No matter how bad your summer camp experience might have been, Colleen Leahey McKeegan lays out a far worse one in her novel, “The Wild One” (HarperCollins Publishers, 256 pp., $21.59, hardcover, $16.99, paperback, $13.99, digital, $29.86, audio CD, 2022).

The book flips between a summer when three pre-teen girls are involved in a traumatic event in the “Then” chapters, and the present-day “Now” chapters, when their secret is revealed years later and they have to deal with the aftermath.

McKeegan calls “Wild One” “a suspense, coming-of-age novel with a bit of mystery.” It is also “a character study of three women, the bonds between them, how events changed each of them, and how they moved forward,” she says.

McKeegan grew up in Salisbury Township and, after her family moved, she graduated from Emmaus High School, where she was a cheerleader, captain of the debate team and participated in track and cross country.

From the time she was nine to 13-years-old, she went to Camp Oneka for five summers, an all-girls camp on the shores of Fairview Lake, Tafton, Pike County, in the Pocono Mountains.

Her summer camp experience was a happy one, but it served as the inspiration for the setting of the “Then” parts of the plot.

“I wanted to tap into my real-life experience, with tiny details in the book to make it vivid so the reader can live in it,” McKeegan says in a phone interview from her home in Westchester County, N.Y., where she lives with her husband and their two sons, ages 3 and 1 1/2.

The events and the interactions between the young women move quickly, as things did in the camp itself.

She was constantly active each time she went to Camp Oneka, beginning in 1998.

“The first 24 to 48 hours are pretty jarring. I had no access to a phone and was thrown into a cabin with all new faces. But at camp you don’t have time to be homesick. It keeps you active and occupied.

“Both my parents had gone to camp. They thought it would help make me less dependent on my family and help me find my way in the world.”

Fortunately for McKeegan, the difficult youths and social interactions that happen in the book didn’t happen at Camp Oneka.

“The characters are based on people from camp and other places who are not dissimilar from those in the novel, but the peripheral characters are closer to actual people than the main ones.”

McKeegan says that Amanda, the novel’s narrator, ”wasn’t my favorite character. She would make bad decisions, and often did the opposite of what I would have done in situations.”

The present-day “Now” chapters describe the problems of Amanda’s toxic relationship.

“That was something pervasive among our peers, with emotional more than physical abuse. Looking back at our early 20s, it was surprising what several of my friends and I put up with and thought was OK.”

Writing the book was often an intense experience for McKeegan:

“My husband said that after writing on certain days it would take me 30 to 45 minutes to unwind. It would take time to decompress.

“I would find some part of myself in each of the characters, including parts that I hope are not like me. It was like method acting. I would become them in a small way.”

Nonetheless, she says, “This book has been such a blessing.” McKeegan has been able to reconnect with some of her old friends on social media. In September 2021, she went back for the fifth annual Women’s Weekend at Camp Oneka.

“They created a whole schedule similar to the time at camp. I slept in one of the cabins. When I woke up, it felt like it was 2002 again.

“I met campers from a different generation and women from the time when my Mom went to camp.”

McKeegan was given a six-figure preempt by HarperCollins for “Wild One,” which is very unusual for a first novel. A preempt is a payment for exclusive rights to publish a book.

“It was a wonderful surprise. I feel very lucky. I have an amazing agent and an editor who believes in my voice.”

McKeegan says her next work is “Riptide,” a romantic suspense novel scheduled for publication in summer 2024.

McKeegan, a graduate of Georgetown University, was the senior features editor at Marie Claire magazine and has held editorial roles at The Cut, Fast Company, Bloomberg, Fortune, The New Yorker and Bicycling.

She now writes full-time and does editorial consulting.

“Literary Scene” is a column about authors, books and publishing. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com