And I think Kyle has got kind of a kick out of it too. He has
[7:55]a red the book yet, obviously. But it's been funny. I know. I don't even think any of my good friends
[8:01]have brothers, honestly, actually now that I think about it. So many of them. Wow. That's
[8:06]I know. I hold a bunch of them. Well, actually, that's not true. My friend Annie. Well,
[8:09]okay, it doesn't matter. Anyway, yes, it's a whole it's a whole thing. But there is that obstacle,
[8:15]right? Like, what do you do? And it can feel like, well, maybe that's the only person out there.
[8:19]Like, how could I give this up? Yeah. Anyway, what do you do? What do you do? Read the summer
[8:25]will be different to find out exactly. How was the process of writing this versus the other books?
[8:32]Well, every summer after was a dream to write. I wrote it very quickly. The edits took two weeks.
[8:38]It was just a kind of magic that will never be repeated. The summer will or maybe at the lake
[8:44]very hard to write the first draft. I think we spoke about this was tremendously difficult.
[8:49]I've been through all that impostor syndrome. And the summer will be different. I really,
[8:54]I set out with the intention of having fun. And I wanted it to be a fun experience for myself.
[9:00]I wanted it to be a fun experience for the reader. And I think I manifested that. I think I really,
[9:06]because it was such a wonderful experience for me. And we were going through some tough stuff
[9:12]in our in our home life. It was a pretty difficult year personally. But the working on the book
[9:17]was such a wonderful escape for me. And we like, I did a lot of drafts too. But it just felt
[9:24]frictionless in a lot of ways. It was still hard work, but it was much more joyful process than my
[9:32]last book. Can you talk about what was going on with your family? My mother-in-law was diagnosed
[9:38]with cancer. And she went under my chemotherapy. And she was in the hospital for a while.
[9:46]And I had started out the year with getting in a car accident. I was hit by a truck, a very
[9:53]large truck, no mistake of my own, which was very scary. My, when we found out about my mother-in-law's
[9:58]cancer. And she had been...
[10:00]She had been unwell and really trying to figure out what was wrong and nobody was listening to her.
[10:05]So that was stressful. And then the day after we found out my husband got hit by a car
[10:12]and my kids were sick constantly, just constantly sick. After I think going back into school
[10:19]and daycare after the pandemic, there, we had three weeks of good health between September and
[10:27]April and literally. Otherwise I was sick or one of the boys was sick and my husband is a
[10:33]teacher so he's out of the house. So I'm the one who, you know, is taking care of the mother
[10:40]sick so trying to work while they're sick. And I've never vomited so much in my adult life
[10:45]as I did while writing this book. We had this stomach by three times within two months. It was
[10:49]my editor and my editor who has young children too. They were also getting sick constantly
[10:55]we basically had this bingo card of what are all the things that we can get this year? But I think I
[11:01]went out. I ended up being in an ambulance. I had my own health stuff. It was just to be, it was
[11:09]wild. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Did you? Yeah. We're all fine. We're all fine. Everything is fine.
[11:18]But it was a lot. It was a lot. And so it was really nice to have this book to work on.
[11:23]Wow. You wouldn't know. You wouldn't know from the tone of the book that behind the writer
[11:29]is going through a lot of bad stuff. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I think what I put into it though
[11:35]was my best friend Meredith doesn't live in Toronto. She lives in another city and my mom's not
[11:40]in Toronto either. And I just, I really missed my best friend last year. Like I really missed
[11:46]having my best friend and my mom close to me. And I remember going to Meredith's birthday. We
[11:51]went to her birthday and driving back from her house. And I was just sobbing. Like I just
[11:57]really missed my best friend. And I think that really came into the story because it really is a
[12:02]story about friendship. Were there any residual effects from your car accidents? Like did you have
[12:08]physical therapy and all that or anything? No, we were so lucky. Okay. Yeah. And how's your mother
[12:13]in love? She's doing pretty well. She's doing pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm glad
[12:18]you had an outlet. Yeah, me too. And I'm glad it's an outlet that has not benefited like
[12:22]the rest of us who get to read it. People who are going to like get the joy, you know, the joy to
[12:28]distract you will now distract too many other people. I mean, it's so I think this is what a really
[12:34]good romance can do for someone is and certainly when I started reading romance, I just needed
[12:42]something to escape into. And I love being taken on an emotional journey. I love being transported
[12:48]somewhere beautiful. And I love that even though the characters makes experienced difficult things
[12:53]that at the end, you're left feeling like a little bit better about people and our capacity to love.
