An Observer Top 10 Debut Novelist of 2022 'Announcing the arrival of a 23-year-old author whose
work is wise beyond his years' Guardian Sayon Hughes a young Black man from Bristol dreams of
a world far removed from the one in which he was raised: from the torn slips outside the
bookie's the burnt spoons and the crooked solutions his community embraces most of all
removed from the Christianity of his uncaring parents and the prejudice of the law. Growing up
Sayon found respite from the chaos of his environment in the love and loyalty of his
brother-in-arms Cuba in the example of his cousin Hakim once the most infamous drug-dealer
in their neighbourhood now a proselytising Muslim and in the tenderness of his girl Shona
whose own sense of purpose galvanises Sayon's. In return Sayon wants to give the people he
loves the world: a house atop a grand hill in the most affluent area of the city a home in
which they can forever find joy and safety. But after an altercation in which a boy is killed
Sayon finds his loyalties torn and his dream of a better life in peril. 'Consumately crafted'
Patrick McCabe 'Full of wisdom' Independent 'Luminous' Cherie Jones 'Remarkable' Nathan Harris
