First published 2018
Alex watches his friend Andrew orbit around Barbara, the woman who has captivated them both. Barbara moves through their lives like someone from another world, beautiful and distant. The three friends circle each other in London, each nursing private wants they cannot name. Alex wants Barbara but cannot say so. Andrew pursues her openly but fumbles every approach. Barbara seems to want something else entirely, perhaps the very paradise that gives the novel its title. Their conversations dance around the truth. Coffee dates become small tortures. Dinner parties turn into battlegrounds of unspoken desire. Each claims to seek happiness, but their actions suggest they prefer the safety of longing to the risk of having. St John captures how people can live so close to what they want yet never reach for it. The three friends remain locked in their triangle, unable to break free from patterns that keep paradise always one step away.
Genres: fiction, romance, literary-fiction, contemporary-romance
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: friends-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London
Period: 20th-century
196 pages · Kindle Edition · Text