Back to Seagull Street: Senior Week in Ocean City, Maryland

by Alissa Arford

In the summer of 1989, Juni Rydell met Jack Michaels during senior week in Ocean City, Maryland. One unforgettable week stretched into an entire summer—and a first love neither of them would ever forget.

Juni was headed to college and a promising future. Convinced he would only hold her back, Jack ignored her letters and calls and disappeared from her life. He told himself he was doing the right thing. Juni knew only that the boy she loved had abandoned her when she needed him most.

Thirty-six years later, they meet again in Ocean City. Juni is fiercely independent, with a life she built entirely on her own. Jack is successful, guarded, and still haunted by his past. Neither is prepared for the feelings that return, or for the weight of everything left unsaid between them.

As the summer of 2025 draws Juni and Jack closer, they must decide whether the truth about the past will finally set them free, or prove that their second chance has come too late.

232 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 1, 2026

About the author

Alissa Arford is a Maryland native, lifelong writer, and marketing communications leader with a passion for storytelling. A proud third-generation Terp, she earned her journalism degree and later an executive MBA from the University of Maryland—continuing a family tradition that now includes her two children as fourth-generation Terps.

With a career spanning journalism, digital marketing, and branding, Alissa has held senior leadership roles in professional tech consulting firms, SaaS finance apps, nonprofits, and higher education. She founded Red Hill Creek Enterprises, LLC, a consulting and publishing company, in 2023. Throughout her career, she has combined her love of writing, technology, and strategy to create compelling brand narratives and data-driven marketing solutions.

Reviews

[Cole Guinther · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my new favorite book! It’s a great summer read and captures the vibe of Ocean City so well - HIGHLY recommend 🌊🌆

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vibrant, vividly-crafted slice of life set in the coastal mid-Atlantic region, Back To Seagull Street follows memorable and relatable characters from modern day challenges in the 2020s to a nostalgic late 1980s Senior Week — a unique rite of passage in the young lives of so many people who over many generations have experienced it. In this timely and terrifically written sequel, the ocean is not only a source of connection and personal identity, but it’s also a vehicle for romance, adventure, and occasionally danger. With mid-21st and late-20th century time settings, Alissa Arford takes the reader back to simpler times, which makes this novel a study in contrasts. Beginning in the malaise of the technology-driven modern day and proceeding in a more carefree summer of 1989, Arford portrays both eras with remarkable insight and a level of detail so rich and precise, it takes the reader directly to those settings, both geographical and temporal.

Readers expecting a purely idyllic beach read are in for a surprise: Back to Seagull Street packs plenty of excitement, complete with twists and turns that keep the reader on the edge of their seat as the central character, JJ, faces romantic interludes and oceanside injuries — Arford is truly a master a creating scenes that transport the reader into the trajectories of her vivacious, open-hearted characters. Both in real-life and here in fiction, that notorious rite of passage known as Senior Week is sometimes marked by excesses and emergencies — it’s almost never a neat or uneventful getaway, but rather, a trip where one can only expect the unexpected.

In this way, Back To Seagull Street is both true to form and full of surprises. This second installment of the Seagull Street series is at once the perfect East Coast escape and a much-welcomed escapade from the trials and tribulations of today’s tumultuous digital landscape. Whether you’re nostalgic for the late 1980s or just want to get to know Maryland’s Atlantic Coast, Back To Seagull Street is a charming and relatable take on beach-based romance, where the characters find love, find trouble, and ultimately find themselves.