How the guide ‘purchased by Harry and Meghan for £3 million’ movie rights bears hanging resemblances to their very own lives – from a falling out with a greatest pal to a mom who died in a automotive crash

As Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly plan a manufacturing of Canadian novelist Carley Fortune’s romance novel Meet Me on the Lake in a bid to get their Hollywood dream again on observe, they’re mentioned to have been captivated by the plot.

New York Times Bestselling creator Fortune’s second novel is a romance about two long-lost lovers, Will and Fern, whose paths cross by likelihood a decade after first assembly and sparks fly between the pair.

An insider has instructed The Solar that the Sussexes, who purchased the rights to the guide for an estimated £3 million, that the couple had been within the novel because of the themes it explores.

They mentioned: ‘The themes of the guide gripped the couple and it was chosen for his or her first adaptation with Netflix.’ 

Its plot sees the 2 principal characters grapple with grief, difficult household conditions and an sudden love story – all of which can resonate with the Sussexes and their very own love story.

Carley Fortune’s Meet Me on the Lake is la

Right here, FEMAIL breaks down the methods wherein the novel nods to Harry and Meghan’s personal romance…

1. Set in Toronto

Fortune’s guide flashes forwards and backwards in time, with the current day occasions set on the lakes of Ontario the place the primary character Fern runs vacation cottages.

All through the novel, Fern appears again to her time residing in Toronto, which is the place she meets Will for the primary time in her early 20s, whereas working in a espresso store and finding out. 

Toronto is a metropolis very near Meghan Markle’s coronary heart, because it was the place she lived for seven years whereas filming Fits, the authorized drama which was her huge break within the leisure trade.

Meghan has beforehand mentioned of the Canadian metropolis: ‘The persons are so sort, I like the meals scene and I actually love exploring little nooks across the metropolis with my two canine. I like how a lot inexperienced house there’s tucked away.’

She added that it reminded her of her native Los Angeles in some ways. 

Within the guide, narrator and principal character Fern has moved to Toronto for college (in a transfer that mirrors the true life story of its creator, Fortune). 

Fern says of town: ‘Coming to Toronto for college felt like shifting to the moon. I needed I may play house explorer ceaselessly.’

2. ‘Single woman summer time’

The current-day occasions in Fortune’s novel happen six weeks after the primary character, Fern, has misplaced her mom.

She can be considerably lately single, having cut up up along with her ex boyfriend Phillippe after catching him dishonest.

Writing concerning the break up, Fern says: ‘We broke up two years in the past, and I have been on hiatus ever since… it is relationships I’ve little interest in.’

She goes on to debate the downsides of being in a relationship with a person, together with having to take care of his soiled socks.

It is presently in her life when her ‘one who bought away’, Will, comes again into the image unexpectedly.

The timing of the love story displays that of Harry and Meghan, because the Duchess and her buddies have lately revealed she had no intention of on the lookout for love when she met Harry.

Talking within the couple’s $100 million Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, the Duchess’s pal Lucy Fraser, who’s English, mentioned Meghan’s plans for having a ‘single-girl summer time’ in 2016 – the place she travelled round completely different international locations. 

3. ‘What do you imply, you have not googled him?’

After Will reappears in Fern’s life 10 years after they first met and he or she battles along with her romantic emotions in the direction of him after he broke her coronary heart, she confides in her greatest pal, Whitney, about seeing him once more.

Whitney’s first response is to ask if Fern has carried out a Google search to seek out out what Will is as much as today, and the way his life might look.

In response, Fern insists she hasn’t as soon as seemed up her previous flame on-line – though she admits to the reader that is unfaithful.

The trade bears a hanging parallel to Harry and Meghan’s early conferences because the Duchess has claimed beforehand she had little concept of who the Prince was earlier than their first date.

Talking to Oprah Winfrey in an explosive interview in March 2021, when she was pregnant with their second little one, Lilibet Diana, Meghan instructed the veteran broadcaster

‘I did not do any analysis about what [joining the royal family] would imply,’ she instructed the TV mogul, persevering with: ‘I by no means seemed up my husband on-line.’ 

