The Harrowing

Written by Alexandra Sokoloff

Narrated by Rebecca Mitchell

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Mar 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781977348463

Alexandra Sokoloff

ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF's debut ghost story, The Harrowing, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. She also works as a screenwriter, and splits her time between Los Angeles, California, and Raleigh, North Carolina. She welcomes questions and comments at her website: http://alexandrasokoloff.com

Reviews for The Harrowing

[charrlygirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this with my horror group at Shelfari. I picked up this book during a free promotion by the author.
This is a story set at a Midwestern college campus. A handful of students are staying on campus over the Thanksgiving holiday. Of course, this is when things start to happen.
One of the students finds a Ouija board and together the group makes contact with a former student at the college, Zachary. From there, things go from bad to worse.
I don't want to spoil any part of the plot, but I can say a few things without doing so. It seemed to me that this book peaked too early. The pacing was very good up until about 2/3 of the way through. Then the excitement dropped off and left me somewhat uninterested in the final denouement.
Also, though I did like some of the characters, they kind of resembled the kids from The Breakfast Club. We had a slut,a jock, etc. A few of the characters were not fully fleshed out any further than their Breakfast Club monikers.
I did like the writing style and the bits of Freud and Jung that were slipped in as part of one student's POV. I also liked the usage of Jewish mythology-something that I was not familiar with at all. I like being introduced to new myths or spiritual beings.
All in all, this was a fun read. I would've liked to have the characters be more fully developed and I would've liked the excitement to have lasted all the way to the end and not just to the 2/3 point. Thank you to Ms. Sokoloff for the free read.

[lancasterways · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rare (I suppose) is the horror novel that uses Kabbalah as its jumping-off point. Rarer still, these days, at least, is a novel in which cell phones are only minimally present, and in which the characters visit an Internet cafe. First published in 2006, though, Alexandra Sokoloff's The Harrowing (A Ghost Story) exists in that interstitial period between the advent of the Internet and its omnipresence via smart phones and wireless networks. And guess what? Those anachronisms work in The Harrowing's favor. It's like The Breakfast Club with mysticism and bloodshed. Welcome to Baird College, a liberal arts institution ambiguously located in the Northeast. Whatever state Baird is located in, the locals must own slickers and rain boots, because it rains all the time. Sokoloff must have glommed onto the notion that rain is creepy, because it only ceases to rain for a few pages throughout the book, and, even then, the weather remains dank and dreary. What's the suicide rate at Baird? Riddle me that, admissions office. If we go by the feelings of our main character, Robin Stone, we might assume that Baird isn't doing well maintaining its students' mental health. As Thanksgiving break nears, Robin, dejected, socially isolated, and suicidal, readies herself to spend the holiday alone. In her big ol' creepy dorm. Great idea, Robin.Fortunately, for both Robin and the story, her attempt at suicide is interrupted when she realizes that several other students remain behind: Patrick, the footballer on whom she has a crush; Lisa, the "vamp"; Cain (seriously?), the nihilistic rocker-cum-prelaw student; and Martin, the atheist only-son of an Orthodox rabbi. At this point, the most unbelievable aspect of the story is that a rabbi might name his son "Martin." All five students are in their own ways damaged, and, in their brokenness, they can relate to one another. It is perhaps unsurprising that they decide to spend the dark and stormy night before Thanksgiving playing with a Ouija board, making (possible) contact with a spirit calling itself Zachary who seems to know an awful lot about the five of them, and who exhibits a mean anti-Semitic streak. (Fun fact: The Hebrew root from which "Zachary" is derived--zakor--means "remember.") At this point, readers with a passing familiarity to what Martin derisively refers to as "Madonna's Kabbalah" will have a sense where this is headed: The rabbi's son; the red bracelet on Lisa's wrist (a ward against evil); Zachary's references to "shells" and "discarded ones" all point to Kabbalah. (I'm not really giving anything away here.) It goes without saying that things take a nasty turn as the weekend progresses, and that things aren't what they appear. Sokoloff is at her strongest when it comes to establishing setting and atmosphere. She describes Baird's campus as being "unmarred by the slightest sight of civilization"; indeed, "the isolation seemed ominous." Likewise, the lecture Robin attends immediately prior to the holiday break is "soporific, strangely hypnotic." Solitude and altered states of consciousness within just the first few pages. Approaching her dorm, Robin "never noticed how the high windows near the top of the balcony looked like watching eyes." Okay, we get it; you're laying it on a bit thick, now. "And the double doors, flicking, serpentine tongues, tasting the scent of its prey as it neared its gaping maw." Nope, I made that last one up.Robin and her fellow characters are recognizable and relatable, if shallowly drawn. Sokoloff tells the story from Robin's perspective. Despite her initial emotional problems, Robin seems remarkably resilient; indeed, contact with the others, and with Zachary, seems to provide her energy and strength. Intuitive readers will immediately guess the relational outcomes of the characters, though. Populated by college students, it's inevitable that the characters become involved with one another. Even the powers of the beyond (spooky voice) can't interfere with raging hormones! (Indeed, it seems to feed upon them, raising, for this reader, at least, the question of why horror is the most conservative of all genre fiction.) Sokoloff began her career as a screenwriter, a background that informs the structure of The Harrowing. The novel is clearly divided into three sections: The beginning consists of Thanksgiving weekend; the bridge, the return to "normality" and Robin's subsequent investigation into Zachary's identity; and, finally, the action-packed conclusion, in which all pretense at thoughtfulness is cast aside. It goes without saying that the third act is the weakest.Ultimately, The Harrowing is a bit of a missed opportunity. Sokoloff maintains ambiguity throughout the first third of the novel, hinting that the "seance" held over the Ouija board may be supernatural in origin without quite saying it. While Cain suspects trickery, Martin is fascinated by the possibility that the events are precipitated by some kind of hitherto unknown psychological phenomena. All of the students are experiencing extreme emotional stress, and Sokoloff suggests that there are rational explanations for what's going on, all of which appeals to the possibility that horror is found in ambiguity rather than certainty. Unfortunately, Sokoloff errs on the side of the latter: She takes the safe path, and, thus, abandons any attempt at depth or thoughtfulness. The Harrowing is an engaging and emotionally satisfying "horror" story, and, refreshingly, a tale more concerned with mood and atmosphere than with bloodshed and gore. Although The Harrowing lacks depth, it is well told, and uses Kabbalah to introduce a novel element into the story's background.

