Meghan & Harry reportedly have film rights for book 'Meet Me at the Lake' - how similar is it to their lives?

Meghan Markle may still be enjoying the last of her 42nd birthday celebrations (her birthday was on 4 August), but the focus has moved on from what she did or didn’t do and what she did or did not wear. Now, it is all about the novel ‘Meet Me at the Lake’ by Carley Fortune, that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry reportedly have the film rights to. 

According to The Sun, the couple has “snapped up the rights to film a best-selling book in a Hollywood-or-bust move after the collapse of their Spotify deal.” The article goes on to say that “The novel - which shifted a whopping 37,000 copies in the first week of its release in May alone - deals with themes including childhood trauma over losing a parent in a car crash, mental health and post-natal depression.”

The rights to the book, which could have cost up to £3 million to attain, have some strong similarities to the lives of Meghan and Harry; not only does it feature losing a parent in a car crash, but it is also set near Toronto where Meghan was living when she began a relationship with Prince Harry. 

According to Carly Fortune’s own website, “Meet Me at the Lake is a breathtaking love story about two strangers who come together when they need each other most.” (again echoing Meghan and Harry). Carly’s website also reveals that the novelist grew up in the suburbs of Sydney in Australia and also in a lakeside town called Barry’s Bay in rural Ontario, which provides the setting for one of her books, ‘Every Summer After.”

Carly currently resides with her two sons and husband in Toronto and is working on her third book. She studied for a Bachelor of Journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University and has worked at Canada’s ‘The Globe,’ ‘Toronto Life,’ and the defunct weekly paper, ‘The Grid.’

Deadline has reported that Meghan and Harry’s “venture marks a change of direction after their forays into documentary-making and both of them publishing books. It will form part of their detail with Netflix, worth a reported $100 million.”