The Unseen [Large Print] [Paperback]

Alexandra Sokoloff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 2009

After experiencing a precognitive dream that shatters her engagement and changes her life forever, young California psychology professor Laurel MacDonald decides to get a fresh start by taking a job at Duke University in North Carolina. She soon becomes obsessed with the long-buried files from the world-famous Rhine parapsychology experiments, which attempted to prove if ESP really exists. Along with another charismatic professor, she uncovers disturbing reports, including a mysterious case of a house supposedly haunted by a poltergeist, investigated by another research team in 1965. The two professors and two exceptionally gifted Duke students move into the grand, abandoned mansion to replicate the investigation, unaware that the entire original team ended up insane... or dead.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"THE UNSEEN takes you on a breathless ride you'll never forget. Atmospheric, spooky, intense. The suspense starts on page one, tightening the noose on every page with increasing velocity to a stunning, fearsome climax. Ms. Sokoloff has created a chilling, fantastic supernatural thriller that will have you fearing what you can't see." --Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of SUDDEN DEATH

Praise for The Price:

“Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.” ---The New York Times Book Review

“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

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Large Type / Large Print edition (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1429964162
• ISBN-13: 978-1429964166
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Alex is a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley. She is the Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill award-nominated and Thriller award-winning author of the supernatural thrillers, THE HARROWING, THE PRICE, THE UNSEEN, BOOK OF SHADOWS, THE SHIFTERS, and THE SPACE BETWEEN, and the non-fiction workbooks SCREENWRITING TRICKS FOR AUTHORS and WRITING LOVE. As a screenwriter she has sold original suspense and thriller scripts and adapted novels for numerous Hollywood studios. Alex has served on the Board of Directors of the WGA, west and the Board of the Mystery Writers of America. In her spare time (!) she performs with Heather Graham's all-author Slush Pile Players, and dances like a fiend.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "They didn't get out. No one did.", May 26, 2009

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unseen (Hardcover)

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.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars And I so wanted to like this book...., June 18, 2009

By 

Amy H (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unseen (Hardcover)

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.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sadly, a swing and a miss for Sokoloff, August 25, 2010

By 

S. King Fan (Binghamton, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Unseen (Hardcover)

*Warning: Review may contain minor spoilers*

Alexandra Sokoloff has quickly become one of my favorite authors; after blazing through "The Harrowing," "The Price," and "Book of Shadows," I decided to give her 3rd novel a shot, "The Unseen." Of all four of her novels, this seemed the one to be the most mixed in the reviews; nevertheless, after finding great success in the previously three novels I'd read, I assumed (mistake) this would be just as good and cement her as one of the best up and coming horror/suspense novelists. While I still believe that is the case, this book did not help that cause whatsoever.

The Unseen is another supernatural yarn from Ms. Sokoloff, but is nothing like her other work; the book is quite tedious, the characters are lacking (for the most part) and there is really no climax to make the slow rising action worthwhile. As a basic outline, Dr. Laurel MacDonald is a new faculty member in Duke University's Psychology Department. Having come from California to completely forget her past life, she happens across a display on the parapsychology lab at Duke from the early 20th century, and finds out there are over 700 cases of files from said department that suddenly and mysteriously closed in the mid sixties. A colleague of hers shares the same interest, and, long story made short (not in the novel, unfortunately), they discover there was a house where the lab conducted a poltergeist experiment and something went terribly wrong. They decide to do the same experiment in the same house, using two students that have shown strong psi abilities as was done in the previous experiment.

Without delving further into the plot and giving away any spoilers, I can honestly say that this was a very disappointing novel. The intrigue factor was kept relatively high, despite needing to slog through the first two-thirds of the book, because of Sokoloff's clear talent and her ability to fire on all cylinders especially towards the end of a novel. In the case of "The Unseen," there was no huge, pyrotechnic climax to make up for the dull and overly lengthy rising action. Furthermore, the characters are just too two-dimensional and we really can't relate with them too well, taking away an emotional attachment we may have had during the storyline. This is a real shame, because Sokoloff took an interesting supernatural premise and really did nothing with it; at points it seemed as though she kept writing to see if she could come up with something at the end and make it all worthwhile. Sadly, she didn't: while there is a bit of a twist at the end, it's just too little and too late to save the book from its ultimate mediocrity.

Final Rating: 2.5*/5*