[flying_monkeys_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rating: 3.5 of 5Enjoyable tale of the supernatural with some Jewish lore. Very cinematic though in its teen slasher-ish vibe.

[enemyanniemae · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I grew up on a steady diet of horror films. I read horror. I am not easily frightened. This book scared the living crap out of me. But when you introduce a Ouija board and a restless spirit and then throw in a little Jewish mysticism... how could it induce anything besides the heebee jeebees? Hey, I have a history with a Ouija board and say what you will (that the experience was not mystical but psychological and that I did not witness a possession but only the breakdown of someone already on the edge of psychosis) but those things terrify me. Basic plot: five college students find themselves to be the only ones in the dormitory for Thanksgiving break. They don't know each other well. Of course, the lights go out. They all congregate in the dorm lounge and light candles. The quiet studious fellow sits alone with his psychology books spread around him. The jock has a bottle of booze. The law student-slash-musician is bored by them all. The invisible girl simply hovers. So when the flirty girl in the alternate universe horror variety of the College Breakfast Club pulls a box out of a cabinet and utters the famous words "hey, look what I found! Who wants to play?", I should have tossed the book in a dumpster on the other side of town and started a Lemony Snicket. But I didn't. This book is dark and there is a sense of foreboding from the first page. As things progress and the reader is left to decipher what is actually happening, the pace quickens and this baby moves like lightning. The psychology student asks "Do our demons come from within or without?" It's a frightening question. I couldn't put the book down and raced to finish it before the sun went down. It scared me that much. Seriously. If my horror group has not read The Harrowing, I am going to make a recommendation. This book is the stuff of nightmares.

