Play Nice

By Rachel Harrison

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 novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Black Sheep and So Thirsty.

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 parents' 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 her 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, a sinister presence in the house manifests, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio's beautiful life to its very foundation.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593642570
• ISBN13: 9780593642573
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Love this!

These supernatural stories that Rachel Harrison writes are awesome! I fell in love with them starting with Cackle but have since devoured all the others too. In this one, haunted houses (or possessed) get their time in the limelight. Mix that with a dysfunctional family and you get all the right horror plus the deeper message about figuring out how to work through childhood trauma and unresolved feelings and questions about the truth of a parent who dies suddenly, leaving so much baggage. Clio is an interesting character. On the surface she is a wildly successful influencer, always perfectly put together, at least on the surface. That all starts unraveling after her mother dies and you gets lots of family drama with Clio's sisters and father, especially when Clio decides to take it upon herself to ready the Edgewood house to sell, or possibly move in. Cue the unsettling happenings (mouse parts, smiley faces), a disturbing book her mother wrote (with littles sidenotes from her mother and then something else) and a slow remembrance of what really happened in that house. It is a mix of crazy, humor, and even a bit a sweetness in the form of next door neighbor, Austin (he is absolutely sweet and a cozy bit among the unraveling horror of the possessed house and Clio's growing connection to it). Her sisters are also a good touch, despite being so different from each other (different ways of coping a tough childhood) and I like how they are willing to put everything to help a sister in need, even if they don't agree with what is going on. I had a lot of fun reading this book with its touches of horror but also Clio (and her sisters) rising together and not letting even a possessed house get in the way, no matter how many terrible things it throws their way (and boy is it needy for attention! I liked that part of why demons act the way they do). Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read this next awesome book in Rachel Harrison's supernatural strong feminine twist series!