Children Of Paradise Camilla Grudova by Camilla Grudova 9781838956332, 1838956336 instant download after payment.

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023

‘Festers in glorious style’ — Telegraph

‘Magnificently spiky’ — Guardian

‘Utterly enthralling’ — Times Literary Supplement

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When Holly applies for a job at the Paradise - one of the city's oldest cinemas, squashed into the ground floor of a block of flats - she thinks it will be like any other shift work. She cleans toilets, sweeps popcorn, avoids the belligerent old owner, Iris, & is ignored by her aloof but tight-knit colleagues who seem as much a part of the building as its fraying carpets & endless dirt. Dreadful, lonely weeks pass while she longs for their approval, a silent voyeur. So when she finally gains the trust of this cryptic band of oddballs, Holly transforms from silent drudge to rebellious insider & gradually she too becomes part of the Paradise - unearthing its secrets, learning its history & haunting its corridors after hours with the other ushers. It is no surprise when violence strikes, tempers change & the group, eyes still affixed to the screen, starts to rapidly go awry...

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Camilla Grudova lives in Edinburgh where she works as an usherette. She holds a degree in Art History & German from McGill University, Montreal. Her fiction has appeared in The White Review & Granta. Her critically acclaimed debut collection, The Doll's Alphabet, was published in 2017. The Coiled Serpent is her first novel.