Play Nice cover art

Play Nice

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

Play Nice

By: Rachel Harrison
Narrated by: Katie Beudert
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £15.30

Buy Now for £15.30

LIMITED TIME OFFER

£0.99/mo for 3 months - terms apply. Offer ends 24 August 2026.
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 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.©2025 Rachel Harrison (P)2025 W. F. Howes Ltd. Gothic Horror Haunted Scary
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most relevant
Once again, Rachel Harrison does an amazing job making this story feel real. Even despite the central focus of some supernatural threat, they’re put in the context of modern life and anxieties we all face. Life is too busy these days to allow someone to drop everything else just because there’s something spooky going on! This is what I love about her books and this one follows that formula.

That approach is really refreshing when we’re talking about werewolves, or witches, or freaky cults, but when we start to talk about haunted houses, it’s well-trodden ground already. Haunted house stories have long explored personal trauma through domestic spaces, and as a result this one feels less fresh than Cackle or Such Sharp Teeth, where Harrison’s perspective felt more surprising. It’s not that the themes don’t work — they do — but they tread more familiar ground so for me it didn’t feel quite as fresh.

That said, the character writing is so good! The world feels so real, so believable, so lived in – all because every single character has a clear and distinct personality.

The protagonist is flawed and believable, and while she isn’t always likeable, she feels real. I cared about her journey, even if the stakes never felt especially high.

The pacing is a little slow, but the resolution is quietly effective. It avoids the obvious route and instead lands on something more empowering and reflective, leaving behind a message that feels applicable beyond the page: that sometimes the healthiest choice is to let things go and walk away. The book also leaves a few minor questions unanswered, which felt intentional rather than frustrating.

A generous 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars. Not my favourite book ever, but I did enjoy it. It was thoughtful, well-written, and absolutely worth reading.

Haunting and full of spirit

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a decent audiobook, and the performance is stronger than the overall rating I have given. What let's this story down is the pacing. It feels too meandering and slow. When the pace is dropped in these sorts of stories for character development it can work well, but here it just feels like everything is deliberately drawn out. With tighter pacing this would be a much stronger book.

Slower Than Needed

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The start of this story was great - intriguing and creepy. The story kept me interested until the end however I felt the ending was rushed and a bit pointless - I feel more could have been made about the demon’s origin or the mothers death and some parts which seemed important earlier on went to nothing. An entertaining easy read though and the narration was generally very good, if a little overdone in places.

A strong start but a rushed ending

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If its a haunted house, and has demonic possession in. I am in!! I felt that Clios character i found a little bratty and I found her annoying at times!! But I love how in the end the sisters came together! It is a gripping listen and once I started listening i couldn't stop. A easy listen and a pleasure to get lost in this book for a while .I get the hype .

loved this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.