Blog tour: The Murmurings by Carly Anne West

Hello everyone, today as part of The Murmurings blog tour hosted by Shane @ Itching For Books I will be sharing my review with you. But first here's a bit about the book.

Publication date: March 5th 2013
My rating: 3 stars

Everyone thinks Sophie’s sister, Nell, went crazy. After all, she heard strange voices that drove her to commit suicide. But Sophie doesn’t believe that Nell would take her own life, and she’s convinced that Nell’s doctor knows more than he’s letting on.

As Sophie starts to piece together Nell’s last days, every lead ends in a web of lies. And the deeper Sophie digs, the more danger she’s in—because now she’s hearing the same haunting whispers. Sophie’s starting to think she’s going crazy too. Or worse, that maybe she’s not….

Me and horror books never go, scrap that me and horror anything never go. If you ever put on an horror film on I’ll be the first one out of the room. But when I came across The Murmurings, I admit I was intrigued, the cover totally creeped me out, also lately I have been tearing my way through mystery books more and really enjoying them. So I was eager to find out the mystery surrounding Sophie’s sister and what really happened to her.

Sophie’s sister Nell had been admitted to the Oakside Behavioural institute after displaying some strange behaviour, Dr Keller from the institute deemed this as the perfect place for Nell to be at. And Sophie and her mum thought so too. But if everything was peachy there, why would Nell run off with one of the orderlies and end up dead? Sophie immediately regrets not being there for Nell when she needed her the most, so she makes it her mission to get to the bottom of the truth.

What I liked about The Murmurings was that I totally hadn’t thought about what had happened to Nell, I had some assumptions, But Carly Anne West blew these right out of the water, with the aspect she did decide to focus on. I can’t really say what it is without giving the entire plot away, but it was never something I would have considered.

Sophie was singled out at school because of everyone knowing about what had happened with her sister and everyone else assuming the same would happen to her. So it was great that Sophie found a friend in Ethan, someone she could confide in. They both soon realised they had so much in common and decided to do some investigating of their own. Their journey was one of horrific discoveries and heartache, but they both battled on to discover the truth. I admired how Sophie soldiered on, the weedy weak individual I was first led to believe that she was one that quickly disappeared. Her love and her affection for her sister came strongly through, as she would go to any extremes to get to the truth. But the one thing that bugged me about Sophie was how she went barging into situations without thinking things through and by breaking promises along the way. I understand that she wanted to bring an end to the horrible things that had happened and which took Nell away. But there were also people who cared about her, her mum was barely coping from the loss of Nell, and then she goes and immediately puts her own life at risk.

The Murmurings wasn’t as scary as I was expecting, but there were aspects that creeped me out. The concept was different from a lot of the books that I had seen out there, the only issue I had was down to pacing, it took forever for finally something major to kick off, so I welcomed the second half which was more action packed and kept me riveted until the last page. I was pleased with the way things were wrapped up, with so many unanswered questions finally being able to put to rest.

The Murmurings was a book which was very different to what I’d normally pick, but I think West did a good job in producing a novel mixed with mystery, creepiness and romance. I would certainly recommend giving it a try if you’re looking an unconventional read.