Reviewed by Ro
TITLE: Playground Games
AUTHOR: Lily Morton
NARRATOR: Joel Leslie
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 2 hours 46 minutes
RELEASE DATE: February 3, 2026
BLURB: School trips are hell on the teachers.
Auguste Patterson’s happy place on a winter holiday would involve a seat by a fire, a good book, and alcohol. Which is why he’s horrified when the headmaster at the primary school where he teaches demands he accompany a group of young students to France on a skiing trip. Gus believes snow should always be viewed from inside a warm building and never encountered while flailing on skis.
The holiday’s single perk is also the one reason Gus has for liking sports—the school’s PE teacher, Doug Henshaw. Doug is Gus’s secret crush, and sharing a room at the ski chalet with him almost makes managing forty school children bearable. But Gus doesn’t stand a chance with Doug. A handsome, funny ex-professional football player would never fall for a hopelessly unathletic language teacher. Would he?
REVIEW:
One of the things I love about Lily’s books is getting to revisit characters from other books. This one does not disappoint. This is Doug’s story, who was instrumental in getting Charlie and Mischa together in Charlie Sunshine (one of my favorite scenes of that book). We see Charlie again here, the beautiful, sunny man who volunteers at the library at the private school where Doug teaches. Auguste, Gus, is the “…French teaching twink…” that Doug is enamored with but assumes would not be interested. They are different. Doug is over 30, teaches sports, is a former football player with a wrecked knee, and only goes to the theater to “…have a kip when the lights go off…”. Gus is 25, fabulous, bilingual, enjoys the theater, hates sports, and is just as enamored with Doug. The two are just oblivious.
When another teacher who was supposed to go on a school ski trip has a mishap, Gus is roped into going. The only bright spot is that Doug is going as well. They have the banter that I love in Lily’s stories. Joel Leslie narrates, and he gives Gus the French accent he deserves. As a teacher, some of the scenes here (omg, Conor and his puke) are all too real, and they made me grimace and smile at the same time.
I loved how Gus talks about his mom, who photocopied parts of his journal. Made me laugh, and squirm in second-hand embarrassment.
But I would give this 5 stars just for the courting. The diamonds. Gus’s long-ago teacher laughed, “That boy’s got game.” It’s just a short, sweet story. At nearly 3 hours, it was a quick appetizer to a longer story, and it made me happy.
RATING: 
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