Executive producer Bryan Kirkwood revealed that he introduced Rachel and the Nightingales to bring a sense of community to Hollyoaks.

Brooke characterised Rachel as free-spirited and not caring about what others think of her, and that she gets itchy feet in the village as she wants to go travelling with Nathan.

22-year-old Rachel is Nathan's free-spirited fiancée, billed as a girl next door who has a heart of gold but isn't afraid to speak her mind.

[1] Easter teased that the family would be moving in with "a bit of a bang" and that there would be drama due to Mac still being married to established character Cindy Cunningham (Stephanie Waring).

[2] Hollyoaks executive producer Bryan Kirkwood explained that he had introduced the family to "create a sense of community" in the soap, adding, "We're delighted with the Nightingales.

[4] To promote the family, Hollyoaks released a series of videos titled "Meet the Nightingales" to explore the characters and their portrayers.

[13] Rachel is furious to learn about Nathan's cheating and decides to get revenge on him by pouring water on him when he is sleeping, giving him a "rather unpleasant wake-up call".

[15] Nathan later begins preparing for their trip to South Africa and is excited for it, but Rachel is put into a difficult situation when she finds out that Alfie's cancer has returned when she overhears him confiding in Jade Albright (Kassius Nelson).

[18] Rachel faces backlash when it is revealed that she kept Alfie's cancer secret and a shocked Nathan harshly rejects her when she begs him to hear her side of the story, which upsets her.

[20] Rachel and Nathan then get back together and leave to go travelling, but on the way there they are involved in a car crash with Holly Cunningham (Amanda Clapham) and Cleo McQueen (Nadine Mulkerrin).

[22] The fate of the characters were not revealed immediately and viewers had to wait until the next episode to see the cliff-hanger resolved, although spoiler pictures showed Nathan trying to help Cleo.

[21] Daniel Kilkelly from Inside Soap teased that Holly's dangerous driving could cause issues for Nathan and Rachel's happiness.

[23] Rachel was then confirmed to be the victim and she made her last appearance on 29 March 2016 after being killed-off, becoming the first member of the Nightingale family to leave the soap.

[29] Rachel arrives with her fiancé, Nathan Nightingale (Jared Garfield), and his family to take over Hollyoaks' local pub The Dog in the Pond.

When Rachel returns, she sees Porsche and Nathan in a compromising position (as they were playing a game where they had pass an object using only their mouths) and furiously declares their engagement to be over.

Rachel rejects a teaching assistant job at Hollyoaks High in order to pursue her goal of travelling with Nathan, but she worries that they may be drifting apart.

They stop at the roadside and Nathan tries fixing the car, but a drunk Holly Cunningham (Amanda Clapham) crashes into them and knocks Rachel unconscious.

Following the announcement of Rachel and the Nightingales, Daniel Kilkelly from Digital Spy called the new characters "exciting" and speculated which "soaptastic drama" they would each bring.

[3] Sophie Dainty from Digital Spy believed that Rachel was put in an "increasingly difficult situation" when Alfie urged her to keep the return of his cancer a secret from Nathan.

[26] Kilkelly advised viewers to prepare themselves for "emotional scenes" and believed that Rachel's life was in "jeopardy" after the car crash.

[30] Ellis also called Rachel's death "tragic" and a "shocker" due to the soap keeping her "grisly exit under wraps".

[31] She noted how viewers were "stunned" that Rachel had been killed off just months after debuting, but acknowledged that the character's fate was "sealed from the start".

[31] Kilkelly expressed that he was in "in mourning" for "poor Rachel" and wrote "Hollyoaks certainly knows how to deliver epic stunts that we won't forget in a hurry".

[34] The following year, when discussing theories for how Holly would exit Hollyoaks, Kilkelly speculated that a "vengeful relative" of Rachel could "pop up to finally see justice served".

[29] Kilkely explained, "Rachel was such a short-lived character that we never really did learn much about her family, giving the writers free rein to introduce a crazed relative on a mission for payback.