My Five Word TL:DR Review: Unreliable Narrator plus Possessed House

What could possibly go wrong!?!

I really enjoyed Play Nice.  I wouldn’t say this was a haunted house story, it’s more a possession and the core of the plot revolves around secrets and lies and a dysfunctional family but it has drama, intrigue and a few scares up it’s sleeves

As the story begins we meet Clio.  A young woman with a picture perfect life – on the face of it at least.  She’s an influencer, she is happy in life to be honest and again, on the face of it, she has a good relationship with her family, she’s the youngest member who is seemingly doted on.  In reality.  Her parents divorced when she was young and after a series of dramatic episodes their mother lost custody.  A lot of Clio’s memories of that period seem to have been lost to time so when she receives a phone call informing her that her mother has passed away (and died in the house where all the drama took place, a house that everyone believed to have been sold) well, a whole can of worms is opened up.

Firstly, Clio, wants to prove her maturity by ‘flipping’ the house.  Her sisters don’t want her to do so but reluctantly agree.  Clio is also the only family member to attend the mother’s funeral – which leads to discord.  To be honest, relationships between all the family members are a little strained and come quite easy to fall outs which leads me to think that their happy family vibe was a very surface level affair.  Of course, at the funeral, Clio learns a few home truths about the family (because of course she’s only ever heard one side of the story) and then moving into her mother’s house, and finding a copy of the book that their mother wrote about her experiences living at the house, a copy that seems to have been annotated especially with Clio in mind, well, her memory starts to open up a little and something doesn’t quite fit.

What I really enjoyed about this.

Well, I won’t deny that I’m a fan of this author.  I’ve not read all of her backlist but the books I’ve read have been really good.  (I will gave a special shout out to Black Sheep and Cackle).  Always easy to engage with and incredibly entertaining and Play Nice is no exception.

I think that Clio could be a downside for some readers.  She’s basically a bit selfish, immature and makes some stupid decisions, but I didn’t find her unlikable.  She’s young, she’s popular and she basically thinks her life is golden, that nothing will ever go wrong for her.  I think her side of the story did give me doubts as to whether she could be totally reliable as a narrator but, again, I quite enjoy the whole ‘unreliable narrator’ trope and as her mother also fits into this category you have something of a double whammy going on which is a win/win for me.

I liked that we have a double story taking place.  The one we’re reading in the moment and the backstory being provided by the now deceased mom who published an account of what she says took place in the house.  This is a creepy story – of course you have no idea how much artistic license has been taken by the mother – so, this is why we have the is she/isn’t she an unreliable narrator.

On top of this there is plenty of family drama.  As I mentioned above it doesn’t take long before cracks begin to appear in what at first felt like a perfect family unit.  And, not everyone is being totally honest with the truth.

The scary scenes were kept to a minimum but when they appeared they certainly produced goosebumps.

This isn’t an all out horror story.  There’s a lot of blown out of all proportion family drama and some psychological scares.  Frankly, I couldn’t have slept in that house for a New York minute but I’m a total wuss so any of the parts with the demon/possession element did give me the heebies.  I suppose if you’re an absolute horror aficionado you might find this a bit tame.  Frankly, I enjoyed it very much and have no problem recommending so long as you go in knowing – light on horror, demon not ghost, annoying central character, lots of family drama and unreliable narrators.  Haha, that sounds terrible when I write it down like that but personally I would pick up this/any book based on that list.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks.  The above is my own opinion.

My rating 4 of 5 stars