Inside the romance novel that inspired Harry and Meghan’s latest Netflix project

The couple have reportedly bought the novel Meet Me At The Lake by the bestselling Canadian author Carley Fortune for £3m with plans to adapt it. Photo / Getty Images

So at long last we know what the next instalment of Harry and Meghan’s megabucks Netflix deal will look like. Following the collapse of their association with Spotify, the couple have reportedly bought the novel Meet Me At The Lake by the bestselling Canadian author Carley Fortune for £3m (NZD$6.3m) with plans to adapt it.

From the outside this looks like a brave move – after all, the couple to date have had little success with projects that require them to engage with lives other than their own. Meghan’s Archetypes podcast on Spotify, which featured interviews with various female guests whose achievements invariably outshone hers, was not renewed. Her planned animated Netflix series, Pearl, about a 12-year-old girl on an inspirational journey of self-discovery, was shelved last year. Their only commercial triumph with either company has been their Netflix six-part documentary Harry & Meghan.

Yet dig a little closer and the thinking behind Meet Me By The Lake becomes clearer as the couple look to reboot brand Sussex without having to stray too far out of their comfort zone. “The themes of the novel gripped the couple,” one insider has been quoted as saying, and indeed they might. For a start the book – which centres on the second chance love affair between Fern and (ahem) Will, who reconnect nine years after briefly meeting in Toronto (where Meghan lived for several years while making the TV drama Suits) – is the sort of middle-brow romance that has proven commercial gold dust for Netflix, and goodness knows the Sussexes need a hit.

Casting is yet to be announced, though it is fair to assume that Meghan won’t be returning to her thespian roots. More significantly it’s a story of romantic destiny, featuring a couple who overcome bereavement, personal trauma and the heavy weight of duty and familial expectation to be together. In other words: Harry & Meghan 2.0.

Meet Me At The Lake is a middle brow romance. Photo / Other

Car crashes and absent mothers

Like Harry and Meghan, Will and Fern are the product of broken homes. However, it’s the loss of Harry’s mother Diana in a car crash that provides the most obvious parallel with events in the novel. At the start of the book Fern is nursing a near-paralysing grief for her mother, who has recently been killed after a deer crashed into the windscreen of her car. Indeed, both Fern and Will can be seen as composites of Harry: Will, in his 30s, is still in some way the angry and resentful teenager he became when his mother left his father when he was 14. Harry, of course, lost his mother when he was 10.

The weight of family duty – and ‘the firm’

Much of the plot hinges on familial expectation in ways that chime loud and clear with Harry’s battle against the role he inherited as a member of the Royal Family. He must, for instance, feel great empathy with Fern who for years bucked her mother’s wish that she take over the family firm, the arty independent Canadian resort her mother owned and ran and which, on her death, Fern has reluctantly inherited. “I didn’t want her life,” she says in a line that will surely make the trailer. “I wanted my own.” Will, meanwhile, has always wanted to be an artist but in a subplot feels compelled to abandon his career for the sake of his sister when she becomes pregnant. He also gets to say things like “It’s not every day you decide to change your entire life”, which I reckon is the line that clinched it for the Duke and Duchess.

The ‘black stare’ masking childhood trauma

Both Will and Fern are angsty teenagers, although it’s Fern who goes off the rails in the most spectacular fashion. When she discovered the truth about her parentage after reading her mother’s diaries, the adolescent Fern lost it, drinking too much, blanking out, and attending the sort of parties Harry is probably familiar with, such as one in which she ends up driving a tractor around a garden while naked. As for Will’s trauma, Fern can still see the pain in his “black stare, the empty voice, the way he can detach, strip out all emotion, stay safe”. As presumably can Harry – after all, this line wouldn’t look out of place in Spare.

