Play Nice - Rachel Harrison

PLAY NICE

RACHEL HARRISON

*****

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.

MY REVIEW

*****

I must admit that my guilty pleasure is watching those old home renovations by TikTok influencers. I also love a haunted house story, so when I read the blurb of Play Nice which seems to combine these, I could not wait to read it!

When Clio’s mother dies, she inherits her childhood home and is determined to renovate it to make some money and get some social media engagement. However, she doesn’t have pleasant memories of the place – her mother wrote a book about her experiences in the house she labelled as ‘possessed’ – is there any truth to the tales?

I really enjoyed Play Nice and actually finished it in a day – it kept me hooked from the outset. I really liked the family dynamic involved – Clio is the youngest of three, and sisters Daphne and Leda are in the story throughout. Clio can be quite hard to empathise with in places – she is spoilt and manipulative and her descent into the madness of the house with drinking and pushing everyone away was hard to read in places. However, it does make her a flawed, interesting and well-rounded main character.

The narrative alternates between Clio’s present experiences in the house and passages from her mother’s book about her time there (some parts with explanations and asides to her daughter which was a nice touch). I liked that this sets Clio up as an unreliable narrator as she doesn’t really remember some of the events or has different memories which leads you to wonder how much is real and how much may have been made up to sell copies of the book. This narrative technique also allows the stakes to build as the story in the book starts to mirror what is happening in the present day.

The haunted elements start slowly, with the usual tropes of a difficult night’s sleep, anxious feelings and things moving. There’s a general sense of unease throughout, which grows to a satisfying and action-packed conclusion.

Overall, Play Nice is a haunted house story for the modern day - full of dysfunctional family dynamics and recommended for your spooky season reads! Thank you to NetGalley & Titan Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

LINKS TO BUY

Amazon UK

Waterstones