What Is ‘Every Year After’ Based On?
From Cousins Beach to Barry’s Bay, Prime Video is the big streaming home for YA and NA book-to-screen adaptations. The former is the location of The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022), a TV series based on Jenny Han’s trilogy of coming-of-age novels. The latter comes from the streamer’s next project, Every Year After (2026). The series is set to premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Monday, June 8, ahead of its debut on Prime Video on Wednesday, June 10.
Once it does, Every Year After will join other book adaptations, including series like Maxton Hall: The World Between Us (2024) and We Were Liars (2025), and the upcoming film adaptation of Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis (2026). While I’m still waiting for more updates about those new seasons and a release date for the movie, there’s a fantastic trailer for Every Year After. It’s set to Maggie Rogers’s “Light On” and features the line “You came home” from the book. It’s the perfect hook, revealing just enough to pull in those who are familiar with the source material along with new fans before it premieres on Prime Video.
‘Every Year After’ Is Based on a Carley Fortune Book
The short and sweet answer is that Every Year After is based on Carley Fortune’s book, Every Summer After, originally published in 2022. It tells the friends-to-lovers and second-chance romance of Persephone “Percy” Frase and Sam Florek across six summers in the lakeside Barry’s Bay in Canada. In the show, Sadie Soverall and Matt Cornett play Percy and Sam, respectively. The TV adaptation also spans six years and one week, and while it focuses on those integral summers, showrunner Amy B. Harris has intentions to expand beyond them.
Harris told Elle, “The book is obviously Every Summer After and takes place during the summer, and the first season does take place in the summer.” But, if the show were to continue, Harris “would love the show to live in many seasons.” So, the name change from the book isn’t meant to confuse book readers but to offer the show longevity if Prime Video gives it that.
While only time will tell, there’s certainly reason enough to believe that Every Year After will pull in a significant audience. It has the built-in fanbase of Fortune’s readers, which should not be understated. Every Summer After spent 16 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and has sold over one million copies to date. Plus, Every Year After will debut on the heels of Prime Video’s success with Off Campus (2026). The sports romance series based on Elle Kennedy’s book pulled in 36 million viewers worldwide in its first 12 days on the streamer. Those numbers are incredible and reflect that audiences are hungry for character-driven, romantic stories.
Will ‘Every Year After’ Adapt the Entire Duology?
Unlike most of Prime Video’s book-to-screen adaptations, Every Summer After is a duology. The second of which is 2025’s One Golden Summer, focusing on the romance between Sam’s older brother, Charlie Florek, and Alice Everly. In the show, Michael Bradway will portray Charlie. As far as I know, Every Year After doesn’t intend to wade into the waters of Charlie’s book—yet. The first season has the intention of telling Percy and Sam’s story. Carley Fortune even wrote about that in her initial Instagram post announcing the series from July 2024. She wrote, in part, “I can’t wait to see Percy and Sam’s love story expand and evolve for the screen.”
However, Amy B. Harris has said in multiple interviews that Season 2 would be where all of that is explored. Bradway specifically told Teen Vogue that he acted differently as Charlie in the relationships that the character has in Season 1 “because we knew that [his love interest] Alice was going to be coming next season.” As of now, Prime Video has not renewed Every Year After for a second season, but I am hopeful that the news is coming. I can only imagine how disappointing it would be for the streamer to miss out on adapting both books in the duology.
Prime Video may prove me wrong, but I’m also confident in the show’s future because of the streamer’s new initiative, Obsession Is In Session. It’s described as “a new initiative marking the streamer's bold commitment to being the leading destination for young adult audiences.” There will be a new inaugural event, Obsessed Fest, on Saturday, June 27. Like many other book adaptations, Every Year After will be featured there. In May, Prime Video announced that Matt Cornett, Michael Bradway, author Carley Fortune, and showrunner/EP Amy B. Harris would attend. I don’t want to get too confident because there’s no way to know the future of TV shows anymore, but I can’t help but hold onto hope that this is only the beginning for Every Year After.
