BLOG TOUR: The Playground by Jane Shemilt @janeshemilt @TLCbooktours @WmMorrowBooks #theplayground #bookreview

Oh what a tangled web of secrets are woven among three couples brought together by their kids, but held together by their actions… Until something shocking occurs… This is quite a book! A character-driven novel of suspense that will suck you right in!

About the Book

Big Little Lies meets Lord of The Flies in this electrifyingly twisty follow-up to Jane Shemilt’s breakout debut The Daughter.

Over the course of a long, hot summer in London, the lives of three very different married couples collide when their children join the same tutoring circle, resulting in illicit relationships, shocking violence, and unimaginable fallout.

There’s Eve, a bougie earth mother with a well-stocked trust fund; she has three little ones, a blue-collar husband and is obsessed with her Instagrammable recipes and lifestyle. And Melissa, a successful interior designer whose casually cruel banker husband is careful not to leave visible bruises; she curates her perfectly thin body so closely she misses everything their teenage daughter is hiding. Then there’s Grace, a young Zimbabwean immigrant, who lives in high-rise housing project with her two children and their English father Martin, an award-winning but chronically broke novelist; she does far more for her family than she should have to.

As the weeks go by, the couples become very close; there are barbecues, garden parties, a holiday at a country villa in Greece. Resentments flare. An affair begins. Unnoticed, the children run wild. The couples are busily watching each other, so distracted and self-absorbed that they forget to watch their children. No one sees the five children at their secret games or realize how much their family dynamics are changing until tragedy strikes.

The story twists and then twists again while the three families desperately search for answers. It’s only as they begin to unravel the truth of what happened over the summer that they realize evil has crept quietly into their world.

But has this knowledge come too late?

Reflection

I loved the title for this book, The Playground, because it is the sort of metaphor that worked on many levels. And no, it isn’t a physical playground the way you would think of it. But what sort of playground games do you think might arise in a book about three couples and their secrets and deception? What do kids get up to when left to their own devices? Who becomes the alpha?

Eve is a wealthy stay at home mom to three children (though I wouldn’t say she is very attentive to her kids). They are left to roam the outdoors while she begins tutoring children with dyslexia at her sprawling estate. Grace sends her eleven year-old son for tutoring, and her daughter comes along as well. Of course, as Grace is the employed parent, her husband takes care of the drop-offs at Eve’s home, leaving plenty of space for her husband and Eve to get to know one another… Melissa is an interior designer who also brings her daughter for tutoring at Eve’s and is thrilled to learn her daughter is becoming friends with the other girls. Afterall, her daughter has always been a bit shy.

As the summer progresses, the couples become friends. And that is truly when things begin to unravel. These were not the most attentive parents! They are wrapped up in their friendships and secrets, and the kids are left to their own devices. (Latchkey kids, they used to call them) The alcohol flows, vacations are taken, dinners are had, and eventually an illicit relationship forms. Meanwhile, the kids have their own secrets…

This is one of those grab-your-popcorn novels, because it is a look into the salacious secrets that hide behind closed doors. The characters were complex and the events of the novel were shocking and engaging. I wanted to know where it was headed, and I could see an inevitable crash of some kind on the horizon. This is tautly wound novel filled with tension that had me on the edge of my seat!

A twisted domestic suspense novel that you won’t want to miss!

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

About the Author

While working full time as a physician, Jane Shemilt received an M.A. in creative writing. She was shortlisted for the Janklow and Nesbit award and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize for The Daughter, her first novel. She and her husband, a professor of neurosurgery, have five children and live in Bristol, England.

Follow Jane on Twitter and Instagram.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for my spot on the tour. Opinions are my own.