[12:59]Yep. And I think romance is really special for that reason. I feel like you need to start doing
[13:06]some retreats. Maybe we should team up for a retreat or something to some of these places. I want
[13:11]to go to the lake. I want, you know, like all of your places, the restaurant from the last,
[13:17]I don't know. Like they're so vivid in my head after you write about them that it's like hard
[13:22]not to want to go. Well, I'm going out to Prince Edward Island on my, on my book tour. It's part of,
[13:26]I'm going to have a couple stops there on my book tour. So yeah, come. Never been. I would love
[13:34]to get it's beautiful. That sounds awesome. Are you working on a new book now? I hate to even ask.
[13:39]I am. Yeah, I'm working on my second draft. I'm almost done my second draft of my next book.
[13:45]Yeah. That's great. That's great. That's great. I'm really excited about it.
[13:49]Can you say anything about it or not? You know, not, not much. All I can say is that it is a romance.
[13:55]I think people are going to be very excited about it. And it will come out in 2025.
[14:02]So are you on this one a year now path forever? This is your plan. I don't know about forever,
[14:07]but it's like my plan for now. Okay. Yeah. Well, it feels, it feels like good now. I'm trying to figure
[14:14]out this is the first. This publication cycle has felt so much more condensed than before. It really
[14:21]has come, you know, I'm about to go on the books about to come out when we're speaking. It's
[14:26]about three weeks from now. And I'll be going on tour. And it feels like I just did this. Like,
[14:32]just if you end it in and there's so much going on. And it's all wonderful things, but I'm trying to
[14:38]figure out how to kind of focus on the stuff that I really fills me up the most while getting
[14:44]everything else done. And I don't have that figured out yet. I know it's like, what is the secret to that?
[14:50]Yeah. Yeah. I mean, partly partly it was with this book I'm working on now. I took time and my
[14:57]editor took time to kind of step back and think about the process of the drafts and the
[15:03]and editing and whether we could try to make that smoother, do fewer drafts. And I created kind of
[15:14]a new first draft process for myself that had time built into just like, like press right the end
[15:22]and then sit for a while, like put it aside for a while and then come back to it, which is not
[15:27]something I would typically do. Like I am such a doer. It's like I get to the end, then I then I go
[15:32]back to the beginning and I read it again. Like I just like that I start revising. And so we just,
[15:37]you know, we did I did more thinking at the beginning without writing, which is also difficult for me
[15:42]because I'm impatient. And then I and then I took that pause and I think that has really benefited
[15:48]it. Like I think my first draft was in much stronger shape because of that. So that's one of
[15:53]that's one of the things like trying to figure out the writing process that so that it's, you know,
[15:57]sometimes books treat you mainly and you can't do anything about that. But doing the best I can.
[16:02]And then yeah, the other stuff, I don't know. So do have trouble at all. Like when you sit down to
[16:12]write and if you do give yourself a certain time limit, like how are you getting this done?
[16:17]I write when I'm drafting when I write, it's like it's like my day job. I sit down and
[16:22]what's wonderful is that when I'm drafting, it's in the fall and winter. So I'm not doing
[16:30]any like publicity. It's this quiet time. And I really just like sit at my desk in the morning
[16:37]after the kids leave and I write all day. And then I see the kids coming home up the driveway and
[16:42]I like quickly finish what I'm working on and shut the laptop and then I go back to my desk the
[16:48]next day. And it just comes out. You're never just like, I don't know where I'm taking this.
[16:53]I have an experienced writer's block. Yeah, that's not something I've experienced. I always know
[17:01]where it's always going to have a happy ending. So I always know that we're going to get there.
[17:05]And I have in my mind a lot of the time, especially with the book I'm working on now, like what
[17:11]the tension is going to be between the characters, like what is and what why we're turning the page,
[17:16]what it is we're trying to figure out. And yeah, but I always just, I like getting in there
[17:23]and having that sense of discovery where it's like, I didn't know that this was going to happen.
