Rapid Response - by Carrie Allen (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The Pitt meets Dawson's Creek in this YA novel about a squad of teen EMTs in a tight-knit mountain town.

Sirens scream as a crew of teen EMTs speeds off to its first call.

Yesterday they were basically strangers, but today they have to find a way to be a team.

New girl Alden is a former athlete looking for a new place to shine, Nicky is the entitled son of a local car dealer, David is a Type A guy with his whole future carefully planned, and Mirabel is an unrepentant thrill seeker. They know each other, but they're not friends. Not yet. All they know, right from the beginning, is that sparks fly when they're together.

In a small town like theirs, emergency calls are often to people they know - or people who will gossip afterwards. The crew knows the work is important, even on a bad night. There's also the rush of adrenaline when they race to a call, the intense focus needed to stabilize a patient, the big feelings that come from facing life and death, the way a so-called emergency can sometimes be hilarious. The four of them bond quickly because no one else really gets how they're hooked on it all.

Which is all great until they start pairing off...

And then they discover that their leader is hiding a secret that could tear them all apart.

About the Author

Carrie Allen's debut novel, Michigan vs. the Boys, was a hockey novel before hockey novels were hot. It was a Bank Street Best Children's Book of 2020, and named to both the YALSA Best YA Fiction list and the YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list. She was also a contributor to Out of Our League, a 2024 anthology of stories about girls in sports, named a Kids' Indie Next Pick, a JLG selection, and a New York Public Library Best Book of the Year.

Carrie's own experiences as a teen EMT changed her life. She says "I took my first EMT class when I was too young to even sit for the exam. In my small high school, there were maybe five or six of us starting to explore options in EMS -- the rest were all fire cadets, all boys. From the minute I walked into that first class, I was one of them, regardless of age or gender or future plans. We were such emergency nerds! Literally chasing ambulances. And fire trucks and ski patrol and Flight for Life..."