29 Locks

“29 Locks is an amazing book with a powerful narrative, a distinctive voice and compelling characters – the kind that sticks with you for a lifetime after you have finished it. It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will also make you really want to get on a boat. Garrard’s writing helps readers to see and understand each other’s life experiences, as well as encouraging young people to learn how to live life on their own terms.” – Rachel, 22

By Nicola Garrard

HopeRoad

Growing up in Hackney with his loving but troubled single mum, fifteen-year-old Donny’s life has been shaped by poverty, crime and casual violence, including grooming by a local gang. When his mum is jailed for drugs offences, Donny is fostered outside London to the Hertfordshire countryside. Life in the rural Home Counties is a bit like landing on another planet but doing work experience on the Hertford Union Canal, Donny feels like he’s finally found his purpose.

When Donny’s posh new friend Zoe is offered a dubious modelling audition in London, the pair decide to ‘borrow’ a canal barge and navigate the 29 locks down to Kings Cross. As they start out on their journey the future looks as unpromising as Zoe’s fake audition. But as each lock is navigated and conquered, their adventures take on a new dimension, and life will never be the same again.

Fast-paced, tragic and tender, 29 Locks is an unflinching depiction of urban teen life.

 

About the Author

Nicola Garrard is a YA/crossover author, teacher, literary festival programmer at BookFest YA and First Story Writer in Residence. Her debut novel, 29 Locks (HopeRoad, 2021), was shortlisted in the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition and longlisted in the Branford Boase Award, and was followed by a critically acclaimed sequel, 21 Miles (HopeRoad, 2023). Her latest novel, On the Edge (Old Barn Books, 2025) was nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Writing and selected for the EmpathyLab’s Read for Empathy Collection 2026. It tackles youth, class and radical protest against the backdrop of the coastal-rural housing crisis. Her fiction is driven by a commitment to social justice, youth empowerment and giving voice to the unheard.

 

“I’m honoured and delighted that 29 Locks has been chosen by young people for young people to be a Nottingham City of Literature’s Big City Reads title. I wrote 29 Locks hoping to spark conversations about identity, smash stereotypes and build empathy. I can’t wait to come to Nottingham, meet the youth selection panel and young readers, and hear what you think!”

    – Nicola Garrard, author of 29 Locks

 

To find out more about Big City Reads, click here.



Big City Reads 2026

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