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Better Must Come

By: Desmond Hall

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Paperback | 24 June 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
352 Pages

Age
14 - 99

Grade
9+

Dimensions(cm)
20.96 x 13.97 x 2.54

Paperback

$29.75

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Barely Missing Everything meets American Street in this “well-plotted, taut page-turner” (Booklist, starred review) that looks at the darker side of light-filled Jamaica and how a tragedy and missing drug money helplessly entangle the lives of two teens who want to change their fate.

Deja is a “barrel girl”—one of the Jamaican kids who get barrels full of clothes, food, and treats shipped to them from parents who have moved to the US or Canada to make more money. Gabriel is caught up in a gang and desperate for a way out. When he meets Deja at a party, he starts looking for a way into her life and wonders if they could be a part of each other’s futures.

Then, one day while out fishing, Deja spies a go-fast boat stalled out by some rocks, smeared with blood. Inside, a badly wounded man thrusts a knapsack at her, begging her to deliver it to his original destination, and to not say a word. She binds his wounds, determined to send for help and make good on her promise…not realizing that the bag is stuffed with $500,000 American. Not realizing that the posse Gabriel is in will stop at nothing to get their hands on this bag—or that Gabriel’s and her lives will intersect in ways neither ever imagined, as they both are forced to make split-second choices to keep the ones they love most alive.

Industry Reviews

Intimate and lyrical, Better Must Come animates the razor-thin margin between hope and despair that Jamaica’s young sufferers reside on, and it does it with the vibrancy of your favorite dance hall riddim.”

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