In Sweet Pea Kit de Waal has created several of the most endearing characters in recent fiction. Most notably is protagonist Paulette. Paulette (you can call me Sweet Pea) has lifted herself from poverty through education and employment as an auxillary nurse while maintaining her cultural identity as an emigree to the UK from St. Kitts. She loves hard, but loves the wrong men–deceitful, selfish, unavailable. Because of this, she cannot love the decent man who loves her. The one thing she gets from him is Bird (Curtis) her son and light of her life.

While the novel rolls along through Paulette’s life, readers are treated to a character that is constantly conflicted by her charitable and compassionate acts toward others along with unforgiveness and judgment toward the same ones. Most of all, she is harsh and critical of herself, while imagining a fairytale life in the next throught. She is lovably flawed in the best ways.

If you read the publisher’s description of Sweet Pea, you know the set-up. What you learn as the pages turn is how the devasting affects of Paulette’s conflicting nature threaten to destroy the one relationship that she holds most dear, while preserving the relationships she never wanted to begin with. Paulette eventually finds peace in her place, with her people, and with the past–not predictably, but with outcomes that fit each character’s arc throughout the novel. Highly recommended for those who enjoy multicultural fiction with memorably characters and a strong sense of place.