Silk dresses, sparkling jewellery and finest textiles: the glamour of the 19th century French department store can make anyone's head spin. When the 20-year-old Denise Baudu comes to Paris to work at 'The Ladies' Paradise', little does she know of the corrupted values that lie beneath the layer of shining showcases. The eleventh novel in Émile Zola's 'Rougon-Macquart' cycle captures the spirit of the budding capitalism in Europe. Discover the changes in consumer culture, the bourgeois family and the construction of the modern city through the eyes of the main characters in this capturing narration.

Émile Zola (1840 – 1902) was awas an influential French novelist, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalization of France. Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.