Tuesday Teaser/Opening ~ The Harrowing

It's that time of year--the run up to Halloween--when my thoughts turn to horror. I'm rather picky with horror, so I'm mostly rereading some of my favorite scary reads. I'm especially fond of ghost stories, so that's likely to dominate my reading for the coming weeks.

I'm starting with The Harrowing byAlexandra Sokoloff. It's got a creepy eerie vibe through most of the book. I recall being less enthusiastic about the ending that I was about the rest of the book, but it has a lovely creepy vibe through most of it, and the ending wasn't all that bad (as I recall). Horror is perhaps the hardest genre to get the ending right, so I'm willing to revisit this because I really liked the eerie sensation that present through most of the book.



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.

---- Nominated for the Bram Stoker and Anthony Award for Best First Novel ---- 

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 in 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.






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