Tuesday Teaser/Opening ~ The Harrowing

Halloween's coming, so it seemed like a good time to reread The Harrowing (A Ghost Story) by Alexandra Sokoloff. The author has moved on to writing romantic suspense, but I like her early books, and this, her first, is my favorite.

Blurb:
Baird College's Mendenhall echoes with the footsteps of the last home-bound students heading off for Thanksgiving break, and Robin Stone swears she can feel the creepy, hundred-year-old residence hall breathe a sigh of relief for its long-awaited solitude. Or perhaps it's only gathering itself for the coming weekend.

As a massive storm dumps rain on the isolated campus, four other lonely students reveal themselves: Patrick, a handsome jock; Lisa, a manipulative tease; Cain, a brooding musician; and finally Martin, a scholarly eccentric. Each has forsaken a long weekend at home for their own secret reasons.

The five unlikely companions establish a tentative rapport, but they soon become aware of a sixth presence disturbing the ominous silence that pervades the building. Are they the victims of a simple college prank taken way too far, or is the unusual energy evidence of something genuine---and intent on using the five students for its own terrifying ends? It's only Thursday afternoon, and they have three long days and dark nights before the rest of the world returns to find out what's become of them. But for now it's just the darkness keeping company with five students nobody wants and no one will miss.

The Opening:
   It had been raining since possibly the beginning of time.
   In the top tier of the cavernous psychology hall, Robin Stone had long since given up on the lecture. She sat hunched on her seat, staring out arched windows at the downpour, feeling dreamily disconnected from the elemental violence outside, despite the fact that every few minutes the wind shook the building hard enough to rattle the glass of the windowpanes.

The Teaser:
In the pitch-black of Lisa's room, the girls slept, crashed out on opposite sides of the wide bed. But there was something else there, not asleep.

Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current readOpen to a random pageShare two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! To see what others are sharing on the Teaser Tuesdays, check the comments at: http://adailyrhythm.com/




Share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you are reading. Here's the link: Bibliophile By The Sea

7 comments:

  1. I preferred the opening to the synopsis as this makes the characters sound stereotypical but the Robin in the opening felt far more real and I was transported to the building with the rain lashing down outside. Here is my Tuesday post https://cleopatralovesbooks.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/first-chapter-first-paragraph-october-6/

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  2. I don't do ghost stories although I liked the opening paragraph.

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  3. Not my usual reading fare at all, but this sounds pretty good to me. Enjoy!

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  4. Ooh, love the creepy sound of this one! Thanks for sharing and enjoy. And thanks for visiting my blog.

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  5. I'm not sure that I would pick this one up, but I can definitely relate to the intro from my college days! Thanks so much for sharing this one!

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  6. I am glad you shared this one with us because I've been curious about Sokoloff's older work. This sounds so deliciously creepy.

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