Author(s): Jacqueline Crooks

Novel | 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction long list | 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction short list

An explosive debut novel about dub reggae, love, loss and freedom set in late '70s and early '80s London, Bristol and Jamaica by a phenomenal new voice in fictionThis is our dancing time.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.A debut about dub reggae, love, loss and freedom, Fire Rush is an electrifying state-of-the-nation novel and an unforgettable portrait of Black womanhood.

Review: Remarkable... In terms of sheer lyrical force it stands head and shoulders above most debuts. * Daily Telegraph *
A heady swirl of a novel that pulls the reader in from the first page... a fabulous, absorbing read. -- Maggie O'Farrell, author of THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT
I was blown away by Fire Rush - an exceptional and stunningly original novel by a major new writer... her mesmerising, imaginative and incantatory writing leaves us swaying to the bass of the visceral rhythms she so powerfully describes. By the end of the novel, I felt charged and changed and already longed to reread it. -- Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER
This beautiful, sprawling narrative is wrought with an incredible precision and a musicality which carries every sentence. Crooks' novel haunts but make space for hope as well. -- Caleb Azumah Nelson, author of OPEN WATER
A brilliant, exuberant novel. Full of beauty, musicality and feminist power. -- Irenosen Okojie, author of NUDIBRANCH
A scorching, lyrical debut, soaked in dub reggae. * Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023* *
A rich and rhythmic story... Fire Rush is a startlingly good debut. * i *
Ambitious, atmospheric... This is a full-blooded novel of passion and anger with a deep, bassy resonance. * Sunday Times *
Fire Rush is a lyrical debut powered by uncompromising political force. * Mail on Sunday *
A window into the dub scene at the time, with rhythmic, lyrical writing and a story about raving, love and the impact of police violence... Both a page turner and a literary novel... truly remarkable. * Vogue *

Author Biography: Jacqueline Crooks grew up in 70s and 80s Southall, part of London's migrant community carving out a space through music, culture and politics. Immersed in the gang underworld as a young woman, she later discovered the power of writing and music to help her look outwards and engage differently with the world - a power that has driven her ever since, from her work with charities to her short stories, which have been nominated for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Wasafiri New Writing Prize and the BBC National Short Story Award.