The declare has been referred to as into query by royal followers who appeared bewildered Meghan did not search a member of the British royal household on-line earlier than courting him – and of their Netflix documentary, Meghan revealed she had, in actual fact, finished a little analysis on Harry.

She instructed the documentary she had not Google searched Harry, however had requested the mutual pal who set them up if she may take a peek on the royal’s social media account.

‘I requested if I may see his feed,’ Meghan recalled. ‘That is the factor when individuals say did you Google him? No, however [scrolling through his social media] that is your homework.’

4. A mom dies in a horrific automotive accident

Fortune’s guide begins as the primary character, Fern, is mourning the lack of her mom who died in a automotive accident simply six weeks earlier.

Prince Harry was simply 11 years previous when his personal mom, Princess Diana, died in a automotive accident in August 1997. 

Within the novel, Fern is haunted by her mom’s dying and wakes up in the midst of the evening having had a nightmare the place she takes her mom’s place within the automotive simply earlier than the accident. 

The scene echoes Harry’s personal difficulties in coming to phrases along with his mom’s dying in a automotive accident, which he laid naked in heartbreaking passages in his memoir, Spare.

He recalled visiting Paris, town wherein his mom tragically died, and tried to get his head round how Diana died by asking his driver to undergo the Alma underpass, the place the crash occurred.

He additionally requested that they undergo the tunnel at 65 miles per hour – the identical velocity Princess Diana’s chauffeur was driving at when the tragic accident occurred.

Harry recounted the driving force was shocked when he requested him if he knew the tunnel had been his mom had died, and requested him to drive him by way of it.

The royal revealed he barely felt something when he entered the tunnel, writing it was: ‘The bump that supposedly despatched Mummy’s Mercedes veering astray.’

He recounted how he counted the lights and the pillar contained in the tunnel as his automotive whizzed by way of, however was shocked at how quick the tunnel truly was when he emerged.

Harry recalled imagining the tunnel was a harmful route, however was stunned to be taught it was a ‘no-frills tunnel’.

5. Ingesting martinis on dates

Because the romantic rigidity ramps up between star-crossed lovers Fern and Will in Meet Me on the Lake, the pair are invited to a cocktail night the place they can catch up correctly for the primary time.

Sipping on martinis garnished with onions and olives, the lovers focus on the final decade of their lives and sparks fly as soon as once more.

The selection of drink echoes how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent their first ever date at 76 Dean Road in Soho, London, which the couple opened up about of their Netflix sequence, Harry & Meghan. 

They revealed their plan to satisfy at 6pm, however after Harry bought caught in site visitors on the best way there, he ended up being late.

Meghan instructed the documentary: ‘I used to be like, is that this what he does? This I am not doing. Like one of many guys who had a lot of an ego that any woman would sit round and look ahead to a half hour for you.’

It has beforehand been reported in The Instances that, throughout their first date, Harry’s alternative of drink was a beer, whereas Meghan coolly sipped on a martini.

6. A fallout between greatest buddies

Within the flashback excerpts of Fortune’s novel, the shut friendship between Fern and her greatest pal Whitney is on the rocks.

She describes feeling aggravated that Whitney hardly ever visited her at college in Toronto, and that her greatest pal clearly did not get pleasure from being within the metropolis. 

Later, in one other flashback, Fern refers to a ‘falling-out’ with Whitney that left their friendship feeling ‘precarious’. 

The stress between two greatest buddies could also be acquainted to the Duchess of Sussex, whose friendship with Toronto-based pal, Jessica Mulroney, has cooled lately.

For a few years, Meghan and Jessica had been inseparable, with the style designer’s daughter even chosen as a flower woman for the Duchess’s marriage ceremony.

Meghan and ‘Jess’ took sun-soaked journeys to Positano, gushed about each other on social media, and had been pictured at numerous high-profile occasions collectively. 

In 2020, a ‘white privilege’ scandal with way of life influencer Sasha Exeter over the homicide of George Floyd noticed Jessica lose her illustrious gig at Good Morning America (GMA) and be minimize off by Canadian TV community CTV – and rumours started to swirl that her friendship had cooled with Meghan.