People Person

Critics Review

• Wonderful. People Person is about 5 half-siblings (1 dad, 4 mothers) who, in response to a crisis, meet as adults and start shaping themselves into a family. It’s a warm novel, funny and full of emotional intelligence. The tone is light-hearted, even comic at times, but underneath there’s an undertow, a steady drumbeat reminding us of all the microaggressions black people experience on a daily basis – and that white people are mostly oblivious of. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

  Marian Keyes

• People Person is a triumph. I was so moved by this tender, often humorous, portrait of these five siblings, their burgeoning relationships and all their complexities. I loved every one of these beautifully rendered characters and I’m sure the world will too. I couldn’t put it down.

  Caleb Azumah Nelson

• People Person is fresh, funny and tender – Candice is the voice British fiction needs.

  Pandora Sykes

• People Person is a portrait of a family that is as poignant as it is hilarious. It had me belly-laughing, then picking up my jaw from the floor, then nodding in delighted agreement. Candice is a writer who is not only revealing modern Britain with each of her novels; she is defining it. Cyril Pennington is a character for the ages, but this story truly belongs to the children he never managed to parent. I loved it.

  Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton

• I loved People Person. Candice is so gifted at pulling you in as a writer. The storyline is hugely arresting and I was gripped immediately. Candice is remarkably perceptive in the way she writes people; her characters that are so well drawn, and so believable. When I wasn’t reading People Person I was thinking about it and I had to finish it at the earliest opportunity.

  Annie MacManus, author of Mother, Mother

• People Person is more than just the title of this phenomenal second novel. It’s a statement of intent. It’s a declaration that when Candice Carty-Williams writes she captures the hearts and minds of readers everywhere.

  Melissa Cummings-Quarry, Black Girls Book Club

• The Pennington’s are a large, messy family and I got to know each member intimately. This is an expertly crafted novel about family secrets that kept me on my toes from start to finish.

  Liv Little

• A dark comedy full of zinging dialogue and all the consolations and complications of family. A treat.

  Jesse Armstrong

• As warm and infectious, as familiar and true as Queenie. A funny and touching study of sibling relationships.

  Diana Evans

• It’s a funny, heartwarming story of inheritance, kinship and influencer culture, told through one dysfunctional south London family, and as with Queenie, a maddening but loveable protagonist. Candice puts in print the word on the street; her eye is on a thriving Afro-Caribbean social and lyrical tradition.

  Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk

• People Person is a fresh blend of brilliant wit, delicious drama, and all the ways family ties can be strained and strengthened. I fell head over heels for the Penningtons, quirks, flaws, and all.

  Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of The Other Black Girl

• People Person makes explicit the extremity of inheritance. It’s a funny, vibrant exploration of the failures that happen among family and it asks difficult questions about healing and what we owe blood.

  Raven Leilani, author of Luster

• Carty-Williams has written another big-hearted blockbuster that will make her many fans smile and ache. She paints a vivid picture of the pressures on young people in modern Britain and a poignant one of how a vulnerable outsider can, with the right network, find a sense of belonging and self-acceptance.

  DAILY TELEGRAPH

• Where Candice reigns is in writing humorous speech… poignant.

  OBSERVER

• Funny, tender, poignant…everything you’d expect from Carty-Williams

  EVENING STANDARD

• Delivering a great second novel after a stellar debut is a big ask, but Queenie author Carty-Williams has done just that.

  HEAT, Book of the Week

• Carty-Williams’s prose is snappy and propulsive, full of busy, telegenic set-pieces

  GUARDIAN