The Playground

What do cocaine and baby formula have in common?

They’re both white, powdery substances. They both require careful production and packaging. And they both can be transported in diaper bags to their consumers.

At least, that’s how it works in The Playground.

The Playground follows Anna Reed, a loving wife, textbook mother of three, and local business owner in a quaint Philadelphia suburb. Anna also becomes the queenpin of coke after she dives over a moral line that ultimately creates a network of moms who mule cocaine in the guise of baby formula and make their transfers in diaper bags.

Though Anna’s intentions to alleviate her family’s financial crisis and help other mothers do the same make drug trafficking seem like a reasonable fix, her past catches up. Then, Anna is forced to face physical and moral dilemmas in a world she knows is wrong, but despite herself, sometimes feels right.

This debut novel is the first in a trilogy of “Secret Lives of Moms” that offers readers a relatable and poignant perspective on what it means to be a woman, a wife, and a mother in ways that maximize womanhood. Anna develops a multimillion-dollar underworld operation by leveraging the mundane about motherhood—the ever-present diaper bag, gossipy playdates and coffee klatches, and long afternoons at the playground.