THE WAKENING by JG Faherty – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Wakening by JG Faherty
Published by Flame Tree Press on January 25 2022
Genres: Adult, Horror
Pages: 384
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: An ancient evil terrorizes a small town in this ambitious new novel from Bram Stoker finalist JG Faherty. 

If you’re a fan of The Exorcist, you might want to check out The Wakening, which takes inspiration from the classic horror story but adds unique elements to the mix as well. This is a fairly fast-paced story, gruesome at times, and creepy as hell! That being said, I did have some issues with the length and the sheer number of characters involved, but I’ll go into more details below.

The story is framed around an interview that takes place in the present day. Stone Graves was the star of a TV show called In Search of the Paranormal, where he and his team investigated reports of hauntings and other paranormal activity, with a bent toward debunking them. Stone has written a book called A Town Possessed that describes the harrowing experiences he and his TV crew encountered while filming an actual exorcism. As he promotes his new book, the story delves back into the past and describes what happened to Abby Rawlings, the possessed young girl.

Most of the story takes place in the small town of Hastings Mills, New York and revolves around the Rawlings family and their daughter Abby. Stone and his crew are anxious to set up their equipment and start filming the eerie events surrounding the Rawlings household—levitating furniture, objects flying through the air, etc.—but when even weirder things start happening, like a rain of rocks that ends up killing an innocent bystander, Stone knows he’s facing a paranormal event unlike anything he’s ever dealt with before.

In alternating chapters, the story jumps back in time to show the events leading up to Abby’s possession. Fifty-five years ago, we meet a young exorcist named Leo Bonaventura who has a run-in with a demon named Asmodeus, who tells him that the two will “meet again.” Jumping ahead fifteen years, a priest named Doyle Bannon jumps from a fifth floor window at the Alphonse School in Hastings Mills, and Father Leo is called to replace him. Ten years later, a group of teens breaks into the fifth floor of the school to see if rumors of it being haunted are true. A tragedy occurs, and Father Leo, who still works there, vows to protect the town from the demon who he suspects caused it. Finally, twenty years before Abby’s possession we meet twin sisters Shari and Claudia, who can communicate psychically with each other and who attract all sorts of paranormal activity whenever they are together. In the present day, Claudia and Shari are part of Stone’s TV crew, responsible for sensing paranormal activity and the presence of otherworldly spirits.

All of these characters will converge on Hastings Mills for various reasons, including disgraced priest Rob Lockhart who is trying to atone for past sins by helping Abby. Something evil has come to Hastings Mills—or was it already there?

This is a rather over-wrought recap of the plot, which is hard to encapsulate in only a few paragraphs. Yes, there is a lot going on in The Wakening, with multiple characters and timelines to keep track of. Still, I had a lot of fun with this story. Faherty does a great job of setting up his house of cards, introducing his characters, and describing the many connections between them. I loved the idea of a demon who continues to terrorize a town over many years, and the priests who were affected by it and their emotional states as they deal with the evil. The demon itself isn’t a character in the story, per se, but rather an entity who works through innocent humans to terrorize anyone who comes into contact with it. In mythology, Asmodeus represents lust, and there’s no shortage of that here. Many people in Hastings Mills are struck by sudden desire and act on it in bizarre and disturbing ways, but with Asmodeus in control, nothing ends well—sex might be followed by a bullet to the brain, in other words.

As you can imagine for a story with so many timelines, there’s quite a bit of set up in the beginning. The pacing doesn’t really pick up until the last quarter or so, when the exorcism parts kick in, but I honestly didn’t mind the slower pace. I was fascinated by the different priests and their experiences with exorcisms, as well as their connections with some of the civilian characters. Expect to see lots of standard “exorcism movie” fare late in the story, complete with sweet young Abby spewing swear words in a gruff voice, levitating and spinning furniture, and yes even some vomit. The story seems to involve both the demon and poltergeists, and this part confused me, as there was so much going on, but I can’t deny it was all very entertaining!

As for negatives, there were just too many characters and too many timelines to keep track of. And instead of the story simply focusing on the exorcism of Abby, the demon seems to be able to possess anyone in Hastings Mills and make them do crazy things. It’s all a bit much, like trying to watch a three ring circus, except there are six rings instead. I also felt the story went on a little too long, especially the exorcism scenes, which felt repetitive and drawn out.

But I really enjoyed Faherty’s writing style, as well as his energetic narrative, and I’d definitely be up for reading more of his books in the future.

Big thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy.