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Author Carley Fortune is sharing her thoughts on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle producing an adaptation of her book Meet Me at the Lake for Netflix.
“Meet Me at the Lake is with [Harry and Meghan’s Archwell Productions] and Netflix as a film,” Fortune, 42, said during the Thursday, June 18, episode of Jenna Bush Hager’s “Open Book” podcast. “And that project is still in development. We have a director attached, and the script is still being revised.”
Fortune added that it’s “just so wild” to be working with Harry, 41, and Meghan, 44, on the film.
“So, when we were optioning the film, I had a really good, long call with Meghan and Tracy Ryerson, who is with Archwell. And I felt like they really understood the story and what mattered about the story,” she shared.
Fortune continued, “And we spoke a lot about, because the story Meet Me at the Lake is a romance, but it’s very much about a mother and daughter, too … we talked a lot about parenthood and also about how these love stories are about so much more. It’s a story about grief, it’s a story about mental health.”
The Every Summer After author concluded that she felt like the story is in “very good hands” with Archwell.
Fortune also joked that she’s “not hanging out” with the former working royals “on weekends.”
News broke in August 2023 that Harry and Meghan had purchased the rights to Fortune’s second romance novel for an adaptation at Netflix.
“I’m so thrilled about working with Netflix and Archewell to bring Meet Me at the Lake to the screen,” Fortune said at the time. “Will and Fern’s love story is dear to my heart, and I can’t imagine a more perfect partnership.”
A source exclusively told Us Weekly at the time, “The story really spoke to the Sussexes and has a lot of parallels to their own life. Harry and Meghan both think it’s the perfect choice.”
Meet Me at the Lake follows strangers Fern and Will as they spend a day together in Toronto and make a pact to meet again the following year at a lakeside resort. Will arrives nine years too late, forcing Fern to question whether he’s the same person she had a connection with so long ago.
In addition to Fern and Will’s love story, the book explores mental health topics such as postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“What I have found through books is I can weave in things that are really important to me and people engage with them because they are reading this romance, they know it’s going to have a happy ending,” Fortune, who lives in Toronto with husband Marco and their two sons, told Bush Hager, 44. “But they are learning about mental health.”
Fortune chose to include postpartum OCD in the book after her own experience with the condition. According to the International OCD Foundation, postpartum OCD is characterized by persistent, intrusive thoughts and images that drive new parents to perform repetitive physical or mental rituals to prevent a perceived harm to their baby.
“A lot of people don’t know about it, I didn’t know about it, and I’ve found it’s been so wonderful to have heard from readers who didn’t know what they were going through until they read the book, and who found courage to talk to a loved one or a doctor,” Fortune continued. “I think there’s just such power in that … It’s been a way that I can connect with people.”
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