Casting is yet to be announced, though it is fair to assume that Meghan won’t be returning to her thespian roots. Photo / Netflix

Cosy nights in

There’s an awful lot of it. For the purposes of this article we won’t go there, but Fern and Will are also the sort of down to earth couple who enjoy cosy dinners at home in front of the TV in a resort cabin, scenes that will surely prompt in Harry and Megs memories of those first blissful months in Nott Cott. Oh, and Will likes to dress up in an apron when cooking, which Fern finds very titillating. I wonder if Harry does too.

Casual style and rustic charm

Like Meghan, Fern is happiest wearing ripped jeans and tank tops. It’s also not hard to imagine Meghan sharing Fern’s penchant for You Got This themed playlists. Will is “very handsome” and “tense looking”, which Harry sort of is. When at their most loved up, they both think each other awesome. The resort meanwhile is decked out in rustic charm, which must make Meghan nostalgic for the days of her blog Tig.

A happy ending?

Yep, there is one. It even involves children. Most significantly it involves Fern returning to the family business and taking over the resort. A secret message from the Sussexes? We can only wonder.

So there you have it. A possibly genius hand played by Harry and Meghan who must in their private moments toy with the idea of casting themselves. Yet they may find the parallels prove stronger than even they could have imagined. For what, the reader can’t help but think, has Will, who as the novel progresses cuts an ever more embittered and self-destructive figure, really got to complain about? Perhaps this new Netflix venture will finally make everything clear.

The Sussexes’ other projects past and present

By Tim Sigsworth

Elephant

Narrated by Meghan, this Disney+ documentary – about migrating elephants in southern Africa – is released in April 2020.

The Me You Can’t See

The six-part mental health series, presented by Oprah Winfrey and Harry, is agreed before the Sussexes leave the Royal family. But the couple’s standalone interview with Oprah two months before its release in May 2021 largely overshadows the project.

The Bench

Released in June 2021, this children’s picture book written by Meghan is inspired by Harry’s bond with their son Archie. It tops the New York Times’ bestseller list for children’s picture books, but fails to break into wider children’s bestseller lists.

Pearl

Meghan creates an animated series – about a 12-year-old girl inspired by women from history – but it’s dropped in the development stage in May 2022.

Archetypes

The couple agree on a £16m (NZD$33.6m) podcast deal with Spotify in December 2020, and in August 2022 the first episodes are released. The 12-instalment series explores stereotypes of women, but Spotify cancels the deal in June this year, with one executive terming them “f-----g grifters”.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle arrive at United Nations headquarters. Photo / AP

Harry & Meghan

The Sussexes also sign a deal worth around £80m (NZD$168m) with Netflix in September 2020 for “inspirational family programming”. In December last year, the streaming service releases Harry & Meghan, a six-episode documentary about the couple’s romance and decision to quit royal duties. It becomes Netflix’s second-highest-ranked documentary ever.

Live to Lead

In the same month this documentary series – featuring interviews with notable figures including Greta Thunberg and the then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – is presented by Harry and Meghan, in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

Spare

By far Harry’s most successful post-palace project to date, his memoir is an explosive account of his life, selling over 3.2 million copies worldwide in its first week after release in January. Events such as how the prince lost his virginity are recalled in detail, Harry’s advance payment was reportedly £16m (NZD$33.6m).

Harry & Meghan - a six-part docuseries. Photo / Getty Images

Heart of Invictus

In April 2021, Netflix announces with much fanfare that the Sussexes’ first release on the platform is to be a documentary series called Heart of Invictus. However, more than two years later, the series – which is said to follow athletes in training for the 2020 Invictus Games – is yet to see the light of day.

Meet Me At The Lake

Harry and Meghan’s newest venture is the £3m rights to the best-selling romance novel, Meet Me At The Lake. The book centres on a couple who meet in their 30s, one of whom lost a parent in a car crash and went on to struggle with alcohol and drug use. It also covers themes of mental health and post-natal depression and is set in Toronto, where Meghan lived when filming Suits. The Sussexes intend to produce it for release on Netflix.