Play Nice by Rachel Harrison
Berkley (September 2025)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin
“The world will drive a woman insane, then point and laugh.”
In Rachel Harrison’s new gothic and paranormal horror novel, Play Nice, a stylist and influencer named Clio returns home following her mother’s sudden death. Alex left the house to Clio and her sisters who immediately wish to sell it. After all, it’s where their mother lost her mind.
Clio, however, decides to fix up the house, thinking it will make for excellent social media content. Plus, she doesn’t quite remember her childhood as her sisters do. This is a chance for her to explore resurfacing memories for herself, and to better understand why her mother was so afraid of the house and what made her so insistent of a malevolent presence that she wrote a book, documenting her frightening experience.
Like all of Harrison’s previous novels, Play Nice is witty and fierce. It’s a familiar premise, a haunted — or possessed — house, but met with powerful feminine themes such as the scrutiny of women, particularly mothers, and the threat to autonomy. Possession has always been a brilliant and cathartic way for readers to step into a more fearsome side of the female experience. As a demon lurks and stalks, hungry for souls, men creep and prey upon women.
Readers will also appreciate Harrison’s use of a longstanding trope of the horror genre: the hysterical woman. Clio’s mother is the woman who rings the alarm, sensing the danger in her bones, but is dismissed and even questioned as a capable mother to the point of losing custody of the girls. It’s gut-wrenching. Alex writes, “Crazy is quicksand.”
Harrison’s message is clear: believe women. Listen. Emotion is guidance. Emotion is truth.
Harrison writes some of the best feminist horror fiction out there, because her female characters are layered with ferocity, flaws, and wit. They’re real. Don’t go into a Rachel Harrison novel and expect women to play nice. They’re angry. And man, they should be. Clio is such a dynamic and complex protagonist. She’s messy and stubborn, but also resilient and brave. Her pursuit for the truth, no matter how unnerving or messy, is top tier main character energy. She’s the feminist anti-hero I couldn’t stop rooting for.
It’s worth mentioning that Play Nice is the author’s scariest book to date. And the fear exists on so many levels. There’s the obvious; the demonic presence. The haunted house. The smiley faces — I’ll let you see for yourself on this one. And then there’s the emotional fear that comes with exposing those you love for who they really are, and challenging everything you ever knew about them. Making you question every exchange of trust. This emotional suckerpunch hits hard and momentarily entombs the reader in dread. But we can’t maintain unfractured images in the name of peace. As Clio learns, it’s not sustainable and women deserve better.
For readers looking for a paranormal gothic story with a dysfunctional family, feminist themes, plenty of scares, Play Nice is not to be missed. A new personal favorite from Harrison.
