Pip Granger - Trouble in Paradise

rouble in Paradise (2004) is set in 1945. It opens on VE day in Hackney and ends three months later with a birth in Soho. The narrator is Madame Zelda, at this time the 23-year-old Mrs Enid Zelda Fluck, dreading the return of her abusive husband, Charlie, from the army.

She finds some refuge and solace in the family tenement in Paradise Gardens, where her feisty Gran and Mum run a household ostensibly ruled by her querulous but queasy Victorian relic of a father, and where Zinnia Makepeace, the local midwife, wise woman and layer-out, lives in a rambling old house surrounded by a magical garden. To add to Zelda’s woes, she has a disagreeable new boss, her best friend’s mooning after an elusive GI and, worst of all, her nephew Tony is running with a bad crowd, notably Brian Hole, the one-boy crime wave and only child of the local Fagin and black marketeer, Ma Hole.

Zelda finds a way out for Tony that leads her to Soho and the solution to a great many more of her problems. As well as Zelda’s sprawling family and the malevolent Holes, the book also introduces Ronnie Rigby, a Polari-speaking sea queen with a good eye for fabrics; the larger-than-life singing tutor and dandy Digby Burlap; the comb-over Lothario Percy Robinson; Maltese Joe’s handsome henchman, Frankie: and Zelda’s pal, Dilly Gunn.

Reviews of 'Trouble in Paradise'

Next book in series: No Peace for the Wicked

Review of 'Trouble in Paradise'

‘I was hooked by the first few paragraphs.’ Best

‘This latest work from Pip Granger is, like her previous stories, a delicious read.’ Anglian Evergreen

‘Trouble in Paradise is a light-hearted and witty saga set in the East End of London. Cheeky characters abound and although there are troubles and hardships Pip Granger never allows doom and gloom to dominate the plot. A charming novel, the prequel to the award winning Not All Tarts Are Apple.’ The Historical Novels Reviews

‘She brings the East End to life’ Barbara Windsor

‘Heart-warming East End story, brimming with lively characters and the issues and problems affecting a London community in 1945.’ Peterborough Evening Telegraph

‘Writing from the heart, Granger is unique in popular fiction in that she is able to tie in a fictional family saga with the big social changes going on in post war London. It’s also a great Tube read, that takes you on a nostalgic journey back to a lost cockney paradise that never was.’ What’s On in London

‘Highly evocative of a time, a place, a people, and a changing way of life in London at the end of World War II, this is a satisfying, compelling novel.’ Booklist

Next book in series: No Peace for the Wicked