Candice Carty-Williams is looking at me with sympathy. The conversation is about astrology and Carty-Williams,  a Cancer (“very, very sensitive”), has just heard I have a Leo sun and Cancer rising in my chart. “So there’s a battle between fire and water,” she says thoughtfully. “Poor you.” Analysing others is something the 29-year-old excels at.

Her debut novel, Queenie, lends a knowing voice to one young woman’s self-destruction. It’s also this year’s most talked-about literary debut. Carty-Williams signed a six-figure deal for the book after a bidding war by four publishers. She was discovered when she was chosen from 600 applicants by Jojo Moyes to spend a week writing in Moyes’ cottage. “In 500 words I knew she could write,” Moyes told The Bookseller.

Queenie is expected to be as big as Bridget Jones’s Diary, which has sold more than 15 million copies, but it is rooted firmly in the modern day. There’s therapy, group chats, friends playing psychiatrists. The story follows 25-year-old Queenie, an assistant at the newspaper The Daily Read, who’s desperate to be a force for good and flailing. She pitches stories about #BlackLivesMatter, only to be asked to produce a gallery of the best black dresses at award shows. When she goes on a break with long-term boyfriend Tom, things begin to unravel. She sleeps around, isolates herself and makes career-jeopardising decisions.

Candice Carty Williams explains why Queenie will never be a “black Bridget Jones”