Fire Rush

Fire Rush is a pulse-lit journey through sound and survival. In the late-70s London underground, Yamaye lives for dub’s basslines and the sisterhood of the dancehall. Then she meets Moose—a gentle craftsman with roots carved deep in Jamaica—and their love reframes everything. But the state’s violence cuts him down, and grief coils into anger. As street protests rise, a betrayal inside her circle forces Yamaye to choose between silence and a life that costs everything. Crossing oceans toward Cockpit Country’s caves, she chases her mother’s missing story and the ancestral music that keeps calling her name. This is a story of women who carry the beat when the world tries to take their voice, and a testament to how rhythm—rooted in revolt—can light the way home.

• Readers who love music‑soaked literary fiction with political edges
• Listeners drawn to diaspora, Black British history, and Maroon legacies
• Fans of character‑driven stories about grief, desire, and self‑possession

Jacqueline Crooks is a Jamaican‑born British writer whose work pulses with music and migration. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award, and her debut collection, The Ice Migration, was longlisted for The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Fire Rush is her first novel—a sound‑driven story about love, state violence, and the ancestral technologies that keep us moving.