ARC Review: Meet me at the Lake by Carley Fortune

Fern Brookbanks has wasted far too much of her adult life thinking about Will Baxter. She spent just twenty-four hours in her early twenties with the aggravatingly attractive, idealistic artist, a chance encounter that spiraled into a daylong adventure in Toronto. The timing was wrong, but their connection was undeniable: they shared every secret, every dream, and made a pact to meet one year later. Fern showed up. Will didn’t.

At thirty-two, Fern’s life doesn’t look at all how she once imagined it would. Instead of living in the city, Fern’s back home, running her mother’s Muskoka lakeside resort–something she vowed never to do. The place is in disarray, her ex-boyfriend’s the manager, and Fern doesn’t know where to begin.

She needs a plan–a lifeline. To her surprise, it comes in the form of Will, who arrives nine years too late, with a suitcase in tow and an offer to help on his lips. Will may be the only person who understands what Fern’s going through. But how could she possibly trust this expensive-suit wearing mirage who seems nothing like the young man she met all those years ago. Will is hiding something, and Fern’s not sure she wants to know what it is.

But ten years ago, Will Baxter rescued Fern. Can she do the same for him?

• Title: Meet Me at the Lake
• Author: Carly Fortune
• Publisher: Viking 
• Publication Date: May 2, 2023
• Genre: Contemporary, Romance
• Source: Digital ARC provided via Publisher
• Targeted Age Range: Adult 
• Content Warnings: death of a parent, grief, estranged parents, anxiety, insomnia, postpartum depression, OCD, car accident (fatal), nightmares, emotional infidelity 
• Rating: ★★★★ 

When someone compares a book to any Emily Henry, more often than not, I find myself disappointed. And I’m entirely aware that I’m about to do the same thing to all of you when I say that Meet Me at the Lake filled the Emily Henry void in my heart. Meet Me at the Lake is told in dual timelines; one set in present day, and the other set ten years ago. Ten years ago, Fern and Will had met serendipitously; he’s an artist — charming, albeit a bit arrogant — working on a mural at the coffee shop she’s working at, spent the day together, and altered the course of each other’s lives. Twenty-four hours was all it took for them to share their innermost thoughts, fears, dreams, and secrets. While their chemistry is undeniable; the timing isn’t right. They’d made a plan to meet at Fern’s mother’s lakeside resort on June 14th the following year, but only Fern showed. Ten years later, Fern’s life is completely different from how she envisioned it at twenty two. She’s no longer living in Toronto, but instead, managing her late mother’s lakeside resort, alongside Jamie, her ex-boyfriend. When Will shows up, nine years too late, with an offer to help turn the resort around, Fern hesitantly takes his offer. As they work together to save the resort, old feelings arise, despite the secrets that both of them are still keeping.

Throughout Meet Me at the Lake, we’re reminded that Fern doesn’t want this life — running the resort is the last thing she wants. In fact, she’d told her mother that at twenty two, and has set her sights on opening up her own coffee shop in Toronto since then. When Fern arrives at the resort, however, she realizes that there’s a lot her mother hasn’t told her — particularly, about how the resort is faring. Fern isn’t sure if she’ll stay and fix up the resort, or if she’ll sell it — On one hand, selling the resort will allow her to make the coffee shop a reality; on the other hand, the resort was her mother’s life. By interspersing diary entries from Fern’s late mother in between the two timelines, we get an additional insight into who Fern is — how she grew up, who her mother is, things that factor into her decision. At first, Fern’s memories of the resort are a little more bitter; tinged with memories of canceled girls nights with her mother who had to work late, but she learns more about who her mother is over time. Something that I found particularly powerful in Meet Me at the Lake was the conversation about how what we once wanted when we were younger might not be what we want now, and that’s okay. Our dreams and desires will shift as the environment around us does, and as our circumstances change. I wanted to give Fern the biggest hug as she worked through her grief, and what she wanted for herself. 

I’m a lover of the second-chance romance trope, and I really grew to love Fern and Will as a pairing. That being said, something about them felt a little off for me that I’m struggling to identify — perhaps they felt too insta-lovey, maybe the pacing was just off, I wanted them to have a deeper connection in the present day timeline, or all three? That being said, it really is much easier to open up to someone that won’t be a constant in your life — there’s no repercussions, really, and Fern and Will both knew that when they met ten years ago. 

I didn’t particularly love the emotional infidelity that took place on both Fern and Will’s part ten years ago, and I also struggled with the amount of secrets they had kept from one another — I just wanted to shake them and say “communicate with each other”. All that being said, I really enjoyed Meet Me at the Lake, and would recommend it to most readers! 

Links for Meet Me at the Lake: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop.org