People Person by Candice Carty-Williams
Imagine your wayward, largely absent father showing up one fine day offering to take you and your younger brother for ice cream. Along the way, you stop at various unknown houses to collect three complete strangers, all just a few years younger than yourself. These strangers are your half siblings, and your father wants to make sure you are familiar enough with one another that you don’t accidentally hook up, now that you’re all around ‘courtin’ age’. These strangers quickly learn the only thing they have in common besides their father is the fact that all their mothers have been greatly disappointed by the same man.
Nikisha, her brother and her half siblings walk away from one another and the father they share (a charming, carefree man named Cyril Pennington) that day, believing that’s the end of the story, with no need to stay in touch or see each other again. That is until Dimple, an aspiring social media influencer with a terrible boyfriend, brings them all together one fateful evening to help her solve a rather large, life-changing and difficult problem.
What follows is a tender, heartfelt portrait of a family struggling to cooperate with one another in the strangest of circumstances. People Person is a light, darkly funny, and highly entertaining read, with cracking dialogue and a cast of fully formed, beautifully rendered characters. Full of the same wise observations and social commentary as Carty-Williams’first novel, Queenie, People Person is an immersive, joyful and deeply satisfying read. I believe Sara Collins summed it up best: ‘Cyril Pennington is a character for the ages, but this story truly belongs to the children he never managed to parent. I loved it.’ Candice Carty-Williams is indeed a talent to greatly admire. I cannot wait to see what she does next.