Ever since Sophie’s older sister Nell was found dead in Jerome, Arizona, she’s been grieving. But it’s not simply grieving. There’s something suspicious about Nell’s death that Sophie can’t wrap her head around. Her sister suffered from what the doctors called Schizophrenia — she was hearing voices and they were telling her to do things that weren’t okay. Nell had tried committing suicide with a piece of shattered mirror glass, for example, after she’d been told she had to do that.

Nell was found hanging by her toe from a tree.

Sophie withdraws in school. She doesn’t care. She’s late all the time. She doesn’t care. Maybe she even looks forward to her punishment for being tardy because it means a little time with Evan, the new boy. Evan transferred to her school just six months ago from the other side of Phoenix. And as much as Sophie thinks falling for the new boy is so cliche, well, she does anyway.

It’s possible that Evan’s cousin Deb may have the clues to unlocking what happened to Nell at Oakside Behavioral Institution. He knows Sophie’s story. That’s because it’s his story, too. Together, Sophie and Evan are going to comb through the clues of Nell’s mysterious death, of the suspicious Dr. Keller who runs the Institution, and maybe save cousin Deb and everyone else still under Keller’s orders.

The Murmurings is West’s debut novel, and it’s straight-up horror. There are paranormal elements, but it’s not a paranormal romance. The overarching tone and mood of the novel is horror. Things happen that don’t make sense and that are creepy. Nell’s body was found dangling by a toe. It’s possible there is more than one character whose fate, too, will be found dangling upside down by a toe.

West builds great atmosphere in her novel. This is achieves not only through strong writing, but through great setting. The book takes place primarily in a couple of places: Jerome, Arizona and Oakside. Jerome, for anyone unfamiliar, is known for being the Wickedest City in the West. Weird things happen. Weird people live there. While Evan knows that Sophie’s sister died while being treated for her illness, he isn’t aware that she was found dead in Jerome, and knowing Sophie’s love of horror, Evan wants to take her there for a date because, well, it’s scary. Little does he know how scary, and when Sophie gets wind of this plan, she immediately breaks down and tells Evan about Nell’s death. Of course, he backpedals. It doesn’t stop them from a trip to Jerome, though.

It just makes their trip have a different purpose when they realize that Dr. Keller’s former second-hand man may have the clues to unlocking the truth of Oakside.

Oakside is the second primary setting. It’s here where the true action unfolds. It’s creepy. We know how the doors do and don’t work. We know that Pigeon — one of the heads in the facility — is to be feared. We know that those admitted here as patients all have something off about them. More than anything, though, we know that Dr. Keller isn’t in his right mind either. I can’t explain a whole lot more without unraveling the rest of the plot, but I can offer this much: Keller’s grieving his own loss. And it’s because of his own loss that he lords over his patients. It’s his grief that forces him to behave as he does, and Oakside is his playground. While it’s true Nell may have experienced Schizophrenia, she’s forced through treatment by Keller that comes as a result of his need to control, rather than his need to actually treat his patients.

Where The Murmurings doesn’t work, though, is in much of the execution of the story. It relies heavily on coincidence and on telling the reader backstory, rather than allowing the reader to piece it together. Evan and Sophie’s trip to Jerome allows them to meet Keller’s former partner at Oakside, Adam. Both were aware of Adam prior to their trip because he ran a blog “exposing” the truth of the treatments at the Institution, but when they arrive and find him in an underground bunker, Adam tells them everything. Yes, tells. We learn about Keller’s loss. We learn how his loss created different types of creepy creatures (these being a metaphor for the loss, that is). And Sophie’s fear that she’s becoming like Nell in hearing voices and having issues with mirrors? That’s part of the loss Keller suffered and it’s inflicted upon her because she’s part of Nell by being her sister. While readers are allowed to be skeptical about Adam’s information dumping, there’s not enough loops thrown from this point out to allow questioning. Sure, there are times Sophie wonders if she and Evan were led astray, but it doesn’t quite translate for the readers. Especially as more pieces snap into place.

At times, the story dragged because of the insistence on telling. Lengthy passages of back story of Oakside and of Keller and of the Tellers/Seekers/Insiders were uninteresting. It would have been much more effective for these things to occur throughout Sophie’s journey of discovery, rather than to have them incorporated simply as story explanation. In other words, the hand holding of the reader leads to a less-than-satisfying resolution and weak tension building. So where West is able to offer good atmosphere, her writing fails to conjure the same strength in tension. Since much of horror hinges on both elements working with one another in a story like this, having one of these elements lack impacts the greater whole. It doesn’t mean there’s not tension — there is and at times it’s quite creepy — but opportunities to take it a step further were instead used as opportunities to tell too much.

Likewise, The Murmurings depended a lot on coincidence. Evan, the new boy, of course has the key to unlocking the truth of Nell. Of course his cousin was friends with Nell at the institution. Of course Sophie just trusts him and she just trusts Adam. It was too easy for the characters and too easy for the reader. Had there been more red herrings and more plot twists, then this could have gone from an okay story to a great one.

The exploration of grief in conjunction with horror isn’t new territory, but thematically, it works well here. After letting this book settle for a while, another small element I felt worked spectacularly well was the parallel storyline of Sophie’s interest in and passion for Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. She claims she doesn’t like it. And while that’s likely true, it plays a larger role in her own life than she’s likely to admit. This metaphor was a smart way to bookend Sophie’s own story.

Pass The Murmurings off to readers who want a horror story that doesn’t rely on creatures to tell it. Yes, it’s possible there’s a creature or two here, but it’s not in the werewolf/ghost/vampire/zombie tradition. That may or may not be up to the reader’s interpretation of what’s real and what exists within the mind. This is a story about mental illness and about grief and loss and how those things can tangle, twist, and mangle a person. Readers who want scary will find it here. Even though this didn’t quite capture my attention and didn’t quite deliver on the fear factor in the way I anticipated, West’s writing is strong enough and the potential for going even further in the next story make me eager to see what she delivers next.

The Murmurings will be available March 5 from Simon Pulse. Review copy received from the publisher.