THE PLAYGROUP

Manhattan mommies, in and out of bed.

Debut novelist Spencer’s ultra-trendy heroine is former standup comic Ellie. She has two incredibly cute children with fashionable Upper West Side names, Ahnika and baby Angus, plus her adoring, successful, perpetually horny husband Peter, who’s a master of oral sex technique and only too happy to demonstrate whenever she’s in the mood. (He also gives foot rubs.) Best of all, she’s so toned and taut after two pregnancies that she can even flaunt her bellybutton ring. Since no New York novel about contemporary women is complete without a severe eating disorder, however, it’s breathlessly revealed that Ellie used to be bulimic (details and symptoms included) but 12-stepped her way to nutritional correctness, thanks to a model pal. And she’s soon to be tapped to help create a no-holds-barred HBO show on motherhood, because it’s, like, so hot and so right now! How much better can her life get? Enter the snake: Missy Hanover, an expensively blond Fifth Avenue mom who befriends the naïve Ellie. Should she have known something was up when Missy offered to share her lipstick? Such an intimate gesture, Peter points out, adding that maybe Missy secretly wants to kiss her, fantasizing about a threesome (never mind Missy’s ultra-suave husband Antonio). A few weeks go by, and Missy becomes openly seductive, though Ellie is still skittish. A few whiffs of super-potent pot and they’re going at it. Is that the same as being unfaithful? Ellie wonders. Is she a lesbian or just fooling around? More pot, more trysts, more second-guessing. Peter is furious when he figures it out, Ellie is regretful but more or less blames it all on her mother, a former alcoholic . . . and then Missy does something completely unexpected.

Takes up where The Nanny Diaries left off, but it’s nowhere near as funny.