The BookTok Bestseller Behind Prime Video’s ‘Every Year After’ and Why It’s Summer’s Most Anticipated Romance
Prime Video has quietly built a reputation as the destination for emotionally devastating summer romance, and its latest offering is no exception. ‘Every Year After’ is an Amazon Original series that debuted all eight episodes on June 10, premiering exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories around the world. But before audiences could fall in love with the show, millions of readers already fell hard for the book it came from.
The short and sweet answer is that ‘Every Year After‘ is based on Carley Fortune’s book, ‘Every Summer After,’ originally published in 2022, telling the friends-to-lovers and second-chance romance of Persephone “Percy” Frase and Sam Florek. What makes the source material so compelling is the very thing that made it a cultural phenomenon long before any cameras rolled.
The Bestselling Novel That Launched a BookTok Obsession
Fortune’s New York Times bestselling novel, ‘Every Summer After,’ follows childhood best friends Percy Fraser and Sam Florek and takes place over six years in Barry’s Bay, where Sam’s family lives and Percy’s family vacations each year. The setup is deceptively simple, but the emotional architecture underneath it is anything but.
In alternating chapters that flick between Percy and Sam’s teenage romance and their reunion years later as adults, the novel explores themes of friendship and first love, miscommunication in relationships, and honesty and forgiveness in love. It is precisely that dual timeline structure, jumping between the warmth of summers past and the ache of the present, that hooked so many readers in the first place.
The book spent 16 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list, has sold over one million copies to date, and gained particular popularity through BookTok, with the book hashtag accumulating over 81.4 million views on TikTok. That kind of grassroots digital momentum is exactly what caught the attention of streaming executives looking for built-in audiences.
Fortune is also the author of ‘This Summer Will Be Different’ and ‘Meet Me at the Lake,’ with her three books combined having sold over two million copies and been translated into 30 languages across more than 50 territories. The appetite for her world was clearly enormous, making an adaptation feel less like a risk and more like an inevitability.
A Friends-to-Lovers Story Built on Second Chances
The story begins in the present when Percy receives a phone call from an old friend from Barry’s Bay, Charlie Florek, who tells her that his mother, Sue, has passed away. Although the two have not seen one another in many years, Percy makes her way from her city life in Toronto up to the lakeshore of her childhood, mentally preparing herself to see the person she is most hesitant to see: Sam Florek, Charlie’s brother.
Because Percy and Sam know each other so deeply, their romance carries unusual weight. The novel suggests that the most profound love is not sudden but accumulated, built from years of attention. Sam remembering Percy’s freckles, her writing, and her love of horror becomes as meaningful as any overt declaration.
Fortune also explores how timing, fear, and immaturity can damage even real love. Again and again, Percy and Sam fail not because they do not care, but because they cannot yet bear vulnerability. It is that layered emotional honesty that separates ‘Every Summer After’ from a standard beach read and explains why it resonated so deeply with readers across age groups.
The TV adaptation is described as a romantic, nostalgic story of first loves and the people and choices that mark us forever, told over the course of six years and one week in Barry’s Bay, the quintessential lake town.
Why the Show Changed Its Name
One of the first questions fans of the novel had was about the title shift. The book is called ‘Every Summer After,’ but the series is ‘Every Year After,’ and the reasoning goes deeper than a simple rebranding exercise.
Fortune explained the thinking behind that change, saying that ‘Every Summer After’ was too confining as a season for a series, and ‘Every Year After’ allowed the creators to open the story up to a broader narrative. That distinction matters because it signals an intention to expand well beyond what the source material originally contained.
While the TV adaptation also spans six years and one week and focuses on those integral summers, showrunner Amy B. Harris has intentions to expand beyond them. For fans who devoured the novel and wanted more time with Percy and Sam, that expansion is genuinely exciting news.
The Cast and Creative Team Bringing Barry’s Bay to Life
The series is spearheaded by showrunner and executive producer Amy B. Harris, known for ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Gossip Girl,’ with Fortune also serving as an executive producer. Having the original author in the room carries significant weight for any adaptation, and Fortune’s involvement suggests the show is serious about honoring what made the book special to so many readers.
Fortune said of the cast: “I couldn’t be more excited about this fabulous cast. This is an enormously talented group of actors, whose auditions made me laugh, swoon, and cry. I know they’ll have fans of ‘Every Summer After’ falling in love with their favorite characters all over again.”
Saltburn star Sadie Soverall will lead the cast as Percy alongside Matt Cornett, known for ‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,’ as love interest Sam. Aurora Perrineau has been cast as Chantal, Abigail Cowen will play Delilah, Michael Bradway is set for the role of Charlie, and Joseph Chiu has been cast as Jordie. The ensemble carries a mix of familiar faces from genre-adjacent projects, which should help it connect with the very same audiences who made the book a BookTok phenomenon.
Where ‘Every Year After’ Fits in Prime Video’s Romance Empire
The pickup marks the latest expansion into the contemporary romance genre where Prime Video has found success with hit TV series and movie titles like ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ and ‘The Idea of You,’ both also based on popular books. The streamer is clearly building a brand around emotionally charged literary adaptations aimed at readers who spend their summers both at the lake and on their phones.
Showrunner Amy B. Harris has all but confirmed that if Prime Video renews the series, she is committed to continuing it, saying she personally would love the show to live for many seasons and believes it should go on as long as Amazon would have it. That kind of long-game thinking suggests the creative team views ‘Every Year After’ not as a limited event but as an ongoing world to inhabit.
Prime Video has not yet confirmed whether ‘One Golden Summer,’ Fortune’s novel that follows Charlie’s love story, will be adapted, but ‘Every Year After’ could incorporate that book into a future season or give Charlie his own spinoff entirely. The universe of Barry’s Bay may turn out to be far bigger on screen than it ever was on the page.
Whether you are a longtime fan of the novel or a newcomer drawn in by the buzz, Percy and Sam’s story arrives at just the right moment in the streaming calendar. Did ‘Every Summer After’ already break your heart before the show even began, or are you coming to ‘Every Year After’ fresh?
