Fire Rush: SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023 - Softcover

Crooks, Jacqueline

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1787333647 ISBN 13: 9781787333642

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2023

Synopsis

SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2023
AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVEL OF THE YEAR

It’s time to dance, to love, to be free…

‘Mesmerising’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO, author of Girl, Woman, Other
‘Fabulous’ MAGGIE O'FARRELL, author of Hamnet
‘Beautiful’ CALEB AZUMAH NELSON, author of Open Water

Yamaye lives for the weekend, when she can go raving with her friends at The Crypt, an underground club on the outskirts of London. Then everything changes. Yamaye meets Moose, who she falls deeply in love with, and who offers her the chance of freedom and escape.

After their relationship is brutally cut short, Yamaye goes on a dramatic journey of transformation that leads her to Jamaica, where past and present collide with explosive consequences.

***A SUNDAY TIMES BEST NOVEL AND GUARDIAN BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2023***

‘A wonderfully literary, musical and original novel about a culture and era that rarely makes the pages of fiction’ TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

‘Scorching… We follow Yamaye through love, loss and peril, as she chases her dreams and connects with her heritage’ GUARDIAN

‘Ambitious, atmospheric… A novel of passion and anger’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘A rich and rhythmic story about love and music’ I

About this title

About the Author

Jacqueline Crooks grew up in 70s and 80s Southall, part of London’s migrant community carving out a space through music, culture and politics. Fire Rush, her first novel, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and chosen as an Observer Best Debut Novel of the Year. For her short stories, a selection of which was published in the collection The Ice Migration, she has been nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Wasafiri New Writing Prize and the BBC National Short Story Award.

From the Back Cover

Yamaye lives for the weekend, when she can go raving with her friends at The Crypt, an underground club in the industrial town on the outskirts of London where she was born and raised. A young woman unsure of her future, the sound is her guide - a chance to discover who she really is in the rhythms of those smoke-filled nights. In the dance-hall darkness, dub is the music of her soul, her friendships, her ancestry.

But everything changes when she meets Moose, the man she falls deeply in love with, and who offers her the chance of freedom and escape.

When their relationship is brutally cut short, Yamaye goes on a dramatic journey of transformation that takes her first to Bristol - where she is caught up in a criminal gang and the police riots sweeping the country - and then to Jamaica, where past and present collide with explosive consequences.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2023
• ISBN 10: 1787333647
• ISBN 13: 9781787333642
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352