How the book ‘bought by Harry and Meghan for £3 million’ film rights bears striking resemblances to their own lives – from a falling out with a best friend to a mother who died in a car crash
- FEMAIL delves into Meet Me at the Lake, by Canadian author Carley Fortune
- READ MORE: Canadian author of the novel ‘bought by Harry and Meghan for £3 million for a Netflix adaptation’ is a fan of the Sussexes and was left in tears as she saw their wedding on TV (after waking up at 4am to watch it)
As Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly plan a production of Canadian novelist Carley Fortune’s romance novel Meet Me at the Lake in a bid to get their Hollywood dream back on track, they are said to have been captivated by the plot.
New York Times Bestselling author Fortune’s second novel is a romance about two long-lost lovers, Will and Fern, whose paths cross by chance a decade after first meeting and sparks fly between the pair.
An insider has told The Sun that the Sussexes, who bought the rights to the book for an estimated £3 million, that the couple were interested in the novel due to the themes it explores.
They said: ‘The themes of the book gripped the couple and it was chosen for their first adaptation with Netflix.’
Its plot sees the two main characters grapple with grief, complicated family situations and an unexpected love story – all of which may resonate with the Sussexes and their own love story.
Carley Fortune’s Meet Me at the Lake is la
Here, FEMAIL breaks down the ways in which the novel nods to Harry and Meghan’s own romance…
1. Set in Toronto
Fortune’s book flashes back and forth in time, with the present day events set on the lakes of Ontario where the main character Fern runs holiday cottages.
Throughout the novel, Fern looks back to her time living in Toronto, which is where she meets Will for the first time in her early 20s, while working in a coffee shop and studying.
Toronto is a city very close to Meghan Markle’s heart, as it was where she lived for seven years while filming Suits, the legal drama which was her big break in the entertainment industry.
Meghan has previously said of the Canadian metropolis: ‘The people are so kind, I love the food scene and I really love exploring little nooks around the city with my two dogs. I love how much green space there is tucked away.’
She added that it reminded her of her native Los Angeles in many ways.
In the book, narrator and main character Fern has moved to Toronto for university (in a move that mirrors the real life story of its author, Fortune).
Fern says of the city: ‘Coming to Toronto for university felt like moving to the moon. I wished I could play space explorer forever.’
2. ‘Single girl summer’
Meghan (pictured in June 2016) had planned a ‘single girl summer’ until she met Prince Harry unexpectedly
The present-day events in Fortune’s novel take place six weeks after the main character, Fern, has lost her mother.
She is also somewhat recently single, having split up with her ex boyfriend Phillippe after catching him cheating.
Writing about the break up, Fern says: ‘We broke up two years ago, and I’ve been on hiatus ever since… it’s relationships I have no interest in.’
She goes on to discuss the downsides of being in a relationship with a man, including having to deal with his dirty socks.
It’s at this time in her life when her ‘one who got away’, Will, comes back into the picture unexpectedly.
The timing of the love story reflects that of Harry and Meghan, as the Duchess and her friends have recently revealed she had no intention of looking for love when she met Harry.
Speaking in the couple’s $100 million Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, the Duchess’s friend Lucy Fraser, who is English, discussed Meghan’s plans for having a ‘single-girl summer’ in 2016 – where she travelled around different countries.
3. ‘What do you mean, you haven’t Googled him?’
During a bombshell interview with veteran broadcaster Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, the Duchess of Sussex claimed she had never Googled Prince Harry before their first date
After Will reappears in Fern’s life 10 years after they first met and she battles with her romantic feelings towards him after he broke her heart, she confides in her best friend, Whitney, about seeing him again.
Whitney’s first reaction is to ask if Fern has carried out a Google search to find out what Will is up to these days, and how his life may look.
In response, Fern insists she hasn’t once looked up her old flame online – although she admits to the reader this is untrue.
The exchange bears a striking parallel to Harry and Meghan’s early meetings as the Duchess has claimed previously she had little idea of who the Prince was before their first date.
Speaking to Oprah Winfrey in an explosive interview in March 2021, when she was pregnant with their second child, Lilibet Diana, Meghan told the veteran broadcaster
‘I didn’t do any research about what [joining the royal family] would mean,’ she told the TV mogul, continuing: ‘I never looked up my husband online.’
