Jacqueline Crooks' Fire Rush (2023) is a novel about Jamaican immigration to the United Kingdom during the 1980s. Fire Rush focuses on Yamaye, a rowdy young woman who frequently parties with her friends at a club called "The Crypt."
Yamaye has gone through much of her life graving human connection, which she lacked because of her father's emotional coldness and her mother's death. She eventually finds the connection she has been craving for all of her life with Moose, a Jamaican man who works as a carpenter. Their romantic relationship progresses rapidly, but violence suddenly engulfs the Jamaican community in the United Kingdom, killing Moose and leaving Yamaye alone once again. As a result, Yamaye returns to Jamaica, where she confronts her past and deals with her culture—a culture that has taken everything from her.
Fire Rush received critical acclaim when it was published. Kirkus Reviews called the novel "A compelling coming-of-age story about personal loss and political awakening." Publisher's Weekly called Fire Rush a "triumph." Colin Grant of The Guardian felt similarly, writing in their review that "Jacqueline Crooks has crafted a richly textured world, artfully drawing on her youthful experience of raves and gangs in 1970s west London, as well as supernatural beliefs in Obeah."
