Alexandra Sokoloff delivers an utterly chilling, atmospheric tale of ghostly and ghastly goings on in a hundred-year-old university campus residence hall in The Harrowing, a real page-turner that will have your skin crawling.
Five misfit students find themselves with nowhere to go over Thanksgiving break, so they stay at Mendenhall, the residence building of Baird College. The weather is cold and rainy, as dreary as the moods of Robin, Patrick, Cain, Martin and Lisa – five lost souls who are so different from one another, yet connected by their own personal despairs and secrets in a way even they cannot imagine, but are about to find out.
With the help of an Ouija Board, the five contact the spirit of an entity known as Zachary, one of five hapless souls who died in that very place many years earlier. Soon, the dark and spooky building becomes a prison of terrifying events as the students struggle with their own demons even as they now must fight a more powerful demon in their midst.
With strong characterization, chilling description and realistic dialog, Sokoloff weaves a harrowing ghost story that has both elements of classic hauntings, yet plenty of unique twists and turns that make it a fresh, new tale of terror. The five students are as different as night and day, yet the author deftly finds the connecting thread between them as they are woven deeper and deeper into the fabric of the story.
Ultimately, the misfits are called upon to come together and be heroic in their own right, and not all will survive, but all will be forever changed in this creepy story of an ominous and evil presence that will live on long after the last student has called Mendenhall home.