A British band gathers at the dark and disturbingly creepy Wylding Hall to record their music. The album makes them stars, but costs them their lead singer, Julian Blake, who wandered off into the house and disappeared. now, years later, the band and members of their family are going back to Wylding Hall. This time they will be accompanied by a filmmaker, their manager and a psychic. For the first time they will tell their own accounts about what happened that summer. But someone is not telling the truth.

A truly creepy Gothic novel that rivals the work of Susan Hill

Folk music in the US is viewed as an innocent, pastoral indulgence with roots in rural life. Its lilt between twittering energy and melancholy not for everyone, there was, however, a time when it reached the heights of popularity—Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Simon & Garfunkel, Carly Simon, and others big names of the 60s and 70s counter-culture movement. In England, however, folk music has added dimensions. Celtic history forever lingering in the background, the music can likewise have pagan undertones—the spirits of forest and meadow tucked into the melodies and lyrics. Bringing together a folk band and the counter-culture movement in England in the early 70s, Elizabeth Hand’s Wylding Hall (2015, Open Road Media) is not only a beautifully written piece of nostalgia, but also a story about the essences of an age past that still haunt the bucolic reaches of England’s countryside.

Flower power with dark undercurrents, Wylding Hall is written in documentary format. Akin to VH1’s Storyteller series, the novel steadily rotates through the recollections of the members of Windhollow Faire and the making of their smash hit album Wylding Hall. Some just teenagers when they joined the band, one magical summer in the deep countryside of England at a worn down manor changes their lives forever. