QUESTION 1: First, what is the title of the new book, and when will it be available?

ANSWER: The new book is Back to Seagull Street: Senior Week in Ocean City, Maryland. It will be released on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026.

It’s the second book in the Seagull Street series, following Welcome to Seagull Street: That Summer in Ocean City, Maryland, which was released in May 2025.

QUESTION 2: How is Book 2 different from Book 1?

ANSWER: It’s different in several significant ways. Welcome to Seagull Street is a character-driven, slice-of-life novel told from four points of view. Although it was released in 2025, the story takes place during the summer of 2023. It explores the lives of four characters against a post-pandemic backdrop, complete with complicated relationships, and a rather memorable conspiracy-theorist ex.

Back to Seagull Street is a second-chance sweet romance told from two points of view. The main story takes place in 2025, with flashbacks to Senior Week in 1989.
The new book is connected to the first one, but the structure, timelines, number of narrators, and central focus are all different.

QUESTION 3: Is Book 2 a direct continuation of the first book?

ANSWER: It continues the world of Seagull Street, but it doesn’t simply continue the same central storyline. Book 1 introduced the people, relationships, and places surrounding Seagull Street. Book 2 returns to that community and brings Jack Michaels – a supporting character from the first book – to the center of his own story.

At the same time, the three main characters from Book 1 (Ray Anders, Evan Michaels, Olivia McNalley) have a part in Book 2, so readers will have the opportunity to catch up with them.

QUESTION 4: Who are the two main characters in Back to Seagull Street?

ANSWER: The two main characters are Jack Michaels and Juni Rydell. Readers of the first book have already met Jack. He is the uncle of Evan Michaels, one of Book 1’s main characters. Jack and his bar were both featured in Welcome to Seagull Street. Juni is new to the series, but she and Jack share a history that reaches back to Senior Week in Ocean City in 1989.

QUESTION 5: Why did you choose Jack as the main character this time?

ANSWER: Jack already had a presence in the first book, even though the story wasn’t centered on him. Readers knew him as Evan’s uncle and as the owner of the bar, but they only saw a portion of who he was.

There was much more to explore… his past, his relationships, and the experiences that shaped the man readers met in Book 1. Moving Jack into the foreground gave me the chance to show that a supporting character in one story may have an entire untold story of his own.

QUESTION 6: What does Juni Rydell bring to the series?

ANSWER: Juni brings a new voice, a new history, and a fresh way of seeing Jack and the Seagull Street community. Because she is new to the series, readers can enter parts of the story alongside her. At the same time, her history with Jack allows her to reveal a side of him that the other characters and readers haven’t seen before.

QUESTION 7: Why did you decide to write a second-chance romance?

ANSWER: I was drawn to the idea of two people who knew one another when they were young meeting again after life had taken them in different directions. Second-chance romances naturally raise interesting questions. What do we remember accurately?

What have we misunderstood? How much do we change over the years, and how much of our younger selves remains? Most importantly, can two people reconnect without pretending that all those intervening years never happened?

Jack and Juni’s story gave me the opportunity to explore those questions against the setting of Ocean City in a place that holds so many memories for so many people.

QUESTION 8: What does “sweet romance” mean in this case?

ANSWER: “Sweet” describes the way the romance is presented: a very low-spice level. Jack and Juni are adults who have lived full lives since 1989. They bring years of experiences, decisions, memories, and emotions into their reunion. Their romance may be sweet, but the feelings surrounding a second chance can still be layered and meaningful.

QUESTION 9: How is the point-of-view structure different?

ANSWER: Welcome to Seagull Street has four points of view because it follows four characters whose lives intersect during the summer of 2023. That structure gave readers several ways to experience the same community and period. Back to Seagull Street has two points of view and has a typical romance story arch. Jack and Juni’s relationship is the emotional center of the book and readers can experience the story from both sides.

QUESTION 10: Why did you move from four points of view to two?

ANSWER: It came down to the kind of story I was telling. Book 1 needed four voices because it was about several lives intersecting. Book 2 needed the intimacy and focus of two. In a second-chance romance, both perspectives matter. Readers need to understand what Jack remembers, what Juni remembers, what each person regrets, and how differently two people can interpret the same history.

QUESTION 11: Was writing two points of view easier than writing four?

ANSWER: It was more focused, but not necessarily easier. With four points of view, the challenge was balancing four characters and making sure each person had a meaningful storyline and a distinct voice. With two points of view, the challenge was going deeper. Because the book centers on one relationship, every perspective shift needs to reveal something important about Jack, Juni, their past, or what is happening between them in the present.

QUESTION 12: How does the timeline work?

