People Person
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Cyril Pennington's five adult children met as kids when their fun-loving, mostly absent father introduced them all over ice cream so that they wouldn't ever "fall in love or have sex or any of dem tings." Since then it's been touch and go (mostly go). Carty-Williams' second London-set novel follows the whole family, giving the most airtime to sensitive thirty-year-old middle child Dimple, a would-be influencer who opens the story panicking over the dead body of her (recently) ex-boyfriend and, not knowing what else to do, calls uber-competent oldest sibling Nikisha. Soon all five siblings are gathered, but to say much more would be saying too much. Even as relative strangers, Cyril's kids share something inarguably innate, which leads to consternation, closeness, and, eventually, growth. Combining relationship fiction, dark comedy, and domestic thriller, People Person is ultimately about how Cyril's absence plays out for each of his kids. As she did so shrewdly in her stellar debut, Queenie (2019), Carty-Williams also weaves astute sociocultural commentary into the Penningtons' story and their crackling, near-constant dialogue. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Queenie was such a hit, readers are primed for Carty-Williams' return.

Carty-Williams's underwhelming sophomore effort (after Queenie) follows five London siblings and half siblings who were raised by their mothers, and hardly glimpsed their father, Jamaican playboy bus driver Cyril Pennington. As adults, they've gone their separate ways, never having cause to interact, much less build meaningful relationships. That is, until protagonist Dimple Pennington, an aspiring social media influencer at 30 who lives with her mother, lands in hot water after a fight with her abusive boyfriend, Kyron, ends with him slipping and falling in their kitchen. Dimple, worried Kyron is dead and she will be accused of murder, calls her oldest sister, Nikisha, for help, and Nikisha arrives on the scene with the other three siblings--a dramatic if implausible development. A wild romp ensues as they try to hide Kyron's body. As Dimple faces a ticking clock involving a nude photo and blackmail, the plot oscillates between the quest to put the incident with Kyron behind them and the siblings' developing relationships with one another. As Cyril slips back into their lives, they begin to understand him through his own family history. The juicy premise gives way to conflicts that are solved too easily, and there are too many anticlimactic scenes. There's potential here, but's rather frustratingly not realized. Agents: Deborah Schneider and Gelfman Schneider, ICM Partners. (Sept.)

The five children of Cyril Pennington learn they have something more in common than their father's DNA. The many fans of Carty-Williams' debut, Queenie (2019), will have lots of fun with her sophomore effort, another high-spirited, socially conscious novel set in South London. Of the five Pennington offspring, only the eldest and the youngest, Nikisha and Prynce, have the same mother (Cyril stopped by to drop off a card for Nikisha's 10th birthday; Prynce was born nine months later). The second oldest is Danny, whose mother is White, then Dimple and Lizzie, only a few weeks apart in age, with Indian Jamaican and Yoruba mothers, respectively. Kudos to Carty-Williams for defining each of these many characters so clearly that you can easily keep track of who's who. Cyril would proudly claim the same, his interpretation of fatherhood entailing being "generally aware that he had five children (and possibly more, but he wasn't going to go looking), remembering their names and sometimes their birthdays, and asking them for money when times were hard." As the book opens, the kids range in age from 9 to 19, and Cyril has decided it's time for them to meet. He drives around and picks them all up in his gold Jeep, which he loves "more than anything else in his life and he [doesn't] see a problem with that"--but the meeting doesn't go all that well. Nobody smiles except him, Nikisha fat-shames Dimple, Lizzie just wants to go home and "tell her mum that Cyril had basically kidnapped her and forced her to spend time with a group of Jamaicans." They don't see each other again for 16 years, when Dimple accidentally murders her boyfriend and calls on her siblings for help. This unfolding mishap is the main narrative line around which the characters transform into a family, also coping with racism, toxic relationships, social media crises, and intergenerational trauma along the way. This way-out combination of family drama, madcap plot, and political edge ends up being quite endearing. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Cyril Pennington's five adult children met as kids when their fun-loving, mostly absent father introduced them all over ice cream so that they wouldn't ever fall in love or have sex or any of dem tings. Since then it's been touch and go (mostly go). Carty-Williams' second London-set novel follows the whole family, giving the most airtime to sensitive thirty-year-old middle child Dimple, a would-be influencer who opens the story panicking over the dead body of her (recently) ex-boyfriend and, not knowing what else to do, calls uber-competent oldest sibling Nikisha. Soon all five siblings are gathered, but to say much more would be saying too much. Even as relative strangers, Cyril's kids share something inarguably innate, which leads to consternation, closeness, and, eventually, growth. Combining relationship fiction, dark comedy, and domestic thriller, People Person is ultimately about how Cyril's absence plays out for each of his kids. As she did so shrewdly in her stellar debut, Queenie (2019), Carty-Williams also weaves astute sociocultural commentary into the Penningtons' story and their crackling, near-constant dialogue. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Queenie was such a hit, readers are primed for Carty-Williams' return. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

Carty-Williams's underwhelming sophomore effort (after Queenie) follows five London siblings and half siblings who were raised by their mothers, and hardly glimpsed their father, Jamaican playboy bus driver Cyril Pennington. As adults, they've gone their separate ways, never having cause to interact, much less build meaningful relationships. That is, until protagonist Dimple Pennington, an aspiring social media influencer at 30 who lives with her mother, lands in hot water after a fight with her abusive boyfriend, Kyron, ends with him slipping and falling in their kitchen. Dimple, worried Kyron is dead and she will be accused of murder, calls her oldest sister, Nikisha, for help, and Nikisha arrives on the scene with the other three siblings—a dramatic if implausible development. A wild romp ensues as they try to hide Kyron's body. As Dimple faces a ticking clock involving a nude photo and blackmail, the plot oscillates between the quest to put the incident with Kyron behind them and the siblings' developing relationships with one another. As Cyril slips back into their lives, they begin to understand him through his own family history. The juicy premise gives way to conflicts that are solved too easily, and there are too many anticlimactic scenes. There's potential here, but's rather frustratingly not realized. Agents: Deborah Schneider and Gelfman Schneider, ICM Partners. (Sept.)