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Wylding Hall  By  cover art

Wylding Hall

By: Elizabeth Hand
Narrated by: Jennifer Woodward, John Telfer, Dan Morgan, Emma Fenney, Simon Victor, Kris Dyer, various narrators
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Publisher's summary

In the aftermath of the mysterious death of their lead singer, the young members of a now-legendary British acid folk band hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient English country house with its own dark secrets. There they record Wylding Hall, the album that makes their reputation - but at a terrifying cost when Julian Blake, their new lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen again.

Now, years later, the surviving musicians and their friends and lovers - including a psychic, a photographer, and the band's manager - meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened during that summer. But whose story is the true one? And what really happened to Julian Blake?

©2015 Elizabeth Hand (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about Wylding Hall

Average customer ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Surprisingly Delightful

I'm usually not a fan of shorter stories but I'm glad I took a chance on this one. The documentary style really drew me in and I eagerly listed to different sides of the story. I often listen to stories before bed and this one gave me nightmares - I loved it! A little mystery and atmosphere goes a long way and this writer is superb. Definitely teading/listening more from this author.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Big buildup, disappointing ending

Cast was well done, pulls you in, then nothing. This story was a tease, flirts with you with tantalizing details about a missing lead singer and his ghost girl. Then it ends with no explanation, just a tiny hint.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

meh...

no story... mildly interesting characters

i bought this because I thought that it was a horror novel.... it's not

best part? it's short !

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Okay but the story is kind of thin.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone audiobook that I borrowed through Audible Plus.

Audiobook Quality (4/5): The audiobook was well done and the two narrators do an excellent job with all of the different character voices. This is one I would definitely recommend listening to on audiobook.

Story (3/5): I have read, and really enjoyed, a lot of Hand’s books, unfortunately I thought this one was a bit weak. The story is pretty thin here, basically a band rents out a mysterious estate, Wylding Hall, to record their new record at. After the suicide of one of their members, the lead singer Julian Blake disappears in the house somehow under mysterious circumstances.

The events are revealed through a series of interviews with the band members, their significant others, and the band manager. There is a lot of sex, drugs, and drinking throughout. It’s just a little blip of a story that felt kind of thin and predictable to me. I think it’s supposed to be mysterious and creepy but the fact that you can tell that Julian disappeared right from the beginning of the story makes the whole thing anti-climatic.

Characters (3/5): You hear interviews with a lot of characters so it’s hard to keep them straight and engage with them. Julian is given this kind of bigger than life persona which I felt like he never deserved. I don’t know, the whole cast of characters was kind of “blah” to me.

Setting (3/5): Wylding Hall should have been an amazing setting but it wasn’t really described well enough for me to picture it fully. It doesn’t ever really seem all that creepy or scary to me. Just kind of your typical old house setting.

Writing Style (3/5): I liked the interview style this was written in and how it slowly reveals the story. However, I just felt like the whole story was so thin and the characters were so underdeveloped that I kind of didn’t care about any of it.

My Summary (3/5): Overall I would have been just fine never listening to this, this is definitely not one of Hand’s finer stories. I would recommend skipping this. The whole premise is pretty thin and not well thought out and all the jumping between characters makes the story feel really fractured.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent Traditional Spooky Old House Yarn

I listened to music from this era often and happily, and the capture of the moment stitched in with a deft spooky tale (told nonsequentially and expertly) kept my attention with rare spirit. What a fine piece of work! Like an old Rolling Stone oral history combined with a Diana Rigg ghost story.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it

This is a unique and creepy book. Don’t let the multiple narrators put you off. It’s perfect

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Unexpected Gem

I listened to this on a drive from Houston to New Orleans (was the perfect length) and was pleasantly surprised. This is formatted like a documentary so if you like true crime docs or podcasts, this will feel a lot like that. the characters were really well fleshed out despite this being a fairly short story. The full cast performance and informal interview-style prose really helped the characters come to life.

As far as the story goes, the actual horror elements are subtle and sparse, but that's okay because it feels like you're being told a good ghost story by a mix of believers and skeptics. Unlike some of the other reviewers, I appreciated that not everything was spelled out for you, you won't get any clear answers from this story, because of the (sometimes unreliable) narrators recounting this in their own words. If you don't like stories that don't get neatly wrapped up, you may want to avoid this one.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The very definition of "middling"

In the end, the problem is really that... not much happens. So there's a disappearance, years before the book takes place, but you're not really given any reason to care. This is a full-cast recording and, as is often the case, performance quality varies. At its best, this book has a kind of misty, nostalgic folk-horror quality, like a memory of watching The Wicker Man on a crisp autumn night years ago. But it doesn't hit those notes for long, alas. It does rather leave one wanting to listen to a lot of Fairport Convention, though.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I kept waiting for the story to start.

This was a nice trip down memory lane of the '70s, but the story was not well defined except that a guy's gone missing. Nobody knows what happened to him but they think he left with a girl.

Not a complaint wised of my time but I would not listen again.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Nothing really happens

It's alright, nothing great though. it's mostly Atmosphere with a disappearance we are told happened at the very beginning. there are some creepy moments toward the end of the book but not really worth the journey. still it is short and good to listen to so if you're looking for something that's mostly mood I would recommend this.

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1 person found this helpful