Harvest of Scorn

This is the final book in F.G. Cottam's “The Colony” trilogy. In the prior books, we learned the history of New Hope Island, where two hundred years before an entire community had simply disappeared. In the first installment of the trilogy, we followed a band of characters who went to New Hope Island as a publicity stunt for a newspaper. On that expedition, many died and a few escaped when a historical ghost mystery was solved.

The surviving characters found love and friendship, but were recalled to the island when an expedition of writers disappear on New Hope Island. Again, there is a present day mystery and a historical mystery that both must be solved.

Both books were filled with eerie, supernatural happenings, chief among them being a film showing a young girl floating off the ground. The ghostly girl is the late Rachel Balentine, the daughter of the founder of the 18th century New Hope colony. She's been around for a long time, brought back as a result of a slave's curse against her father, but is there more?

Now, it is around two years later and billionaire Felix Baxter intends to build the “New Hope Experience” into a destination resort. Then, a worker mysteriously disappears. The survivors learn of this event. They have unfinished business with Rachel, and, so, they return again to New Hope Island to deal with Rachel, the curse, and perhaps something more deadly than either.

This story is fast-moving. The atmospherics of the story are creepy. The characters are like old friends after the last two books. I think this trilogy would make an excellent movie.