This Summer Will Be Different
Annual friend trip collides with the one person she shouldn't want, her best friend's brother
This Summer Will Be Different is about the specific torture of wanting someone you can't have while pretending you don't. Lucy visits Prince Edward Island every summer with her best friend, and falling for that friend's brother means risking the most important relationship in her life for something that might not survive past September.
Fortune writes the forbidden element with weight. This isn't just mild social awkwardness if discovered, it's potential friendship implosion, fractured trust, and losing access to the place and people that have become Lucy's chosen family. The stakes feel real, which makes every stolen moment both precious and dangerous.
What makes it work is the seasonal nature intensifies everything. Summer has deadline built in, and the knowledge that connection exists only in this specific place and time makes it both more intoxicating and more impossible. The romance becomes about whether what they have can exist outside the bubble or if it only works when reality is on hold.
Carley Fortune's This Summer Will Be Different follows Lucy falling for her best friend's brother during annual summer visits to Prince Edward Island. The forbidden romance explores genuine stakes, risking foundational friendship for romantic love, with seasonal setting adding time pressure that intensifies connection while making long-term sustainability uncertain.
Annual friend trip collides with the one person she shouldn't want, her best friend's brother
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Why readers search for books like This Summer Will Be Different
You want forbidden romance where the prohibition comes from loyalty, not arbitrary rules. Where giving in means potentially destroying your most important friendship, not just causing mild discomfort. Stakes that make you understand why they resist even when the chemistry is undeniable.
You're drawn to seasonal romance that acknowledges the pressure of time. Summer as deadline, where every day together counts down to inevitable separation. The intensity that comes from knowing connection has expiration date built in.
What you're after is the impossible choice between two types of love. The person who's been there for you unconditionally as friend might never forgive you for crossing lines with her brother. Romantic love that could cost you platonic love, and the question of whether one is worth losing the other.
The reader take
It's the agony of wanting someone when having them might cost you everything else that matters. Where summer gives you permission to feel what you shouldn't, and September means choosing between love and loyalty, assuming the choice is even yours to make.
Book recommendations
The Summer I Turned Pretty
by Jenny Han
Girl caught between two brothers during family summer tradition. Han writes the complication of romantic feelings intersecting with established family dynamics and friend groups.
Beach Read
by Emily Henry
Writers become neighbors for one summer and challenge each other's genres. Henry writes seasonal connection with pressure of time, where summer becomes container for transformation.
The Unhoneymooners
by Christina Lauren
Enemies forced into close proximity for limited time discover attraction they can't act on without complications. Christina Lauren writes time pressure intensifying chemistry.
It Happened One Summer
by Tessa Bailey
City girl exiled to small coastal town for the summer falls for a local fisherman. Bailey writes seasonal romance where limited time forces confrontation with real feelings.
Well Met
by Jen DeLuca
Woman stuck in her sister's town for the summer finds unexpected connection. DeLuca writes how temporary situations create permission to feel things you'd normally protect yourself from.
Common questions
Does the best friend find out?
Fortune handles the revelation and its consequences with care. The fallout feels realistic, not easily resolved, but not insurmountable either. It's about navigating genuine hurt and rebuilding trust.
Do they end up together despite the complications?
Fortune delivers an ending that honors all the relationships at stake. The resolution requires honesty and consequences, not just romantic happy ending at the expense of everything else.
Is it similar to Every Summer After?
Both feature summer settings and complicated romance, but this focuses on forbidden attraction rather than second chance. Fortune's voice and emotional depth carry through both, but the core tensions differ.
Related tropes
Common in these genres
Ready for your story? Imagine living it.
Best friend's brother during annual summer escape? Ember knows that impossible situation. Imagine the person you're not supposed to want being everywhere you look, where the place that's been your sanctuary becomes minefield. Every moment alone is stolen, every touch risks everything, and falling for him means potentially losing her, the friend who's been your anchor, the tradition that's been your reset button, the chosen family you can't afford to lose.
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