Sometimes love finds you where you least expect it. A YA high-concept romance about two teens who meet in the back of a rideshare on the way to a music festival.

THE PICK-UP
by Miranda Kenneally
Sourcebooks Fire, September 2021

When Mari hails a Ryde to a music festival, the last thing she expects is for the car to pick up a gorgeous guy along the way. Mari doesn’t believe in dating—it can only end with a broken heart, like it did for her parents. Besides, she’s only staying at her dad’s house in Chicago for the weekend. How close can you get to a guy in three days?
TJ wants to study art in college, but his family’s expectations cast a long shadow over his dreams. When he meets Mari in the back of a rideshare, he feels alive for the first time in a long time. Mari and TJ enter the festival together and share an electric moment but get separated in a crowd with seemingly no way to find each other. When fate reunites them (with a little help from a viral hashtag), they’ll have to decide: was it love at first sight, or the start of nothing more than a weekend fling?

Growing up in Tennessee, Miranda Kenneally dreamed of becoming an Atlanta Brave, a country singer (cliché!), or a UN interpreter. Instead, she writes and works for the State Department in Washington, DC, where George W. Bush once used her shoulder as an armrest. Miranda loves Twitter, Star Trek, and her husband.