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Sky City

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What to expect

Three lives are brought together by chance in 90s London, in this spellbinding story of friendship and loneliness, healing and redemption

*Guardian Book to Read 2026*

Jaycee finally has a room of her own in Sky City, a housing estate in north London carved out of the glow-in-the-dark sky. But her troubled childhood continues to haunt her. When an old classmate, Sol, reappears, he seems to offer her a lifeline. Sol was her first love, and the only person who looked out for Jaycee when they were kids. Can she trust him now?

Her best friend is Ella-G, who left for the glamorous music scene in New York. When Jaycee finds a rare record that seems to lead to Ella-G’s father, the two women go searching for answers in Atlantic City. But what Jaycee encounters there forces her to confront the traumas of her own past. Back in London, can Jaycee, Sol and Ella-G find justice and healing, even as their worlds threaten to crash together and splinter apart?

'Visceral, shocking, moving - Jacqueline Crooks proves yet again that she is an absolutely fantastic writer' Bernadine Evaristo

'Hypnotically beautiful' Louise Kennedy

'Poetic, truthful and powerful' Diana Evans

'A lyrical hymn to London’s overlooked places of sanctuary' Hannah Lowe

'Jacqueline Crooks is the rare groove of literature' Afua Hirsch

'An exhilarating, compelling story that goes deep into the self, and what it is to feel human' Priscilla Morris

© Jacqueline Crooks 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

Critics Review

Visceral, shocking, moving - Jacqueline Crooks proves yet again that she is an absolutely fantastic writer
Bernardine Evaristo
Hypnotically beautiful, almost weightless, Sky City is the literary equivalent of an out-of-body experience. In the best ways it pole-axed me.
Louise Kennedy
Jacqueline Crooks is the rare groove of literature - she writes with a rhythm, imagination and unique language that makes even the searing pain of this novel transcendent
Afua Hirsch
Poetic, truthful and powerful, Sky City gives glittering insight into a wounded black female subjectivity, offering agency and empathy. A beautiful read
Diana Evans
Shimmering and kaleidoscopic, Sky City is an exhilarating, compelling story that goes deep into the self, and what it is to feel human
Priscilla Morris
In this rich, searching novel, Jacqueline Crooks writes with great skill and quiet acuity about how the past resists containment, returning in disquieting ways. It is an unsettling yet compassionate exploration of childhood trauma, threaded with the promise of love and redemption, and a lyrical hymn to London’s overlooked places of sanctuary
Hannah Lowe
Sky City invites us fully into the texture of the 90s. Deeply enjoyable and carrying itself with a calm assurance, this is a novel that is built to last
Roger Robinson
Sky City is the soul electric, attuned to star-stuff in every word and in every cell of Jaycee's body. A heartbreaking but heartening tale that heals us. I adore this book, the world is transformed by it.
Pascale Petit
[A] riveting second novel, Crooks’ rhythmic, lyrical prose transports us to a North London housing estate in the 1990s, where three lives intersect to haunting effect… A richly textured story of trauma, friendship, loneliness and redemption, and an evocative portrait of ‘90s London
Bookseller, *Fiction Book of the Month*
A luminous novel. Crooks captures the textures of Black British life in the 80s and 90s with tenderness, fury, and breathtaking prose
Jacob Ross
Author Jacqueline Crooks
Narrator Sharon Duncan-Brewster
Duration 14 hours and 15 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781529972863
Format Audiobook
Publisher Random House
Genre ‘Street’ fiction, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Narrative theme: Social issues
Availability AU, GB, IE

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