The Playground: A Novel

by Jane Shemilt Narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden

Overview

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?

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Elizabeth Knowelden perfectly portrays three well-to-do families who are brought together by their children’s study group. The dissection of these flawed, very different married couples during a hot summer in London is fulfilled by Knowelden’s knowing tone and deft handling of characters with a variety of accents and ages. Stressors strain the adults’ relationships as the children create secret games that end with Knowelden’s heartbreaking description of devastating violence and an unthinkable outcome. Self-involved adults recognize too late the results of their egotism as the families uncover one secret after another. A tone of desperation seeps into Knowelden’s performance as the damage done to everyone involved over the summer is revealed. R.O. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Lucy Foley

BRILLIANT, and frighteningly credible, partly because the characters are so beautifully realized. Exquisitely written, utterly gripping and almost unbearably tense—you'll be thinking about it long after you read the final page.

Gilly Macmillan

"Beautifully written and suffused with dread. Jane Shemilt's domestic settings are seductively vivid, and the final outcome is profoundly shocking and terrifying." 

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Elizabeth Knowelden perfectly portrays three well-to-do families who are brought together by their children’s study group. The dissection of these flawed, very different married couples during a hot summer in London is fulfilled by Knowelden’s knowing tone and deft handling of characters with a variety of accents and ages. Stressors strain the adults’ relationships as the children create secret games that end with Knowelden’s heartbreaking description of devastating violence and an unthinkable outcome. Self-involved adults recognize too late the results of their egotism as the families uncover one secret after another. A tone of desperation seeps into Knowelden’s performance as the damage done to everyone involved over the summer is revealed. R.O. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170125463
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/30/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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