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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

Publisher Review

Remarkable... In terms of sheer lyrical force it stands head and shoulders above most debuts * Daily Telegraph * 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 Few have channelled so well the skittering beats and transcendent air of dub music as Crooks does in her semi-autobiographical debut... Startlingly vivid reading * Daily Telegraph, *Summer Reads of 2023* * 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 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 *