Play Nice

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 22 SEPT 2025

Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth) puts a millennial spin on the haunted house genre with this spooky but underbaked tale of sisterhood, self-destruction, and social media. While enjoying a night out, influencer Clio Barnes gets a call informing her that her estranged and deeply troubled mother has died. She reunites with her sisters, Leda and Daphne, to process the news. After making the bold decision to attend their mother's funeral, it becomes clear that death was only the beginning of the trouble to follow. The sisters inherit their childhood home, which their mother always claimed was haunted and used as the basis of her paranormal memoir, Demon of Edgewood Drive: The True Story of a Suburban Haunting. With memories of childhood trauma lurking around every corner, none of the sisters want anything to do with the house, except for Clio, who sees the potential for house-flipping social media content. When she discovers and starts reading a worn copy of her mother's memoir and strange occurrences plague the house, she begins to question what's real, culminating in a confrontation with the many ghosts of her past. The result is certainly a breezy and entertaining supernatural story, but one that offers few surprises. Meanwhile, a shoehorned romance subplot and underdeveloped secondary characters detract from the fun. This isn't Harrison's best.