Tricia Wastvedt, for her kind advice and wisdom, as always.

My husband, Steve, and our children, Martha, Mary, Henry, Tommy, and Johny, for everything.

About the Author

While working as a general practitioner, JANE SHEMILT completed a postgraduate diploma in creative writing at Bristol University and went on to earn a master’s in creative writing at Bath Spa, gaining both with distinction. Her first novel, The Daughter, was selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club, was shortlisted for the Edgar Award and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and went on to become the bestselling debut novel of 2014. Jane and her husband, a professor of neurosurgery, have five children and live in Bristol.

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Also by Jane Shemilt

The Daughter

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE PLAYGROUND. Copyright © 2019 by Jane Shemilt. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Cover photograph © Jim Green/Getty Images

FIRST EDITION

Digital Edition DECEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-293943-2

Version 11132019

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-293942-5 (paperback)

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-295217-2 (hardcover library edition)

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