Review of Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune

Fortune delivers another entertaining summer read in this story of best friends, being jilted at the altar, a revamped honeymoon, miscommunication, second chances, and satisfying resolutions to all emotional, romantic, and professional challenges.

Frankie and George, her best friend since childhood, were once so close they tattooed each other's names on their bodies. But they've been on the outs for a year or so.

After Frankie’s wedding is called off, the two of them go on Frankie’s paid-for honeymoon, hoping to repair their friendship.

George is determined to help his friend through this life crisis, and he's got a research-based plan for each day to usher Frankie through to a healing place.

But Frankie is starting to fall for George, even as she fears making a move that would ruin their friendship forever.

Carley Fortune is great at crafting a romance story with characters I like to root for and steamy, poignant, friendship-based relationships. I enjoyed the friendship between George and Frankie. The Thing Keeping Them Apart is miscommunication, which is often a frustrating premise for me. But here, the out-of-sync understanding between them is not rooted in an absurd, easily resolved moment, but in a lifetime of best-friendship, connection, long-held assumptions, and fear of messing it all up. The complexity of their situation and their intertwined families and history make believable their difficulty in considering more than friendship.

George's attentiveness and deep dive into therapeutic methods of helping Frankie was well intentioned...but it also felt a little overbearing to me. Frankie needed someone to take her under their wing in this crisis, and the premise gave the vacation structure, but it felt to me like a man bossing a woman, even in the kindest fashion. This wasn't my favorite element.

Fortune's signature steaminess is present here, and by the end of the book, in a satisfying whirlwind, George and Frankie's romantic confusion, familial involvement, emotional health, conflicting professional desires and needs, and future plans are elegantly resolved.

I received an audiobook version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.

More from Carley Fortune

Fortune is also the author of Meet Me at the Lake, Every Summer After, One Golden Summer, and This Summer Will Be Different.