Solid thriller that had a few slower parts. Not bad overall but it did slow the pace of the story down significantly.

When Lenore’s 18 month old daughter is hit by a car outside of her nursery, everyone is pointing the finger. Who is at fault for this accident? Everyone wants to blame Lenore, but there’s lots of secrets being hidden in this one!

This book started out a tad slow for me but halfway through it really picked up! Lots of secrets being hidden, lots of gaslighting going on here!! What would we do to keep our secrets from being exposed??

Thank you to @leahmercerauthor, @netgalley and @bookouture for allowing me to read and review this title.
I really enjoyed the story of Lenore and Florence and all the staff of the Nest daycare nursery. As a mother it was heartbreaking to read but loved the twists and turns and uncovering everyone’s secrets as I read on. Highly recommend.
The Playgroup is out on 21st March. Preorder on Amazon now!

Set in an idyllic village where everyone knows everything, and each of the characters are hiding potentially devastating secrets. Lenore has come here to spend some time bonding with her daughter following the trial of post-partum depression. She is feeling strong and healthy and has secured a position at The Nest, a co-op nursery. When tragedy occurs, it will test the women in ways they would never expect. A tense and very readable domestic thriller which will keep you gripped from the Prologue through to the very end!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!

The description of this book will make you want to delve straight in. It is a very good story and it really captures your attention and makes you want to keep reading. Great characters. Pace is good. Overall not a bad read.

I was really excited about this book and couldn’t wait to get started. I have to say I was really disappointed. Although the characters where relatable, I found the story a bit far fetched and did not finish it stopping at about 30%

A really gripping read, I thought the characters were intriguing and I'm going to look out for more by this author.

I wanted to like this book, but the more I read the more I disliked every character. The plot, based upon lies and gaslighting, was far-fetched at times. However, there was enough "What'll happen next?" thoughts to keep the pages turning.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for my copy.

This is exactly what I want from a thriller. Engaging, pacey and ties up neatly at the end.
I'm always annoyed that people are so awful and dishonest in these books, but I suppose real people are actually like that so I can't hold that against the author.

Happy to ready more by Mercer in the future.

gosh! this book was full of twists and turns of a family that isn't as it seems.
It centres around the accident of the couples daughter and is interwoven with 3 so called friends.
I enjoyed it and recommend.

I’d like to thank Bookouture and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Playgroup’ written by Leah Mercer in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Lenore wants to prove to her husband James that her mental health issues are in the past so takes their eighteen-month-old daughter Florence to live temporarily in Mappleston. Alice Culver runs the Nest Nursery as a co-operative with other mums and offers Lenore a teaching position alongside Georgie and Beth. Disaster strikes when Florence runs out of Nest and into the road where she’s hit by a car, and as Florence fights for her life Lenore struggles to remember what or who caused her little girl to leave the nursery.

‘The Playgroup’ is an intricately woven story of three women working at the Nest who have secrets they can’t risk sharing. Leah Mercer has given us a perfect mix of mystery, suspense, lies and secrets together with twists and turns as the truth behind the accident is revealed and the secrets come to light. It deals with topics such as mental health issues and drug addiction in a sensitive and mindful manner, but what I thought sad was that all the time the characters of Alice, Georgie and Beth have worked together not one of them knows enough about her colleagues to actually be friends. This is the sixth novel I’ve read by this very talented author, all of them deserving of the highest praise, and this latest one is no different. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and couldn’t stop turning pages finishing it in less than a day, and have no hesitation in recommending it.

There are a lot of twists to this book and although I found it a good read I also noticed a few holes in the plot, hence only the three stars.

A short and sweet thriller. Perfect. Our girl is leaving her husband and London to bond with her daughter after a terrible experience with Postpartum Depression. For whatever reason her husband lets her. She gets a job at a nursery so she can have her daughter there for free and rents a cute little place.
Meanwhile her husband is just chilling in London.
Then one day she leaves the surgery to register at the surgeries and her daughters gets loose from her teachers there and is hit by a car. The nursery wants to avoid a scandal so they decide she must have been picking her daughter up and her daughter got away from her.
And now suddenly her husband is back just to blame her.
He is a real gem.
Lenore really should have lawyered up immediately but that would be a boring book. This was good. I enjoyed the different perspectives.

