Inside the World of Nothing Good Grows Here: A Cape Cod Confession

Cape Cod bridge

girl hitchhiking

cigarettes

map of the Cape

There’s something about Cape Cod in the summer that tricks you into believing you’re safe. The ocean air is soft, the nights glow gold, and the world feels washed clean. But anyone who grew up there—as I did—knows that the prettiest places often hide the darkest stories.

My next novel, Nothing Good Grows Here, has been simmering inside me for years. It’s a teen drama, a psychological thriller, and a love letter to a time and place that shaped me in ways I’m still uncovering. Writing it has meant returning to the strange, shimmering summer of 1999—the year I was seventeen, restless, reckless, and convinced the world opened up only after dark.

And honestly? I wasn’t entirely wrong.

Continue reading to go inside the World of Nothing Good Grows Here.

The Real Cape Behind the Fiction

A lot of people picture Cape Cod as a postcard: hydrangeas, boardwalks, ice cream cones, wealthy families summering in crisp linen.

But the Cape I knew had edges.

I bridge-jumped with my friends into water that looked black as ink in the moonlight. I smoked cigarettes like they were some kind of teenage currency (I finally quit—my lungs have sent a thank-you note).I hitchhiked everywhere—usually long after midnight—because that’s just how teenagers survived on a peninsula with no real public transportation and too much curiosity. I learned things the hard way. Most girls I knew did.

But there was also beauty: the weightless feeling of salt on your skin after a late swim, the roar of cicadas in August, the way secrets hung in the air thicker than humidity.

All of that—the danger, the sweetness, the contradictions—became the soil for this book.

Growing the Seeds of a Story

Nothing Good Grows Here follows a pair of teenage girls trying to navigate privilege, danger, desire, fear, and the kind of friendships that feel like blood oaths. It’s fictional, of course. But the emotions are real. The settings are real. The bones of Cape Cod—its boardwalks, empty roads, tidal flats, and late-night daredevils—are real.

I poured pieces of my younger self into these pages: the longing to escape, the thrill of rebellion, the ache of wanting to be seen, the stubborn belief that the summer could fix you if you just kept moving.

Some memories bloomed into scenes.

Others were pruned down to a single line.

A few still sting, in the best way.

Why This Story, Why Now

Maybe it’s because I’m older now. Maybe because I’m a writer. Maybe because the world feels so different—but teenagers, in many ways, remain exactly the same: wild, searching, hungry.

I wanted to write something honest. Something atmospheric. Something a little dangerous.

A story that breathes like a Cape Cod night in July—warm, dark, and humming with possibility.

Coming Summer 2026 (if the tides are kind)

I cannot wait to bring you into this world. To introduce you to these girls and their secrets. To let you feel the pulse of the Cape the way I did—beautiful and unsettling all at once.

Until then, enjoy the mood board.

The seeds. The smoke. The sea-swept edges.

After all…

nothing good grows here.