The claim has been called into question by royal fans who seemed bewildered Meghan didn’t search a member of the British royal family online before dating him – and in their Netflix documentary, Meghan revealed she had, in fact, done a little research on Harry.
She told the documentary she had not Google searched Harry, but had asked the mutual friend who set them up if she could take a peek at the royal’s social media account.
‘I asked if I could see his feed,’ Meghan recalled. ‘That’s the thing when people say did you Google him? No, but [scrolling through his social media] that’s your homework.’
4. A mother dies in a car accident
Fortune’s book begins as the main character, Fern, is mourning the loss of her mother who died in a car accident just six weeks earlier.
Prince Harry was just 12 years old when his own mother, Princess Diana, died in a car accident in August 1997.
In the novel, Fern is haunted by her mother’s death and wakes up in the middle of the night having had a nightmare where she takes her mother’s place in the car just before the accident.
The scene echoes Harry’s own difficulties in coming to terms with his mother’s death in a car accident, which he laid bare in heartbreaking passages in his memoir, Spare.
He recalled visiting Paris, the city in which his mother tragically died, and tried to get his head around how Diana died by asking his driver to go through the Alma underpass, where the crash occurred.
He also requested that they go through the tunnel at 65 miles per hour – the same speed Princess Diana’s chauffeur was driving at when the tragic accident happened.
Harry recounted the driver was shocked when he asked him if he knew the tunnel were his mother had died, and asked him to drive him through it.
The royal revealed he barely felt anything when he entered the tunnel, writing it was: ‘The bump that supposedly sent Mummy’s Mercedes veering off course.’
He recounted how he counted the lights and the pillar inside the tunnel as his car whizzed through, but was shocked at how short the tunnel actually was when he emerged.
Harry recalled imagining the tunnel was a dangerous route, but was surprised to learn it was a ‘no-frills tunnel’.
5. Drinking martinis on dates
Meghan and Harry’s first date was in Dean Street, Soho, where the Duchess reportedly drank a martini
As the romantic tension ramps up between star-crossed lovers Fern and Will in Meet Me at the Lake, the pair are invited to a cocktail evening where they are able to catch up properly for the first time.
Sipping on martinis garnished with onions and olives, the lovers discuss the last decade of their lives and sparks fly once again.
The choice of drink echoes how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent their first ever date at 76 Dean Street in Soho, London, which the couple opened up about in their Netflix series, Harry & Meghan.
They revealed their plan to meet at 6pm, but after Harry got stuck in traffic on the way there, he ended up being late.
Meghan told the documentary: ‘I was like, is this what he does? This I’m not doing. Like one of the guys who had so much of an ego that any girl would sit around and wait for a half hour for you.’
It has previously been reported in The Times that, during their first date, Harry’s choice of drink was a beer, while Meghan coolly sipped on a martini.
6. A fallout between friends
Meghan and her best friend, Jessica Mulroney, were inseparable for years until their relationship cooled in 2020
In the flashback excerpts of Fortune’s novel, the close friendship between Fern and her best friend Whitney is on the rocks.
She describes feeling annoyed that Whitney rarely visited her at university in Toronto, and that her best friend clearly didn’t enjoy being in the city.
Later, in another flashback, Fern refers to a ‘falling-out’ with Whitney that left their friendship feeling ‘precarious’.
The tension between two best friends may be familiar to the Duchess of Sussex, whose friendship with Toronto-based pal, Jessica Mulroney, has cooled in recent years.
For many years, Meghan and Jessica were inseparable, with the fashion designer’s daughter even chosen as a flower girl for the Duchess’s wedding.
Meghan and ‘Jess’ took sun-soaked trips to Positano, gushed about one another on social media, and were pictured at a number of high-profile events together.
In 2020, a ‘white privilege’ scandal with lifestyle influencer Sasha Exeter over the murder of George Floyd saw Jessica lose her illustrious gig at Good Morning America (GMA) and be cut off by Canadian TV network CTV – and rumours began to swirl that her friendship had cooled with Meghan.
Source: Read Full Article
