Paradise City

Paradise City
Elizabeth Day

An audacious, compassionate state-of-the-nation novel about four strangers whose lives collide with far-reaching consequences.Beatrice Kizza, a woman in flight from a homeland that condemned her for daring to love, flees to London. There, she shields her sorrow from the indifference of her adopted city, and navigates a night-time world of shift-work and bedsits.Howard Pink is a self-made millionaire who has risen from Petticoat Lane to the mansions of Kensington on a tide of determination and bluster. Yet self-doubt still snaps at his heels and his life is shadowed by the terrible loss that has shaken him to his foundations.Carol Hetherington, recently widowed, is living the quiet life in Wandsworth with her cat and The Jeremy Kyle Show for company. As she tries to come to terms with the absence her husband has left on the other side of the bed, she frets over her daughter's prospects and wonders if she'll ever be happy again.Esme Reade is a young journalist learning to muck-rake and doorstep in pursuit of the elusive scoop, even as she longs to find some greater meaning and leave her imprint on the world.Four strangers, each inhabitants of the same city, where the gulf between those who have too much and those who will never have enough is impossibly vast. But when the glass that separates Howard's and Beatrice's worlds is shattered by an inexcusable act, they discover that the capital has connected them in ways they could never have imagined.

Copyright (#u718a0743-1663-5813-9828-8e6b38fbb191)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thEstate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in 2015

This eBook edition published by 4th Estate in 2017

Copyright © Elizabeth Day, 2015

Elizabeth Day asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008221751

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008221768

Version: 2018-09-26

To Emma – here’s one for the rogue

Contents

Cover (#u404232a0-3305-5b9f-ad95-ffe882b06484)

Title Page (#ub5c8e2ed-1812-5c8e-920d-3a8789819e33)

Copyright (#ub9d225bb-9141-5ee9-8875-5c944fba82c4)

Dedication (#u99502b41-64cb-5567-99cc-fce5f5878d8f)

HOWARD (#u01c9948d-2fb9-5069-92f0-0165491c0c56)

ESME (#u7017a9dc-b074-577d-903a-cda4e86c135b)

CAROL (#u701809ec-6a26-54d9-9a0d-c36411b26f4c)

BEATRICE (#u1fb9cb99-f68f-5f6c-a2d3-25f5e7b83b73)

Howard (#ub616e46d-102b-58b7-b861-d8137973c2be)

Esme (#u3fa81209-46e5-5e13-b863-acbc27530867)

Carol (#u63773531-5d84-5057-977b-b10e3170f694)

Beatrice (#u5a9f5ee4-1f3c-549e-a84a-56eb57685865)

Howard (#u49c4c2f8-8fe5-56b9-a2f2-3e0646763261)

Esme (#litres_trial_promo)

Carol (#litres_trial_promo)

Beatrice (#litres_trial_promo)

Howard (#litres_trial_promo)

Esme (#litres_trial_promo)

Carol (#litres_trial_promo)

Beatrice (#litres_trial_promo)

Howard (#litres_trial_promo)

Esme (#litres_trial_promo)

Carol (#litres_trial_promo)

Beatrice (#litres_trial_promo)

Howard (#litres_trial_promo)

Esme (#litres_trial_promo)

Carol (#litres_trial_promo)

Beatrice (#litres_trial_promo)

Howard (#litres_trial_promo)

Esme (#litres_trial_promo)

Carol (#litres_trial_promo)

Beatrice (#litres_trial_promo)