[17:27]And like, for example, in the summer will be different. When we find out the reason why
[17:32]bridge it's been secretive and what's going on with her actually didn't really know until I got
[17:37]there. And when I figured it out, I was like, of course, this is it. This has to be it.
[17:42]And that is so enjoyable for me. Like, I like kind of it's kind of like being a reader. It's like,
[17:47]oh, what's going to happen? And sometimes it works and sometimes you do a drafts.
[17:53]Like, are there books you've been reading lately that you're loving or anything like that?
[18:00]I have been not being able to read that much lately because things have been so wild. But I read
[18:07]there's a book that came out recently called How To End a Love Story by Yoon Kwong. And I I read an
[18:14]early copy of that book last summer. It is wonderful. It is a wonderful romance. This is her,
[18:19]her debut novel. And we're going to do an event together when I'm in Los Angeles. And it is,
[18:28]she's deeply funny. She's so funny. But it is a book about grief and family. It's set in a
[18:37]like Hollywood writers room. So it's also got this, and she herself is a filmmaker and a screenwriter.
[18:43]And so it's got all that kind of juice in it. And it really is an emotional roller coaster,
[18:47]which I love. So I if you like romance, I would I would pick that one up. It's just out last week,
[18:53]I believe. You have to go to Zippy's bookshop. Are you do a plans to go? I don't know. We're
[18:58]we're have some scheduling stuff happening, I think, on the West Coast. But I would love to.
[19:04]I think my team and your team is talking. I want to. I would love you to do that. And yeah,
[19:11]I know we had to reschedule our event in Toronto. And I was so sad about that. But maybe we can
[19:15]meet up in LA somewhere else. Yes. Do you have advice for aspiring authors? I know I ask you this
[19:23]all the time. You know, I I think my advice used to be I always wanted to write a book and I
[19:29]never thought I would do it. And I just you just have to do it in order to write the book. But I
[19:34]think the other piece of advice that is important that I've started giving is that you need to
[19:41]protect your mental health as a writer because it's and it just as a I mean it for everyone,
[19:48]everyone needs to protect their mental health. But when you're when you're working creatively and
[19:53]when you're producing work that an audience reads and consumes and has their own relationship
[19:57]opinions to and you have your own relationship.
[20:00]to ship to the work and sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's not, you need to protect your mental
[20:04]health. You need to give yourself set yourself up in the best way possible to grapple with your
[20:10]work. And also it's it's a hard industry. Publishing is a hard industry. And I think sometimes
[20:16]people think, you know, if I get the agent and if I get the book deal, it's going to be
[20:20]amazing. And it that is amazing, but it's still hard. And there's always disappointments. And
[20:26]And I think whatever you could like getting, getting sleep, getting exercise. For me, like,
[20:31]I have a therapist. I take anxiety medication. It's so important. It's so important. Thank you for
[20:39]opening up in that way. And it's really good advice. I feel like people would think like you would
[20:43]have no issues. Like here you are. Your books are like a Brazilian copy is in like you're just hitting
[20:48]your stride. And I think it would come as a huge shock that there could be any downfalls. I mean,
[20:54]obviously things happen in life, but that you would find any part of this process difficult. I
[20:57]feel like it's a shot would be a shock. Oh, no, there's there's a lot that's hard. There's a lot
[21:03]that's hard. And I'm not going to complain about it, but nobody has it easy. You know, like,
[21:09]nobody in this world has it easy. I don't think we are all going through our own stuff. And
[21:15]it looks different for everyone. But we are all going through stuff. And I think the more
[21:19]we can empathize with people and just like understand that. Like everybody, it might look great,
[21:24]but everybody's going through something. The better off we'll be. You're absolutely right. Amazing.
[21:30]Carly, thank you for being so open. Thank you for your latest fabulous escapeist read that
[21:36]whisked me away. So thank you. And yeah, I hope that next year the kids are less sick and the
[21:42]no big things, you know, throw you off course. Knock on wood indeed. Thank you for having me. I love
[21:47]talking to you. You too. All right. Thanks Carly. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to momstone
[21:56]have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at
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