[bookmarque · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Eh, reminds me why I gave up horror when I was in my 20s. It never scared me anyway and this was such a rehash of old plots and congealed thrills that I skimmed more than I read. It was like The Breakfast Club meets Hell House drizzled with a splash of The Exorcist at the end. Overall it gelled, but some things clanged like a college kid wearing aftershave. Really? And everyone was freaked all the time; aren't there other words? And the feeling...everyone felt everything; people's presences, their bodies shifting, their eyes on them - ugh. Oh and I guess Google is nobody's friend in this since someone called directory assistance and went to a temple to talk to a rabbi...oh and steal from their library. And that epilogue. Thud. Not everything was terrible; comparing Martin to The White Rabbit was pretty nice. The atmosphere was well drawn. I liked the use of Jewish mysticism as well although I have no idea how or why the kids got so adept at reading translated Yiddish or performing basically unknown rituals. Again, I'm back to meh. Teenage angst and hokey spirits from the abyss just don't do it for me anymore.

[dagon12 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Calling THE HARROWING a typical ghost story does a disservice to Sokoloff for writing it. However, to a strong degree, the story is very much a typical ghost story. A group of people play with a Ouija board, discover a spirit and then are haunted by the spirit for the rest of the story. In this case the group of people are five students at college who don't want to go back to their dysfunctional families over Thanksgiving break. The spirit awakened is presented as a student who died on campus in a fire. And they are still haunted for the rest of the story.I found the story to be very entertaining and fun to read. It was maybe a tad formulaic in its approach but at the same time, it was tasteful and respectful in that approach. The characters were rich and three dimensional. The story held true to the genre. And while the ending was maybe a little rushed and predictable, it was also satisfying. This book probably won't be amongst my top ten for the year but it won't be on the worst of the year list either.

[jadestar31 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Strangely enough, I’ve never crossed my love of reading with my love of horror…I just don’t read a lot of horror books…until I started reading books by Alexandra Sokoloff. The first book I read by Alexandra Sokoloff was called The Unseen. It was about a couple of researchers from the Duke Parapsychology Lab who were doing experiments about ESP and psychic energy. I liked it a lot and found myself thinking “Hey, this would make a great movie!” So when I came across The Harrowing at a book sale, I immediately snatched it up.The Harrowing is about a group of 5 college students who stay in their creepy, deserted dorm instead of going home over the Thanksgiving long weekend. At its heart, it’s a ghost story, but it’s not the typical ghost story. It incorporates a lot of myth into the ghost, you need to read the book to understand what I mean. The ghost isn’t a ghost, but an evil being. Obviously, there was quite a bit of research done for this book, and I appreciated that, but that’s not what stood out for me.Each of the characters are really well developed and I found myself empathizing with all of them. They all start out as such stereotypical versions of college kids and totally evolve into somebody different (and better) by the end. All of them find their courage and strength in different ways.Overall, I’d say this book was pretty good and I’d recommend it. It’s short so it’s perfect for a couple of nights of creepy reading right before bedtime. Enjoy.

[tymfos · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've read books by Sokoloff before, so I had high hopes for this one. But this was her debut novel, and I don't think it quite measures up to some of her later efforts. Or maybe it's just my mood, or a matter of comparison -- the fact that I just read an especially masterful piece of horror by Stephen KingThe initial elements of The Harrowing are somewhat time-worn but promising. Five students alone together in a huge, creepy dorm over Thanksgiving break. Big storm. Power failure. Candles. Ouija board. The atmosphere is well drawn: Sokoloff, a screenwriter, sets the scene vividly. There are definitely some chills in this creepy book. And I found it interesting how Sokoloff draws upon ancient Jewish mysticism, coupled with Freudian and Jungian psychology, for inspiration -- some fresh angles are explored. But I can't say it all quite works for me. The potential for subtle, sophisticated horror (inherent in the mysticism and the psychological angles) is eventually swamped by more sensational elements as the story moves toward its climax. That just wasn't what I was looking for, and there was an "eeeewwww" factor involved (for me) in part of the plot. In the final two chapters and epilogue Sokoloff attempts to draw it back to subtlety, but it wasn't very effective (IMO), with the epilogue coming across like a carbon copy of so many other horror story epilogues, names changed to protect the innocent.

[jechtshot · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Stop me when this sounds familiar. Five troubled college students are "mysteriously" brought together by an unseen force and unleash a demon via a Ouija board. Similar stories have been rehashed in countless "teen angst" style horror movies and will be replicated many, many more times. Why? Because it is fun to be scared, even if it is a familiar story. The author, Alexandra Sokoloff, is a screen writer first and this is very obvious in her writing style. The book reads like a screenplay. Vivid details surround each exterior shot, close up on protagonist A's face as she comes to the realization the ghosts are real, pan left over rain soaked college campus and so on.The Harrowing is far from original, but was a fun "guilty pleasure" sort of ghost story. Recommended for a late rainy night when you are looking for a quick fix of adrenaline.

