Love & Luck

Sixteen-year-old Addie Bennett, a competitive soccer player from Seattle, has just shoved her brother Ian off the side of the Cliffs of Moher during their Aunt Mel's destination wedding in Ireland. The siblings tumble down the hillside in formal clothes, landing in mud while horrified tourists look on. Addie has been miserable for 10 days, ever since Cubby Jones, the boy she secretly dated all summer, broke her heart and humiliated her in front of Ian's football team. Ian, 17 and sporting a black eye from Addie's punch, has been pressuring her to tell their parents what happened. The tension between the once-inseparable siblings has become unbearable.

Their mother delivers an ultimatum: Addie and Ian will still fly to Florence to visit Addie's best friend, Lina, who moved there to live with her father, but if either sibling misbehaves, both will be removed from their sports teams with no second chances. That evening, Addie hides in the hotel library and discovers a coffee-stained guidebook titled Ireland for the Heartbroken, which prescribes visits to Irish sites along with "Heartache Homework" assignments designed to heal a broken heart. Excerpts from the guidebook appear throughout the novel, addressing the reader directly with advice about grief and resilience.

The next morning, Addie wakes to find Ian gone, his suitcase missing, and a note saying he is not coming to Italy. She races outside and finds him loading his bag into a battered car driven by Rowan, an Irish teenager and Ian's close online friend, with horn-rimmed glasses and cat-themed T-shirts. Rowan explains they are headed to Electric Picnic, Ireland's biggest music festival, where Ian's favorite band, Titletrack, is performing their final concert. Rowan proposes a compromise: Addie joins them to the Burren, a desolate limestone landscape on the way to the airport, before flying to Italy alone. Addie reluctantly agrees.

On the road, Addie discovers Ian has been living a secret life as a music journalist. He runs a blog, writes a weekly column for an online publication, and has nearly 10,000 social media followers. Rowan found Ian's writing over a year ago, and they became close friends through daily conversations. Ian reveals he is considering journalism school rather than the football scholarship everyone assumes he will accept. The road trip plan is to visit sites important to Titletrack's history so Ian can document the journey and submit a major article for his portfolio.

At the Burren, where Titletrack filmed their first music video, Addie performs the guidebook homework by picking wildflowers and naming each for someone she can count on. Rowan reveals he has experienced heartbreak and asks to share the exercises. Flashbacks woven through these scenes reveal Addie's pain: Cubby pursued her over the summer, and they began meeting secretly. Ian warned her that Cubby talked badly about girls, but Addie ignored him, desperate to be seen as more than "Bennett number four," the youngest sibling overshadowed by three star-athlete brothers.

A failing tailpipe strands the group on the highway, and they miss the flight to Italy. Addie calls Lina in desperation, and Lina offers to fly to Ireland with her boyfriend, Ren, using frequent flier miles to meet them at Electric Picnic. Addie agrees to stay on the road trip, and Rowan brokers a truce between the siblings.

The journey continues through storms onto the Dingle Peninsula. At a hostel that night, Addie secretly reads Ian's published articles and is struck by his talent. At Inch Beach the next day, she and Rowan wade into freezing water for the guidebook homework, sharing painful truths. Addie describes helping Lina through the death of Lina's mother, Hadley, from pancreatic cancer. Rowan reveals his heartbreak is his parents' divorce; even separated, they remain bound by anger, with Rowan caught in the middle. Holding hands in the freezing water, Addie feels something lighten.

At Torc Manor, where Titletrack recorded an album, the group trespasses to photograph a room through a window and is chased off by the owner and her dogs. Rowan dubs Addie "Queen Maeve" after the legendary Irish warrior queen whose burial tomb grows as visitors add stones to it. At Blarney Castle, Addie has a quiet epiphany while kissing the famous Blarney Stone, a limestone block said to bestow eloquence: Her heartache is something she is going through, not who she is. As they exit, she spots her mother and the wedding tour group. She hides with Rowan until Walter, one of Addie's college-age brothers, finds them. Rowan improvises a cover story, and Walter reluctantly agrees to keep the secret.

In Cobh, a port town, Ian interviews Miriam Kelly, the talent scout who discovered Titletrack, at the pub where the band first performed. Miriam offers to forward Ian's finished article to the band's lead singer. That evening, Addie and Ian have their most honest conversation of the trip. Addie reveals the full story: after weeks of Cubby pressuring her, she sent him a topless photo despite her misgivings and Ian's earlier warnings. Two days later, Ian told her Cubby had been showing it to the entire varsity team. Ian clarifies he was never angry about the photo but about the fact that Addie did not trust him. He admits he was kicked off the football team for fighting teammates who made comments about the photo after he confronted Cubby. He confesses he has always hated football, and this road trip was partly an attempt to build a writing portfolio before telling their parents he is quitting. Their confessions bring them closer than they have been all summer.

At a fairy ring near Cobh, a medieval ring fort connected to Titletrack's origins, both Addie and Ian place coins and wish for Rowan's happiness, honoring the friend who has carried them through the trip. Immediately after, Addie learns that everyone at school is now talking about the photo. Cubby may face suspension, and the disciplinary action is how the story spread.

The group arrives at Electric Picnic, where Ian leads everyone, including Lina and Ren, to a clearing decorated with fairy lights and hanging CDs. They perform "the first ceremony of Queen Maeve," a ritual Ian conceived to honor Addie. Each person places a rock at a tree stump and speaks. Lina drapes Addie in Hadley's plum-colored shawl and recounts how Addie sprinted barefoot down a hospital hallway when Hadley was dying. Rowan tells Addie she is enough on her own and whispers that he wishes he did not have to say good-bye tomorrow. Ian reads from his notebook, calling Addie his "life's witness," the person whose presence makes everything in his life count. Addie sees herself clearly for the first time: brave, flawed, and strong enough to face whatever comes next.

As they head to the concert, Addie's mother appears, furious. Walter told their brother Archie the secret, and Archie told their mother. Addie intercepts her rage by insisting the concert is the most important thing that has ever happened to Ian. Her mother agrees to let them watch, channeling her former roller-derby persona, "Medusa Damage," to push the group to the front of the crowd. In the crowd, Addie tells her mother she needs to talk about something important after the show. Ian squeezes her hand.

In the epilogue, set on the first day of the new school year in Seattle, Addie has told her family everything. Her brothers had to be restrained from confronting Cubby, but they all stood by her. Rowan is counting down to his Christmas visit, and Addie feels a flutter of hope. She carries four rocks from the ceremony in her backpack. Ian offers to walk her to every class, but Addie tells him she can handle it. He reminds her, "You're Maeve." They push open the school doors and walk in together.