Book Review: Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

Pages: 336

Genre: Adult Fiction/Horror

Pub. Date: September 9, 2025

Publisher: Penguin

Source: Personal Copy

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

 

Goodreads says, "A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house.

Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parent’s messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation."

 

 

Clio Barnes is a fashion social media influencer who is estranged from her mother. After her mother's death, she leaves the house to Clio and her sisters, Leda and Daphne. Leda and Daphne want nothing to do with the house, but Clio decides she could renovate it and flip it - it would be great content for her social media! Her mother has always insisted the house is haunted and even wrote a book about it, so things are a little more complicated than the usual renovation. While at the house, Clio finds an annotated copy of her mother's book, which contains her personal notes. Clio's childhood memories of what went on in the house come back to her, along with piecing things together from her mother's book. She starts to question what is real, what is an accurate memory, and whether her mother is telling the truth. While unboxing all of this childhood trauma, strange things start to happen in the house that really make Clio question things. Play Nice by Rachel Harrison is a spooky, quintessential haunted house story that kept me terrifyingly flipping the pages.
 
I want to preface this review by saying this is not my go-to genre; in fact, I really don't like the horror genre. However, every October, I try to challenge myself to read a spooky tale or twisty psychological novel. Play Nice has both elements - it's downright terrifying, but it's also psychologically thought-provoking in that the house, while haunted, it is their own childhood and past that haunts the sisters. 
 
As Clio renovates the house in Play Nice, she encounters more and more strange things as well as downright disturbing events. I would have high-tailed it right out of the house, but Clio is drawn to the house as well as finishing her mother's annotated novel. But don't think that Play Nice is only a psychological thriller with some mildly spooky parts. It isn't! It's reminiscent of Amityville Horror (iykyk!!), and it creeped me out. 
 
While I found the last 25% of the book to be a bit rushed and dizzying due to its intense events, overall, Play Nice was an exhilarating read. If you're searching for a haunted house novel to enjoy before Halloween, look no further! Personally, I’m usually content to save horror novels for next October, but this one had me contemplating it long after I finished the last page.