[goydaeh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Harrowing centers around a group of outcasts who stay behind in their residence hall over Thanksgiving break and make contact with a spirit using a ouija board found in the dorm's lounge. Sokoloff effectively uses psychological and paranormal explanations of the phenomenon to create doubt as to what is going on, and her coverage of Freud and Jung adds depth to the plot and integrates well with, never taking away from, the action. The Harrowing is a edge-of-your-seat, heavily atmospheric novel that piles on the tension as it drives towards its conclusion.

[thasc_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A gripping ghost story which keeps you guessing right up until the end.

[mumugrrl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Atmospheric and creepy horror novel set in an old, east coast gothic college that brings together five troubled students over a Thanksgiving weekend.As others mentioned here it definitely has a cinematic feel. I could visualize everything that she was writing because she used archetypal images from countless horror movies (ie Black Christmas) but still managed to use them to her advantage and maintain tension through her unique plot manipulations. Sokoloff is a screenwriter and she knows how to give minimal background information on the characters through dialogue rather than introspection which makes the pacing of this novel fly. I was totally enthralled by this book and will definitely be checking out more of her work.

[nkscf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

During Thanksgiving break, a group of students use a Ouija board and contact a spirit that claims to have died years before. In their talks with this spirit, they find that it is more than it seems, and could pose a danger to their lives.This was my introduction to Alexandra Sokoloff's works, and I have to say that I am impressed with her writing. It's fast read and the characters are okay, but it's the story that drives this work. I loved the references to parts of Judaism that I really need to research now, and it was great to learn something as I read.

[joles_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Harrowing is an easy to read thriller based at a college over Thanksgiving break. While most students go home a small group of unlikely misfits stay. In their boredom they come across a "talking board" (ouija board) and trouble ensues.This book is a page turner and with its slight references to historical fact is balanced well, so as not to be just another scary story.

[nycbookgirl · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was the perfect spooky ghost haunting book to kick off the Autumn Season. The story's plot really isn't that original but it was well written, creepy, and totally kept me interested the whole way through. I definitely stayed up way to late reading it. I love to scare myself silly.Here's the plot:The Setting: Thanksgiving holiday weekend at Baird College's Mendenhall co-ed dorm.The Leading Lady: Robin Stone - she's one depressed cookie, not wanting to go home for the holiday and opting to stay in the abandoned dormitory for the holiday.Conflict: While contemplating the possibility of ending it all, Robin stumbles across four other lonely co-eds who also have stayed home. So, being college kids, they stay up late and drink alcohol in front of the fireplace and dig out the ol' Ouija board. Through the board, a presence named Nicholas makes itself known. Could this Nicholas be the ghost of a student who was killed in the 1920's on campus or is it all a joke? Or something more sinister?So you see, not too original but boy did I have fun reading it. It was like reading a horror flick.

[the_hag · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Delicious....this book was something I desperately needed...a good light fiction read that also was interesting, scary and troubling at the same time. Oh...what's that, Baird College students leave en masse for Thanksgiving and we are left with five lone students, one creepy gothic dorm and a dark and story night...who doesn't smell supernatural thrills???!! The Harrowing is somewhat typical in it's depiction of college students (jock, loner musician, nerd, slut, invisible chick) and reminiscent of a teen horror flick made into a book, but still, I really enjoyed the flawed characters, the Freudian psychology, and the overall tense, heavy feel of the book. It was sad and depressing, desperate and hopeful all at the same time and best of all...it races along, no dead spots, no lulls...it's a nonstop front to back spine tingling tale that weaves it's way from the present day, back to the 1920's and then back to creation and the kabala.I recommend it for ghost story and horror freaks like me...though it does purport to be a ghost story, it's really not, kinda, sorta, but not totally...read it and you'll see what I mean! It even managed to creep me out, reading it home alone, foolishly enough, during thunder storm...at night...I'll leave my rating at...simply delicious, you'll want to curl up with this on a chilly night with a blanket and a good cup of tea!!