Martha’s Vineyard, an island off of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, is known for a lot of things. Tens of thousands of people vacation there every summer, and they have good reasons for doing so. Maybe they’re drawn in because it’s where Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws was filmed, or because they want to ride the oldest operating platform carousel in the United States. Or maybe, just maybe, they’re forced to go in order to secure a job promotion, only to end up falling in love with a local contractor named Caleb.

At least, that’s what happened for Marnie, the female protagonist of Morgan Rooney’s debut novel, On Island Time. Turns out, among all its other attributes, Martha’s Vineyard is also the perfect setting for a love story. Rooney decided she would write this story in 2023, and on June 20, 2026, her summery, place-based romance novel was released.

It took work to get from point A to point B, though. Approximately three years before the book would be published, Rooney was preparing to visit her family on Martha’s Vineyard like she does every year, and she wanted to bring a book with her that was set there. She found one, but the location was only used briefly, and Rooney wanted more. “I was like, ‘wouldn’t it be neat to do a book fully based there?’” Rooney said. “And it took me a while to actually commit and truly sit down and want to do that, but when I was [on the island], I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I should do this.’”

“It took me a while to actually commit and truly sit down and want to do that, but when I was [on the island], I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I should do this.’”

After that trip, things really started moving. She sought out resources like plot structure and story structure, and decided to join a writing group. The writing group she joined was a transformational support system and made it so that Rooney didn’t have to figure everything out on her own. She received reader feedback from people in this group and got plenty of encouragement and advice that changed the game for her as a first-time author. In the past, Rooney worked on her high school newspaper and dabbled in short story writing, but she’d never attempted a full-length novel before this, nor had she gone through the formal publication process, so there was newness everywhere she turned.

Rooney learned a lot throughout the process—about writing, about publishing, and about herself too. She also established her ideal writing environment over the course of writing this book. When Rooney sits at her desk to write, there are a few must-haves: a cozy blanket, a snack (Cheez-Itz, preferably), and a good soundtrack.

She found that the music of German film composer Hans Zimmer was a great writing companion. “I love his music and his soundtracks, and I don’t want something with words that’ll distract me,” Rooney said. “When the beat picks up, I’m like, ‘Oh god, gotta keep writing.’ It’s really fun.” This way, she’s not hyper conscious of time passing. “It’s kind of like, the words are just flowing, and then before I realize it, it’s been an hour.”

Rooney also learned that she’s a “plotter to a fault,” and that index cards work especially well for her as she plans. “The plot has to be perfect,” Rooney commented. “That’s why it took me so long to actually sit down and decide to write the book because I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want to write a book with plot holes that I have to go back and fix and rewrite. I want to write very clean drafts.’”

Her main method is to use one index card per chapter on which she writes a general overview of what needs to happen during those pages. This system gives her freedom to move things around when needed and have something visible and tangible to work with. Rooney also had the cover design and character art for On Island Time completed relatively early in the writing process. It acted as another external motivator, and it made the story real.

In addition to her index cards, Rooney utilized a combination of two well-loved plot structures—Save the Cat and Romancing the Beat—to bring Marnie and Caleb’s romance to life. For Rooney, it was kind of an obvious choice to write romance. With the resurgence of reading and emergence of BookTok, she found herself sucked into the world of romance novels.

As a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic, series such as The Kings of Sin by Ana Huang and the D.C. Stars Series by Chelsea Curto caught her attention. Rooney noticed how romance novels showcase various kinds of characters with different backstories getting their love story. “You know, someone can be flawed and still find love, or some big traumatic thing can happen to them, and they’re still worthy of love,” Rooney noted. “I really enjoy reading about different kinds of love stories.

For On Island Time, Rooney decided to write from the perspectives of her two leads, Marnie and Caleb. While writing Marnie, Rooney led with the joy that she gets from Martha’s Vineyard when she goes. “It’s one of my favorite places to be, so I just wanted to lean into how the island can be its own character in a way,” Rooney said. Caleb, on the other hand, is an islander through and through. “It’s a different perspective when you have someone going there, who’s never been, who’s just there for the summer, and then is supposed to be leaving versus someone who’ll never leave.”

It was more difficult for her to write Caleb because of this, but she drew from the experiences of her family and people that they grew up with to best capture his experience in addition to Marnie’s perspective of falling in love with the island for the first time.

After all, On Island Time was built from Rooney’s unwavering love for Martha’s Vineyard. Her characters visit multiple locations that Rooney has experienced firsthand. Marnie and Caleb visit the Flying Horses Carousel, The American Legion Memorial Bridge (more popularly known as Jaws Bridge), and East Chop Beach Club, just to name a few.

They also visit locations whipped up by Rooney, such as a Halloween-themed coffee shop (where Caleb goes to buy Marnie a pumpkin spice latte every morning, mind you), Logan’s Seafood Shack, and the Grapevine Club. “I had to make sure that nothing would tie back or be too obvious, and I couldn’t use people’s real names. I had to be very careful with the list that I chose,” Rooney said.

Rooney was selective in choosing the names of her locations, but it was maybe even more crucial to choose her character names carefully. Especially because two characters that make an appearance in On Island Time, Parker and Linny, are the leads for her next novel. It will be a companion novel to Marnie and Caleb’s story, and readers can anticipate the childhood best friends to lovers trope.

Tropes are a large part of modern-day romance book marketing, but Rooney’s not letting that dictate how or what she writes about. On Island Time’s tropes include a small town setting, workplace romance, and found family, but that wasn’t something Rooney was actively thinking about until the book was already done. “When it came time to actually make my stuff to market the book, I was like, ‘What even are the tropes of this book?’ Because I didn’t write it with anything particularly in mind,” Rooney recalled. “I don’t write for specific tropes. I knew I wanted to tell a story about Martha’s Vineyard, and I’m very happy with where it ended up.”

“I don’t write for specific tropes. I knew I wanted to tell a story about Martha’s Vineyard, and I’m very happy with where it ended up.”

Rooney would love to be traditionally published someday, but for now, she enjoys the creative freedom and control that comes with being an indie author. “It does mean more work and all of that,” she said, “but the changes that I want to make and the book I want to write are entirely up to me.”

Ultimately, one of her biggest takeaways from this whole process was this: if she’s happy with the story she’s writing, that’s all that matters. “If you don’t fight for yourself, then who will?” she rhetorically asked. “And so it kind of helped prove to me that I can do this and I enjoy doing this.”

Photos courtesy of Morgan Rooney | Interviewed on September 3, 2026