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I went into Our Perfect Storm audiobook review mode expecting another cozy summer romance to half-listen to while doing dishes.
Instead I ended up standing in my kitchen with cold dishwater going lukewarm because I could not stop listening.
Carley Fortune's fifth novel dropped on May 5, 2026, and it's already sitting at the top of bestseller lists, which honestly isn't a shock if you've read anything else she's written. This one takes her out of her usual Ontario cottage country and drops her characters into Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island. New scenery, same ache.
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ 4/5
If you've ever loved someone for so long that you forgot to notice it, this book is going to sit somewhere uncomfortable in your chest.
Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight. The kind of friendship where you know exactly which face someone is making without looking at them.
Then Frankie's wedding falls apart, and George is suddenly the only person left standing next to her.
Listen to it if: you want slow-burn friends-to-lovers with real emotional weight and a gorgeous setting.
Skip it if: you get impatient with a heroine who takes her sweet time figuring out the obvious.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Our Perfect Storm |
| Author | Carley Fortune |
| Narrator(s) (audiobook) | A.J. Bridel, Jack Copland |
| Series | Standalone |
| Genre | Contemporary Romance |
| Subgenre | Friends-to-lovers |
| Audiobook length | 10 hours 51 minutes |
| First published | 2026 |
| Publisher | Penguin Audio |
Frankie and George grew up next door to each other. George moved in with his grandmother when he was a kid, and somehow that turned into two decades of being each other's person.
They've clashed and made up more times than either of them could count. They even lived together for a while, before George left for a big job on the other side of the country.
Now it's the eve of Frankie's wedding, and she has no idea if George is even going to show up as her best man.
He does. And for one night everything feels right again.
Then her fiancé leaves her the next morning with nothing but a note, and Frankie and George end up spending a week together in Tofino trying to figure out what they actually are to each other. There's a whale conservation thread running through the book too, tied to Frankie's mom, and it adds a surprising amount of depth without ever feeling like homework.
That's genuinely all I'll say about the plot. This one has a few turns worth discovering on your own.
Frankie is the kind of narrator who overthinks everything except the one thing she should be thinking about, which is George.
It's frustrating in the way real people are frustrating. You want to shake her a little. But you also get why she's built these walls, once you see where she came from.
George, though. George is the one people are going to be talking about.
He's not loud about how he feels. He shows it in small, patient ways — the kind of guy who notices what you need before you've said it out loud. That restraint is actually what makes the chemistry work so well. You spend the whole book watching him hold something in, and every time he almost lets it slip, it lands hard.
Their banter has years of shorthand behind it. They finish each other's sentences, call each other out on nonsense, and somehow that history makes every quiet moment between them feel earned instead of convenient.
Fortune usually parks her stories in Ontario cottage country. This time she takes readers to Tofino, and the setting practically becomes its own character — rainforest crashing into beach, storms rolling in off the Pacific.
The dual timeline is where the book earns most of its emotional weight, jumping between present-day Frankie and George and flashbacks to their childhood and early twenties. It's a technique Fortune has used before, and here it builds a genuine sense of history between them.
Now for the honest part.
The dual timeline is also the book's biggest weakness. Right when a present-day chapter is building toward something, you get pulled into a flashback, and the answer gets delayed by another fifteen minutes of listening. It works emotionally. It just doesn't always work for pacing, and a few readers online have mentioned getting genuinely impatient with Frankie in the middle stretch. I felt that too, around the two-thirds mark, before the book pulled me back in.
This is a dual-POV story, which makes it a natural fit for two narrators, and A.J. Bridel and Jack Copland handle Frankie and George's chapters here.
Having separate voices for each character helps a lot with a book that jumps timelines as often as this one does. You always know exactly whose head you're in, which honestly saves you from getting lost during the flashback sections.
The quieter, more restrained emotional beats — and there are a lot of them, given how much George holds back — tend to land harder in audio than they might on the page. You catch the pauses. The half-finished sentences. That's where narration earns its keep.
It's over ten and a half hours long, so this isn't a quick weekend listen. Plan for it more like a week of commutes or a couple of long walks.
Good fit if you:
— Love slow-burn, friends-to-lovers romance with real stakes
— Don't mind a nonlinear timeline that takes its time getting where it's going
— Want a story with atmosphere, family baggage, and a setting you can practically smell
Maybe skip it if you:
— Need fast pacing and instant gratification
— Get frustrated with narrators who take a while to see what's obvious to everyone else
— Want a light, low-stakes beach read with no emotional homework
The easiest way I've found to try this one is through audiobooks.com. At the time of writing, new members get a 30-day free trial that includes their first audiobook plus two bonus VIP picks, so there's a real chance you can listen to the whole thing without paying anything upfront.
Audible, Spotify, and Libro.fm also run their own free trial credits from time to time, and it's always worth checking whether your local library has it through Libby before you spend a cent.
Q: How can I listen to Our Perfect Storm audiobook for free?
A: Your best bet is audiobooks.com's free trial, which currently includes your first book plus two VIP bonus titles before any charge kicks in. Audible, Spotify, and Libro.fm sometimes offer their own trial credits too, and checking Libby for a copy through your library is always worth the two minutes it takes.
Q: Is Our Perfect Storm audiobook worth listening to?
A: Yes, with a small caveat. It's emotionally rich and the ending pays off, but the middle stretch tests your patience a little. If you enjoy character-driven romance that takes its time, it's absolutely worth the listen.
Q: How long is the Our Perfect Storm audiobook?
A: It runs 10 hours and 51 minutes.
Q: Who narrates the Our Perfect Storm audiobook?
A: A.J. Bridel and Jack Copland narrate, splitting Frankie and George's chapters.
Q: Is Our Perfect Storm a standalone or part of a series?
A: It's a standalone novel. You don't need to have read any of Carley Fortune's earlier books to follow it, though fans of her previous summer romances will recognize her style right away.
Q: Does Our Perfect Storm have a dual timeline?
A: Yes. The book moves between Frankie and George's present-day week in Tofino and flashbacks to their childhood and early twenties.
Our Perfect Storm isn't a perfect book. The pacing drags in spots, and Frankie's internal spiral repeats itself more than it needs to.
But George. Honestly, George alone makes this worth your time.
By the time the story lands where it's going, the slow build actually feels earned rather than stretched out for the sake of it. It's the kind of romance that sits with you after it's over.
If any of this sounds like your kind of listen, check out our free listening guide above and grab it through audiobooks.com — their free trial is a pretty low-risk way to find out if Frankie and George get you the way they got me.
