Devi Nair
📘 Edition 🎧 Listened in audio 📢 Narrated by: Carley Fortune, AJ Bridel ⏱ Duration: 12 hours 🏷️ Publisher: Berkley 📅 Published: May 6, 2025 💬 How I found it: Friend recommendation
Here’s the thing: I don’t like romance. And yet, somehow, it keeps following me like a golden retriever with excellent emotional instincts. One Golden Summer is exactly that kind of book: soft, reflective, quietly swoony, and far more thoughtful than it initially lets on.
Carley Fortune might just own the cottagecore romance space at this point. There’s something about her storytelling, about the way sun, still water, and nostalgia weave together, that makes you want to quit your life and find a dock somewhere. One Golden Summer takes that signature Fortune formula and adds a reflective layer through Alice, a photographer caught between clarity and blur in her own life.
The dual narration by Fortune herself and AJ Bridel gives the story extra warmth. It feels intimate, like Alice and Charlie are whispering memories directly into your ear. The pacing is slow in that languid, lakeside way, never rushed, always humming with tension beneath the calm. Is it a familiar love story? Yes. But it’s a well-written, emotionally resonant one that knows exactly what it wants to be.
Would I recommend it? Absolutely, especially for summer readers craving more than just a love story. It’s part nostalgia, part healing, part romance and 100% Carley Fortune charm. Add this to your TBR when you want a story that feels like sunlight on skin long after it’s gone.
What Happens When Summer Sees You Back? Are you a sucker for lake romances, or do they sneak up on you the way they do on me? Tell me, does summer reading mean emotional introspection, escapist romance, or both?
Originally posted at www.goodreads.com.
📘 Edition 🎧 Listened in audio 📢 Narrated by: Carley Fortune, AJ Bridel ⏱ Duration: 12 hours 🏷️ Publisher: Berkley 📅 Published: May 6, 2025 💬 How I found it: Friend recommendation
Here’s the thing: I don’t like romance. And yet, somehow, it keeps following me like a golden retriever with excellent emotional instincts. One Golden Summer is exactly that kind of book: soft, reflective, quietly swoony, and far more thoughtful than it initially lets on.
Carley Fortune might just own the cottagecore romance space at this point. There’s something about her storytelling, about the way sun, still water, and nostalgia weave together, that makes you want to quit your life and find a dock somewhere. One Golden Summer takes that signature Fortune formula and adds a reflective layer through Alice, a photographer caught between clarity and blur in her own life.
The dual narration by Fortune herself and AJ Bridel gives the story extra warmth. It feels intimate, like Alice and Charlie are whispering memories directly into your ear. The pacing is slow in that languid, lakeside way, never rushed, always humming with tension beneath the calm. Is it a familiar love story? Yes. But it’s a well-written, emotionally resonant one that knows exactly what it wants to be.
Would I recommend it? Absolutely, especially for summer readers craving more than just a love story. It’s part nostalgia, part healing, part romance and 100% Carley Fortune charm. Add this to your TBR when you want a story that feels like sunlight on skin long after it’s gone.
What Happens When Summer Sees You Back? Are you a sucker for lake romances, or do they sneak up on you the way they do on me? Tell me, does summer reading mean emotional introspection, escapist romance, or both?
Originally posted at www.goodreads.com.