I really liked this until the end when it whiffed things in giving a sort of explanation but one that didn't really connect with any of the images and ideas otherwise brought up, and that sort of retrospectively made me rethink stuff and enjoy it a little less.

There's lots I really liked here - the early 1970s music scene conjured up has verisimilitude. The house is nicely sketched out and creepy. In general I really, really liked the atmosphere. One particular scene has old photos depicting a peculiar custom on the walls of the pub. For some reason that really resonated with me, pubs having old stuff on their walls that had some connection to local stuff but is barely understood now is common even today. There's a lot of just really nicely done detail to create a great atmosphere that feels very connected to British "folk horror" stuff even though almost everything is merely "sinister" than actually scary.

Nothing really gets explained - it's all about something inexplicable and how it affects a bunch of people. That's fine. I enjoyed that. But there is an attempt to provide a basis for some of it at the end - decades later a neolithic tomb is discovered under the house. Which... ok? It feels weirdly like bringing something concrete into something which doesn't need it.

Basically like, the best, creepiest images were around wrens. The walking into a room and there's suddenly all these dead wrens on the floor. Or when one of them walks into the room the guy disappeared in and finds wrens just flying in and committing suicide. The whole thing around that feels genuinely creepy and with the photos of the wren hunting tradition it builds into a folk horror thing - even if there's no explanation or understanding the images themselves are so good and there's the general atmosphere of "there's this ancient tradition of some kind relating to something Bad but as outsiders it's impossible to understand" that's really great. So that the girl is like, just some random girl except in a photo she had 2 sets of teeth or something? and there's no real explanation but also it doesn't really connect to the images is a bit disappointing... it feels a little disconnected. Idk. Basically I really liked it all along and then at the end I was just like ahhh if only this all tied together a little more, you know?

One thing I felt curious about was that right at the start the band members talk a bit about one of their ex-bandmates committed suicide or possibly was murdered? which felt like it SHOULD be important and somehow connect or parallel other stuff but I never felt there was any thematic resolution on that... hmm. It's quite possible there's some hints about stuff that I just missed and if you thought it through more there's a little more to the story. But I dunno. ( )

Read for a graduate Studies in Fiction seminar at CU Boulder.

I was absolutely blown away by this read. It was not only entertaining, but also beautifully written. I loved the author's approach to building horror and suspense while refraining from all the usual tropes of horror/haunted house. An echo of this haunting story has stayed with me all day - a sure sign that I've stumbled on (or been led to) something bloody brilliant.

Do give this one a read - and if you'd rather have a listen, the audio version of this is STELLAR. One of the best I've ever heard. Each of the novel's characters is portrayed by a different voice actor, and they do an amazing job of making the whole thing sound like they are giving interviews for a documentary! ( )

Interesting story about a folk group (Windhollow Faire) in the 1970’s who go to an isolated old house (Wylding Hall) in the country because their manager wants them to get away from it all and concentrate on making their new album. This story is told in interview style by members of the band in present day, letting us know what happened all those years ago at Wylding Hall which led up to the vanishing of their charismatic lead singer, Julian Blake. Eerie and spooky at times, this was quite a captivating read. But I did have a lot of unanswered questions about what exactly happened to Julian and the mysterious girl, among other things, by the end of the book. ( )

Daisy Jones & The Six-like format of band member interviews and looking back forty years or so. Subtle and chilling. ( )

Windhollow Faire are an up-and-coming acid folk band who have been sent to Wylding Hall, an ancient English country mansion, by their manager, to create their first album. The album they make becomes a classic but it is bathed in tragedy as the band’s mercurial singer disappears during the sessions. Years later the surviving band members and those involved in the Wylding Hall recordings come together to tell their own version of what happened at the mysterious mansion. Elizabeth Hand weaves a magical tale that splendidly merges a compelling tale of a young band with the mythology of wren and fairy. The story is cleverly crafted in documentary style with multiple unreliable narrators, giving differing viewpoints and justification of events. The story is mysterious and atmospheric with Hand’s descriptions giving the whole thing a magical, uncanny feeling. The golden, drug-infused meanderings of the band work brilliantly with the slowly revealing fairy tale at the centre of the narrative. The band and its hippy-dippy members feel correct and Hand drops in names and places from the late ‘60s / early ‘70s folk scene that gives their story a real authenticity. The fairy elements are also cleverly handled and although never explicitly mentioned there is enough in the folkloric wren elements and the fey, feather-footed girl to make it clear that Windhollow Faire are encountering the little folk. I loved everything about “Wylding Hall”. ( )