Breakaway Books

Authored by Carley Fortune; Published May 2025; Romance

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

One Golden Summer has the dreamy summer vibes of the perfect beach read, with just enough drama to keep you hooked until the very end. It may be the fall, but if you are reminiscing about hot summer days, you can slip right back with this novel.

In One Golden Summer, Alice is fully immersed into her photography career until her grandmother breaks her hip,and Alice steps in as caretaker. Hoping to get her grandmother out and about, Alice takes her to an old family vacation spot by the lake and commits to true relaxation for the summer. What she doesn’t expect is Charlie, the neighbor who has been recruited to ensure the cottage and its inhabitants stay in tip top shape. Charlie is gorgeous and suave, and the chemistry between him and Alice grows quickly—but he insists that they cannot be together. What is he hiding?

I do not love summer, but if I have to read a summer romance, a lake is the ideal setting. What really sold this novel for me, though, is Alice: Alice, who tries so hard never to present an inconvenience to those around her; Alice, who wants to take care of everyone; Alice, who never asks for help. I am not ashamed to admit that tears welled in my eyes when she finally does ask her family for help, and they show up in force after flaking on her all summer. I wanted to cheer when Alice finally takes a stand for her values in her work, because she has decided that it is more important to feel like she is being true to herself than to make a profit. I was proud of her for trying to push herself out of her comfort zone, even if it is through a silly summer bucket list. (Yes, I know she’s fictional, but I’m proud of her anyway.) That at the end of the summer she feels more free and more alive is the best happy ending that I could ask for.

Alice’s grandmother and her relationship with her granddaughter is another high point. I love that Nan isn’t flat and one-dimensional; she too has a past and regrets about the decisions that she’s made. She mourns the independence that she loses after her hip surgery and craves to get it back again. Charlie’s sweetest actions may not be the ways he takes care of Alice but the way he bonds with Nan. I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at them getting stoned on edibles. Charlie himself is a good male lead, if a little dense. I didn’t mind his seeming arrogance, but I did mind that he repeatedly decides for both himself and Alice that he isn’t good enough for her, instead of sharing the truth and talking it through. But, such are the makings of a rom-com. The fact that he stands up to Alice’s flaky family covers over a multitude of sins in my book. 

One Golden Summer is sure to take you back to the teenage summer of your dreams, just like it did for Alice.