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The Unseen
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Product Description
A terrifying novel of suspense based on the Rhine parapsychology experiments at Duke University
After experiencing a precognitive dream that ends her engagement and changes her life forever, a young psychology professor from California decides to get a fresh start by taking a job at Duke University in North Carolina. She soon becomes obsessed with the files from the world-famous Rhine parapsychology lab experiments, which attempted to prove ESP really exists.
Along with a handsome professor, she uncovers troubling cases, including one about a house supposedly haunted by a poltergeist, investigated by another research team in 1965. Unaware that the entire original team ended up insane or dead, the two professors and two exceptionally gifted Duke students move into the abandoned mansion to replicate the investigation, with horrifying results.
The Unseen is Alexandra Sokoloff's most thrilling novel to date: a story of deception, attraction, and the unknown.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #118326 in Books
- Published on: 2009-05-26
- Released on: 2009-05-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 336 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780312384708
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In Sokoloff's serviceable supernatural thriller, two Duke University psychology professors, Laurel MacDonald and Brendan Cody, stumble on suppressed findings of an inquiry into poltergeist activity conducted under the auspices of Duke's Rhine parapsychology lab nearly half a century earlier. All the participants appear to have died, disappeared or, in the case of Laurel's enfeebled uncle, gone mad. Determined to advance their academic careers, the pair corral two students with strong paranormal potential to camp out at the spooky Folger House, site of the original experiment. No sooner do they begin their study than they're confronted with uncanny phenomena that suggest they've awakened a malignant presence that pervades the house. Sokoloff (The Price) keep her story enticingly ambiguous, never clarifying until the climax whether the unfolding weirdness might be the result of the investigators' psychic sensitivities or the mischievous handiwork of a human villain. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Praise for The Price:
“A stunning, riveting journey into terror and suspense.” ---Michael Palmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Second Opinion
“It’s been a long, long time since a book scared, exhilarated, uplifted, frenzied, and made me green with jealousy. This is the book of 2008. It is beyond stunning. It is harrowing in the true sense of real art.” ---Ken Bruen, award-winning author of Once Were Cops
“The Harrowing was immensely creepy and satisfying, a first novel and a wonderful book. Alex Sokoloff's The Price is another notch in this author's golden belt---a psychological roller coaster that keeps the reader on edge with bone-chilling thrills throughout. I couldn't put it down. Miss Sokoloff is an author not to be missed.” ---Heather Graham, bestselling author of The Séance
“Sokoloff is simply amazing.”---Bookreporter.com
“A sublime second novel . . . Rest assured that Sokoloff will suffer none of the signs or symptoms of a sophomore slump with this confident follow-up to her Stoker-nominated debut. . . . Her gooseflesh-inducing imagery jumps right off the pages, and her rich, graceful prose calls to mind names like King, Saul, and Levin.” ---Dark Scribe Magazine
“Sokoloff’s straightforward writing style perfectly enhances her chilling and mysterious novel, in which she blurs the lines between what is real and what is merely a hallucination.” ---Romantic Times
About the Author
Customer Reviews
"They didn't get out. No one did."
This is dangerous territory for writers of the genre: paranormal psychological phenomena. Is ESP real and measurable? Can the wall between reality and the otherworldly be breached? Certainly, many have tried to transport from the living to the dead, most notable the Victorian penchant for séances and communications with the deceased, often fraudulent attempts to separate grieving family members from their money. Sokoloff knocks on that dark door again in this thriller, as two professors from Duke University try to recreate a 1965 experiment with such tragic consequences that all records have been sealed until recently. But now Professors Laurel MacDonald and Brendan Cody have undertaken to reassemble the critical participants of the original experiment, a mysterious study in ESP at Folger House, using two high-testing students as the other members of the quartet.
Professor MacDonald is new to the Duke faculty. She has come from California, a shattering emotional trauma leaving her vulnerable and rootless, transplanted to an unfamiliar place to begin anew. It is not surprising that Laurel joins forces with Brendan when the charming coworker helps her locate the mystery-shrouded Folger House where they will conduct the experiment. MacDonald and Cody live in a "publish or perish" environment, the subject of their study having broad appeal in a cynical world where such things as poltergeists remain a source of public curiosity. Folger House is intimidating, the four visitors an odd blend of skepticism and curiosity. Tyler Mountford is undoubtedly brilliant, but vaguely untrustworthy. Katrina de Vore clearly has a serious crush on Professor Cody, who slightly resembles the fiancé that Laurel left behind in California. Brendan is perhaps the most obviously invested in the success of the experiment.
The author has primed this pump for maximum unpredictability, her anxious characters thrust into a remote location that reeks of a menace and the past, of madness and mystery, of poltergeists and inexplicable occurrences. Modern technology may not be sufficient when dark forces rule and foolish humans call out to the unknown to manifest itself. Strange dreams, shifting perspectives, loud thumps and rock showers abound, as Cody and MacDonald find themselves just as unmoored as the screaming Katrina when the mirrors shatter in her room. While Laurel hovers between logic and fear, the house comes alive with malice. A denouement beckons, inviting, but I haven't quite made the leap of faith required by this thriller. Terror hovers at the edges of this tale, but never exactly reaches the threshold, lots of racket and banging, but just this side of truly memorable or believable. Luan Gaines/2009.
And I so wanted to like this book....
I love haunted house books! And I so wanted to love (even like) this one when I started it. The blurb sounded so promising, the premise familiar yet with a potentially good spin.
Unfortunately, the characters were two dimensional preventing being able to connect with them as real people, and the writing had the style of someone who started as an author writing romance novels. Even the plot became a letdown with huge plotholes that made it so hard to suspend disbelief. (I won't go into detail as they would be spoilers.) I finished the book just on principle and hoping for a redeeming miracle at the end. No such luck.
Sadly, with so much potential this novel was just a disappointment.
Spine-Tingling Thriller
After a traumatic end to a relationship, Laurel MacDonald accepts a job as a psychology professor at Duke University and makes the move from sunny California. Upon her arrival, she learns that in order to maintain her tenure at the University, she needs to get published. She uncovers a fifty year old study done by the Rhine psychology lab, a study on extrasensory perception that mysteriously went dormant. This study took place at the Folger House, a century-old home known for its supernatural activity. Participants in this survey either disappeared, went insane, or suffered other emotional/mental effects. Laurel learns that her uncle, once bright and outgoing, wiht a great future ahead of him, was a participant in this study. He's now a shell of a man with apparent mental defeciencies. Joined by Brendan Cody, another psychology professor, they find the Folger House and begin to recreate the infamous study with a new set of student participants. When they arrive at the house, it's not long before they begin to experience supernatural activity. Mysterious noises, odd feelings, only begin to explain the activity the team experience.
Sokoloff once again does a stellar job with this one! The reader becomes entranced within the first few pages. Throughout the entire book, my spine tingled with anticipation. Laurel's character is extremely well developed. The reader uncovers more about her with every turned page. The secondary characters, while not extremely developed, do add a great deal to the story. The are both seriously flawed and it's hard to like them, but that adds to the overall atmosphere of the book. Highly highly recommended book, to any fan of ghosts stories, tales of extrasensory perception or the like.
Contains: mild sex and language
