The Playground

Big Little Lies meets Lord of The Flies in this electrifyingly twisty follow-up to Jane ShemiltΓÇÖs breakout debut The Daughter. Over the course of a long,hot summer in Londonthe lives of three very different married couples collide when their children join the same tutoring circleresulting in illicit relationshipsshocking violenceand unimaginable fallout. ThereΓÇÖs Evea bougie earth mother with a well-stocked trust fund; she has three little onesa blue-collar husband and is obsessed with her Instagrammable recipes and lifestyle. And Melissaa 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 thereΓÇÖs Gracea young Zimbabwean immigrantwho lives in high-rise housing project with her two children and their English father Martinan award-winning but chronically broke novelist; she does far more for her family than she should have to. As the weeks go bythe couples become very close; there are barbecuesgarden partiesa holiday at a country villa in Greece. Resentments flare. An affair begins. Unnoticedthe children run wild. The couples are busily watching each otherso 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. ItΓÇÖs 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?