“Paradise” by Judith McNaught is one of her best romantic and realistic novels. It depicts far most of all emotions we
go thought the journey called life. Love, Hate, Anger, Envy, Passion,
Desire, Trust, Courage are presented connectively, creating an breakable interest for its readers.
The story is about two young individuals who belong to extremely different lifestyle and living standards yet connecting so well to each other. Matthew Farrell, a magnetic, forbidden and ambitious steel worker falls in love with Meredith Bancroft, a charming heiress having huge retail business to inherit after her father as being the only child. Meredith, after being brought up under strict rules of her father, broke into Matt’s arms one night when she was 18. That was the first time she experience pleasure of love making. Who knew that one night would bring about such major change in their lives.
That was the first and last meeting till Meredith and Matt found out about the pregnancy, so they decided to give a name to their passionate
relationship. However, Meredith’s father was completely against the marriage, judging Matt over his current status. He succeeded in the scheme he planned to pull them far apart from each other by conveying false messages to the happily married couple when they went through miscarriage. This was the time when Matt had moved to South America for building his career. This distance in locality ended up creating major distance among them ending up at divorce.
However this was not the end of the story, they met again, after 11 years of hatred that developed within them for each other; they meet again in a business gathering. At this time both were famous and successful in their careers. Meredith at this point in time was engaged to her high school sweetheart Parker, a banker, whereas Matt, after being out with so many females, just couldn’t find a suitable match.
They say time is often the best enemy or the best friend; it turned out the later for them. They fell in love again. Besides the deep rooted desire for revenge, Matt once had, he again could not keep himself away from the beautiful lady Meredith, once his wife.
It was not too long when they both found out that the divorce never took place. The lawyer her father hired was a fraud, so legally they were still married. This was one o the instances which brought them closer again despite how much they resisted. Then the jealousy factor took over when Parker felt insecurity towards loosing Meredith to Matt. Matt, being an arrogant, unreachable character that many females admired, just couldn’t find any lady as attractive as his wife. His search was always for the same lovely lady in every woman he ever dated. Gladly he found out the truth about the miscarriage and the game plan her father plotted for them and since then was drawn more towards her.
Finally, love took over, the couple still married got drawn closer and closer. They realized that the 11 years of their lives have been so incomplete without each other. All the past depression wiped away and they decided to have a family together once again. Meredith once more got pregnant with Matt’s baby, this time having him love and care for her more then before. She became the sole owner of the Bancroft Empire and Matt continued with his set of businesses.
This is a well constructed love story, plotted to retain interest of its readers. It’s a very beautiful novel worth reading over and over. The writer has well understood the mix of various scenarios that may take place in one’s life, if not tackled properly, making a loving couple fall apart based on mistrust or misunderstanding.