In the shadowy confines of "The Playgroup," Leah Mercer weaves a tale that ensnares the heart and ensnares the mind. This psychological thriller is not just a book—it's a journey into the labyrinth of the human psyche, where mental health is the minotaur lurking in the dark corners of societal stigma.

Mercer masterfully portrays a mother's harrowing odyssey through postpartum depression, a tempest that threatens to engulf her very soul. The story erupts with an incident that sears the pages—a child, Florence, teetering on the brink of the abyss, and her mother, ensnared in a web of guilt and doubt, facing the specter of blame for the calamity.

As the narrative unfurls, it lays bare the cruel reality that those grappling with mental health challenges are often cast as scapegoats, their suffering compounded by a world that turns a blind eye, leaving them adrift in an ocean of isolation. The protagonist's plight is a stark beacon, illuminating the urgent need for empathy and understanding for those in the throes of mental anguish.

Yet, amidst the novel's rich tapestry of psychological exploration, I still find the denouement lacking the same complexity that Mercer so deftly spins throughout. The antagonist emerges as a cliché, a one-dimensional figure that dims the novel's brilliance, leaving me yearning for a finale that delivers a more thought-provoking and unexpected twist.

Despite this, "The Playgroup" remains an unputdownable force, a clarion call to shatter the chains of prejudice that bind the discourse on mental health.

My sincere gratitude to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to review a pre-publication copy of the book and offer my honest evaluation.

The Playgroup is a fast-paced thriller that kept me wanting to keep reading because I didn't trust anyone in the book. The 3 main characters, Beth, Alice, and Georgie, all have secrets that they didn't want anyone to know. The ending seemed too much with the husband being involved. I felt like it could have been left out, and the book would have been fine. I enjoyed reading about the real-life topics that were talked about in the book. Like postpartum depression, drug abuse, and lies.

Wow!
This is the first book I’ve read by Leah Mercer. However, it definitely won’t be the last. This book was full of twists and turns!

When Lenore and her baby daughter Florence move to a small town to start a healing journey, her daughter is involved in a bad accident. Loyalties are called into questions when the stories told don’t match up with Lenore’s memories of the events.

Can her memory be trusted? Or are her “friends” out to get her?

I want to like this book and I am sticking with it for now but to be honest I'm finding it hard work.

None of the main characters are particularly likeable and the plot seems a bit cliched so far.

I'm currently at 57% and have taken to skim reading as I just want the story to move on...

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and I hope to be able to revise my rating...so far it's a 2.5 as I'm just about hanging on there...

A bright, welcoming haven, the playgroup sits at the heart of the town, tucked away inside a red brick building. The Nest should have been the safest place for my rosy-cheeked pink-obsessed daughter, Florence. Run by mothers by like me, I trusted my newfound friends - Alice, Beth and Georgie - to take care of my child. But now my choice has left Florence fighting for her life. My heart pounds thinking what I will tell my husband James. He stayed with me through the darkest times, and I thought some space would bring us closer. How can I tell James what really happened if I don't know myself?

This is a suspenseful and fast-paced read about four women who have to juggle work with family life in a village where everyone knows everyone. Lenore, Alice, Beth and Georgie, work at The Nest, a nursery school. There are a lot of secrets hidden in this story that are just waiting to be revealed. The shock of the incident was so fierce that Lenore was struggling to remember what had happened. It soon becomes apparent that everyone has something to hide. The ending was a little bit surprising.

Published 21st March

I would like to thank #NetGalley #Bookouture and the author #ThePlaygroup in exchange for an honest review.

Read and reviewed in exchange for a free copy from NetGalley. This was a gripping read which was very enjoyable. The plot was interesting and the characters well-written, albeit deeply frustrating at times.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for a review.

I really wanted to love this book. I read a lot in this genre, so I'm familiar with the cliches and tropes, and unfortunately, this book had too many of them. A lot of the twists and turns, especially toward the end, were over the top and unrealistic. Not to mention that just about every character was unlikeable.

Overall, I'm not a fan, but I may give another of the author's books a try.