ANSWER: The present-day story takes place in 2025, two years after the events in Book 1. Part 2 of the book has a flashback to Senior Week in Ocean City in 1989. The two timelines allow readers to meet Jack and Juni as young people and as the adults they became. Together, the timelines explore what happened between them, how they remember it, and why it still matters in 2025.

QUESTION 13: Why did you choose Senior Week in 1989?

ANSWER: Senior Week represents such a distinctive point in a young person’s life. One chapter has ended, adulthood is about to begin, and for a brief period, it can feel as though the usual rules have been suspended and anything is possible.

Setting the flashbacks in 1989 also allowed me to show a different Ocean City. The place has changed between 1989 and 2025, just as Jack and Juni have changed.

That contrast became an important part of the story. I personally had my Senior Week in Ocean City in 1990, however Jack’s established age in Book 1 made 1989 the best fit for this story.

QUESTION 14: Where did the idea to incorporate real Ocean City memories come from?

ANSWER: After Welcome to Seagull Street was released, readers began telling me about their own memories of Ocean City. They shared stories about Senior Week, family vacations, summer jobs, friendships, romances, favorite restaurants, hangouts, and traditions. I loved hearing them, and I realized that incorporating real memories could make the next book especially meaningful and fun for my audience.

QUESTION 15: Did you actually interview readers about their memories?

ANSWER: I did. I interviewed many people and invited them to tell me about their experiences in Ocean City. I was interested in the major stories, but I also wanted the smaller details and the things that stayed in someone’s memory for decades. Sometimes those little details are what make a particular time and place feel real again.

QUESTION 16: How many real memories are included in the book?

ANSWER: There are dozens of them woven throughout the story. Some may be easy for readers to recognize, while others appear as smaller pieces of the book’s atmosphere. Together, they help bring Ocean City in 1989 and the characters’ experiences to life. Anyone remember when a car drove off the top level of the parking garage and into the pool at Howard Johnson’s? Multiple people recounted that story to me!

QUESTION 17: Are those memories included exactly as people told them to you?

ANSWER: They are incorporated into a work of fiction, so they needed to become part of Jack and Juni’s world and fit naturally within the larger story. I didn’t want the memories to feel like a list of historical references. I wanted them to belong in the scenes and contribute to the characters’ experiences.

QUESTION 18: How did interviewing readers change the way you wrote the book?

ANSWER: The interviews gave the story a richness and variety I couldn’t have created from my imagination alone. Every person remembered something different. One person might recall a particular restaurant or hotel, while someone else remembered a summer job, a friendship, a romance, or the feeling of being away from home during Senior Week. Those conversations reminded me that there isn’t one definitive Ocean City experience. The city belongs to everyone a little differently.

QUESTION 19: What was it like to incorporate your readers’ memories into your novel?

ANSWER: It was one of the most enjoyable and meaningful parts of writing the book.
The first book began with my vision of Seagull Street. After it was released, readers responded by sharing pieces of their own Ocean City histories with me. That gave Book 2 an unexpectedly collaborative dimension. It is still my fictional story and my characters, but the world around them carries echoes of many real summers and many real people.

QUESTION 20: Does that make this book a love letter to Ocean City?

ANSWER: I think it does. It’s a love letter not only to Ocean City as a place, but also to the memories people have made there. People may remember different hotels, restaurants, summer jobs, boardwalk traditions, friendships, or romances, but many share the feeling that Ocean City represented a special moment in their lives. The book celebrates the way a place can hold earlier versions of us, versions that may no longer exist anywhere except in our memories.

QUESTION 21: How is the tone of Book 2 different?

ANSWER: Book 1 reflects the uncertainty of the post-pandemic period. Its main characters are navigating their individual circumstances during the summer of 2023, and part of the turmoil involves a conspiracy-theorist ex.

Book 2 is very different and has a more romantic and nostalgic focus. By moving between 1989 and 2025, it explores memory, first love, lost opportunities, changing places, and the possibility that a story someone thought had ended might not be over after all.

QUESTION 22: How did you approach writing this book differently?

ANSWER: When I wrote Welcome to Seagull Street, I was building the world from the ground up. I was introducing the setting, establishing the community, and balancing four different points of view and I was focused on the story being a time capsule of 2023. Book 1 is significantly longer than Book 2.

With Back to Seagull Street, I could return to familiar places, bring back established characters, and then go deeper into the life of someone readers had already met.

The reader interviews also gave me a new way to approach the setting. This time, I wasn’t drawing only from my own ideas and impressions. I had dozens of real memories to help shape the atmosphere of the book.

QUESTION 23: What was the biggest challenge of writing two timelines?

ANSWER: Each timeline needed to feel vivid and complete, but they also needed to function as parts of one story. The 1989 scenes couldn’t feel like interruptions or background information, and the 2025 storyline couldn’t depend entirely on nostalgia.

