Jaq, A Top Boy Story

Ronan Bennett

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805300717
• Print ISBN:
  9781805300731

AN IRISH TIMES FICTION BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR

I'm going to tell you everything. I'm gonna tell you the whole story.

Sometimes all it takes is a single message. Maybe it's bad, like a rival top boy's been switched off. Or maybe it's good, like an opportunity you never thought you'd get. But opportunities mean risks, and debts, and you never want to owe anyone anything.

Jaq's worked hard on the road since she was fourteen, bringing in money to keep her broken family afloat. Now she's built a good life near the top of the Summerhouse crew, with a beautiful home she shares with her girlfriend Becks and her heavily pregnant older sister Lauryn.

But messages are coming in — good and bad — and Jaq has to make a choice: step back from the road and start a life she's never even considered. Or seize her opportunities and risk everything for life-changing money. Either way, Jaq will make enemies. And those enemies aren't going to let her go easily . . .

Table of contents

• Cover
• Also by Ronan Bennett
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Dushane, Sully and Me
• Girls’ Night Out
• This So-Called Mysterious Figure
• Lauryn
• Mandy
• Aaron, Stef and Angela Davis
• Mum, Dad and Jimmy
• Dris and Dushane
• The Bando
• Sharon the Fed
• There’s Always a Top Boy
• Kieron
• The Call
• The Irish
• Immigration
• Let Him Go!
• Sharon the Fed (Again)
• Lauryn’s Day Out
• Jimmy the Indian
• Come Back
• The Limp
• Candidates
• Something I Need to Take Care of
• Six Months
• Marianne
• Helping Baby Jack
• All the Top Boy Ghosts
• Bruv, We Have a Situation
• The Food Is Killing Us
• Going Long
• The Tom in the Lorry Park
• Lauryn’s Funeral
• Acknowledgements