Fire Rush
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION
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- €9.99
Publisher Description
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.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHOR’S CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PAUL TORDAY PRIZE 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE McKITTERICK PRIZE 2024
A SUNDAY TIMES AND GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
‘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’ iNEWS
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Fire Rush is an ambitious debut novel, written with the kind of skill necessary to back up that grand ambition. In one compulsive, taut narrative, Jacqueline Crooks gives us a story of feminist empowerment, of a young Black woman finding herself; a story about state power, state violence and racism; and a kind of thriller. Beginning in the late ’70s, it follows one woman from the edge of London through nights out, fraught friendships, love and tragedy, through moments of transcendent joy and across the path of betrayal and brutal misogyny. Music–Yamaye’s talent, and her refuge–holds a central place in her story, and there’s a musicality to Crooks’ prose from the off, bringing the reader immediately into the character’s world.