I did a lot of research on what was actually around in 1989. Sometimes the memories given to me were not completely accurate, so it took some digging to figure it all out. The past needed to help readers understand the present, while the present needed to change the way readers interpreted the past.

QUESTION 24: Is Ocean City simply the setting, or is it something more?

ANSWER: Ocean City is much more than a backdrop in both books. It connects people to particular summers, stages of life, and versions of themselves. In Book 1, readers experience Ocean City during the summer of 2023 through four characters. In Book 2, they see it across two very different years. Ocean City becomes a way to measure time: what has changed, what has disappeared, and what can still make someone feel exactly as they did years ago.

QUESTION 25: How is Ocean City different in 1989 and 2025?

ANSWER: Some of the places, details, and experiences have changed, but the emotional pull remains. That contrast gave me a lot to explore. Jack and Juni can return to a familiar place, but they cannot return to 1989 or become the people they were during Senior Week. They have to decide what the past means to them now.

QUESTION 26: Do all the main characters from Book 1 return?

ANSWER: The three main characters (Ray Anders, Evan Michaels, Olivia McNalley) from Welcome to Seagull Street are sprinkled throughout Back to Seagull Street.

Jack and Juni are the two point-of-view characters and the central romance belongs to them, but returning readers will have the chance to revisit the original characters and see where they are in 2025. Juni’s character brings with her a BFF she’s known since elementary school named Annie.

QUESTION 27: Will readers also recognize Jack’s bar and other familiar places?

ANSWER: Yes. Jack’s bar provides an important connection between the two books, and readers will recognize that they are back in the Seagull Street world.
At the same time, familiar places can take on new meaning when viewed through Jack and Juni’s shared history.

QUESTION 28: Can someone read Back to Seagull Street without reading the first book?

ANSWER: Yes. Jack and Juni’s romance is a completely separate story, and Juni is a new character, so new readers can enter the series through Book 2.
However, reading Welcome to Seagull Street first will provide additional context. Returning readers will already know Jack, Evan, the bar, the original main characters, and the community surrounding Seagull Street. They will be able to appreciate how a supporting character steps forward to become the center of his own story.

QUESTION 29: What do you hope returning readers will enjoy most?

ANSWER: I hope they enjoy returning to familiar people and places while discovering how much more there is to know about Jack. I also hope they enjoy seeing the original main characters again to find out where Ray, Evan, and Olivia are now in their life stories. The book moves the larger Seagull Street world forward while revealing a history that began long before the events of Book 1.

QUESTION 30: What do you hope new readers will take away from the book?

ANSWER: I hope they become invested in Jack and Juni, even if this is their first visit to Seagull Street.
I also hope the story makes them think about the people and places from their own past. Most of us have probably wondered what would happen if we met someone again after many years and whether the connection would still be there.

QUESTION 31: What do you hope the people who contributed memories will feel when they read it?

ANSWER: I hope they feel that they helped make the fictional world more authentic and that their memories were treated with affection. It would be wonderful if they recognize something they shared with me. But even more than that, I hope the book captures the larger feeling behind all those stories: that Ocean City has been the setting for countless meaningful moments in people’s lives.

QUESTION 32: What are the biggest themes in Back to Seagull Street?

ANSWER: The book explores memory, nostalgia, first love, missed opportunities, the passage of time, and second chances. It also asks whether we remember the past as it really happened or as we needed to remember it. Jack and Juni have to consider who they were in 1989, who they became, and whether the people they are in 2025 can build something new from what they once shared.

QUESTION 33: If you had to summarize the difference between the two books in one sentence, what would you say?

ANSWER: Welcome to Seagull Street is about four lives intersecting during one post-pandemic summer; Back to Seagull Street is about two people, two timelines, and a love story that may deserve another chance.

QUESTION 34: Finally, what would you say to readers who are ready to return to Seagull Street?

ANSWER: Welcome back. The original characters are here, Jack’s bar is still here, and this time you’ll discover the story that began during Senior Week in 1989.
You’ll also find dozens of real Ocean City memories woven into Jack and Juni’s journey. I hope some of them make you smile, bring back a memory of your own, or remind you of a summer you never completely left behind.
Back to Seagull Street: Senior Week in Ocean City, Maryland arrives September 1.

QUESTION 35: Is Back to Seagull Street the end of the series?

ANSWER: Not at all. Christmas on Seagull Street and Murder on Seagull Street are both in the works. I’m keeping the details under wraps for now, but there are more stories, more familiar faces, and more reasons to return to Seagull Street that are foreshadowed in the first two books.

Which would you pick up first: Christmas or murder?