Play Nice by Rachel Harrison follows a woman’s grim descent from a glamorous influencer to someone questioning her own sanity.  What starts as a story sprinkled with subtle unease quickly spirals into something dark, eerie, and best read with the lights on.

Clio Barnes has it all – money, fame, and seemingly endless good luck. But as she is enjoying her hedonistic lifestyle, it begins to unravel at the news of the sudden death of her mother. None of her family was particularly close to her mother, Alex. Her alcoholism caused her to lose custody of Clio and her other two sisters, Leda and Daphne. Despite that past, and against her sisters’ objections, Clio decides to attend the funeral and learns that her mother left their childhood home to her.

A childhood home where her mother insisted that the entity that haunted it was the root of her alcoholism, even going so far as to write a book about it. Clio dismisses the idea and decides it will be a good house-flipping experience she could film for her followers. But as she spends more time in the house and delves deeper into her memories, she finds out there may be some truth to her mother’s claims. And it may be too late for her as well.

At first, I despised the main character for her shallowness, but I am glad I pushed past that. What I found once I accepted her was a cleverly narrated descent into her own demons, both real and imagined. By the end, I was still questioning whether there was actually anything haunting the house or if it was her slowly sinking into her own addictions. Either way, there were points in the book where I had to put it down and expose myself to some mundanity to reset my nerves, a good sign for a horror novel.

Play Nice is a ghost story that sneaks up on you in more ways than one, combining suspense and dread in a way that lingers after you’ve finished.  If you enjoy dark, character-driven horror that blurs the line between inner demons and external evil, this one is absolutely worth picking up.

I received this as an ARC. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.