Paradise City - Softcover

An acutely observed and insightful portrait of contemporary urban life. Audacious, funny and shrewdly telling - written with tremendous confidence and brio (William Boyd)

A wise, big-hearted novel. I was utterly caught up in Day's four interweaving lives (Esther Freud)

Combines great story-telling with finely detailed characterisation: a literary page-turner (David Baddiel)

A beautiful portrait not only of four lives but of a city - London springs vividly to life in this tender, absorbing novel. Elizabeth Day is a wonderful story-teller (Francesca Segal)

The four desperate Londoners forge life-changing connections in this ambitious novel. Day's protagonists are rounded and believable, and the big city - in all its maddening, bustling glory - is the unofficial fifth character (Glamour)

As a state-of-the-city novel, it's richer than John Lanchester's Capital and less pleased with itself than Ian McEwan's Saturday. (Evening Standard)

Elizabeth Day's third novel is her most accomplished yet . The most impressive and intriguing character by far, however, is Beatrice. Day's portrayal of her is complex and frequently surprising . Day has an admirable ability to explore uncomfortable issues (child abuse, grief and murder) without reaching for easy conclusions (Alex Peake-Tomkinson Guardian)

In a compelling and confident piece of storytelling, Elizabeth Day's third novel shows us four individuals adrift in the great crucible of London . Thoughtful, humane and wonderfully observed, this is a convincing portrait of life in our mighty metropolis (Simon Humphreys Mail on Sunday)

Day has demonstrable empathy for the outsider in all of us . She has a sharp, satirical eye and, as a journalist, she is particularly delicious on the grubbier workings of the newspaper industry (Claire Allfree Daily Mail)

The author's design aligns these disparate characters in a system of partial mirrorings. This is interesting and thought-provoking, undermining the reader's expectation of nemesis for the perpetrator . Paradise City is a moral fable, concerned with issues of guilt, contrition and atonement (Stevie Davies Independent)