intertextu[allie]ties | issue 12

The best things I read, watched, and listened to in June 2025 (plus a reflection one year into writing this newsletter!)

hello, dear reader.

And welcome to my one-year anniversary issue! 🎉

I started writing intertextu[allie]ties twelve months ago and, in the time since then, I have somehow reached 101 subscribers. To everyone who signed up to receive this humble newsletter and helped me achieve this milestone, thank you. Thank you for welcoming my words into your inbox or onto your Substack feed.

Writing is one of my life’s greatest loves and it is constantly shaped by the things I read, watch, and listen to. That’s where the idea for this newsletter came from! Intertextuality is about connection – the connections between the art we consume and create, but also the way art connects us to one another.

Every month for the past year, I’ve written about my favourite books, movies, TV shows, and music in the hopes that, at some point, you’ve thought to yourself, “Oh, I loved that, too!” or “That sounds like something I’d enjoy.” And even though I’ll never know how often those sparks of recognition, of like meeting like, have occurred, I treasure the notion that we’ve shared – however fleeting – a moment or two of connection.

So, here's to another month of art that lit up my brain with joy! I hope something in here resonates with you, too.

✍️ Allie

The best things I read, watched, and listened to this month!

Torontonian Carley Fortune is the queen of the summer romance novel. 👑 Since her sparkling debut in 2022, she’s released a new title every year – each one set in an idyllic Canadian location: Barry’s Bay for Every Summer After, Muskoka for Meet Me at the Lake, and Prince Edward Island for This Summer Will Be Different.

Her latest offering, One Golden Summer, came out in May of this year and is a return to not only the beloved setting of Every Summer After, her first novel, but also its characters.

Before this month, I had only read the two middle books in Fortune’s bibliography and, knowing One Golden Summer was a continuation of Every Summer After, I hesitated to pick it up. But, thanks to the enthusiastic recommendation of a trusted fellow bookworm, I decided to read the pair of them back-to-back, and I am so glad I did!

Every Summer After begins when thirteen-year-old Percy (short for Persephone) Fraser’s parents buy a summer cottage in the lakeside community of Barry’s Bay. That’s where she meets the Florek brothers, Sam and Charlie, who live next door. Percy becomes fast friends with sweet and studious Sam and, over the course of six perfect summers, the two grow ever closer… until one terrible mistake drives them apart. Twelve years later, a funeral draws Percy back into Sam’s orbit, forcing them to confront the past and their unshakable feelings for one another. A beautiful coming-of-age story, Every Summer After is a tender and achingly nostalgic look at first love.

In One Golden Summer, Fortune shifts the focus to Sam’s older brother, Charlie. A shameless flirt, Charlie has always danced through life and left a trail of broken hearts in his wake. But he meets his match in Alice Everly, a compulsive people pleaser and photographer burnt out on one too many commercial jobs who comes to Barry’s Bay from Toronto to cheer her grandmother up after an injury. At first, the two seem primed to hate each other, but over the course of a summer, Alice discovers in Charlie an unexpectedly thoughtful confidant and Charlie inspires Alice to live the way she’s always wanted to: boldly. For anyone looking for the perfect romantic comedy full of flirty repartee and swoon-worthy moments – this is it!

As a self-proclaimed Mary Shelley enthusiast who wrote her undergraduate thesis on Frankenstein, you’d better believe the trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming adaptation had me clicking ‘Play’ the second it came out.

Ever since del Toro shouted out Mary Shelley while accepting his 2018 Best Director BAFTA for The Shape of Water, calling her “a figure as important in my life as if she were family,” I’ve known him to be the perfect person to adapt Frankenstein. He’s called it his “favourite novel in the world” (same!) and I trust him to bring an adaptation that honours the revolutionary spirit of Shelley’s original to life.

This trailer is yet another vote of confidence. A known master of Gothic imagery, I already see del Toro weaving in bloody touches of red with Victor’s scarf and gloves. And that solitary shot of the Creature set against a snowy vista at 0:36 is giving me the awe and terror of the sublime! I’m also very happy to see the oft-discarded arctic framing narrative preserved here and, most importantly, the Creature’s cry of “Victor!” at 2:01 indicates del Toro will give him the voice so many other adaptations have denied him.

This is slated for a November release on Netflix, so I’m counting down the days until then! 🗓️

If you like the complete picture of every movie I saw in a month, you can check out my Letterboxd diary for all my reviews.

I firmly believe that audiobooks are books, so it feels a bit like cheating in placing this recommendation here instead of my “what I read” section, but hear me out!

In the “Book to Big Screen News” segment of the Book Enthusiast’s June 2 issue, one item in particular caught my eye: “The adaptation of My Oxford Year by reigning audiobook queen Julia Whelan is coming to Netflix August 1. Who’s ready for a summer sob-fest?”

Reader, three things intrigued me:

1. A book set in Oxford, “the city of dreaming spires.” 💭

2. Any story that promises to be a sob-fest. 😭

3. The existence of a new-to-me excellent audiobook. 🎧

When I looked her up, I discovered Julia Whelan has narrated over 600 audiobooks with standouts like Tara Westover’s Educated, Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I was also delighted to learn that Whelan is not only the narrator of My Oxford Year, but also the author! The experience of listening to a fiction writer, who also happens to be a voice actor, read their own words exactly as they imagined their characters saying them is a beautiful thing. I cannot recommend this audiobook enough!

Breaking into Act III of my second novel!

Twelve months ago, I sent out the first issue of this newsletter. I was fresh off my self-made writing retreat in Wolfville where I wrote the first five chapters of my second novel. Now, at thirteen chapters in, I’ve just passed the midway point and will likely be very close to having a completed manuscript by this time next year. (!!!)

One thing that hasn’t changed in the past twelve months is that I’m still trying to find representation for my debut novel. I continue to query in batches and am happy to report that my full manuscript is still under review by two literary agents. But, for context, I’ve also been rejected by nearly 50 agents in my three years of off-and-on querying. I still believe in my first book and won’t give up on pitching it, but I’ve also accepted that maybe it’s not meant to be my “breakthrough” into the publishing world.

If no one has picked it up by the time I finish writing my second, however, then I’ll start querying that one instead. And, if that’s not the one either, then it might be the one after that. All that to say is that I love writing more than the dream of being a published author, so I’ll keep doing just that. Because the beauty of it all is that the only way to make that dream come true is to never stop writing.

Clearly, the anniversary of this newsletter has me in a reflective mood and it’s made me realize just how important my novel writing is to me right now. In fact, it’s been going so well lately that I’ve started to find the monthly preparation of these issues often interrupts a good creative flow. As such, I’ve decided to reduce the frequency of the intertextu[allie]ties publication schedule to once every two months, meaning my next newsletter will come out in August. This will give me a bit more time in between issues to follow my muse and hopefully be able to report some exciting progress the next time you hear from me!

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Growing up, I used to look forward to making homemade summer to-do lists with my mom and little sister. We would pick seasonal scenes like a sunny sky or a field of flowers, draw and cut them out of Bristol board, and use them as the canvas upon which we would write down the things we wanted to do over the summer. We would then tape up our masterpieces on the front door for all to see.

This year, I decided to revive this tradition! My husband and I decided to make a kite with a colourful tail where we’ve written down our most anticipated to-dos. How are you planning on spending your summer months? 🪁

Our Summer 2025 To-Do List! ☀️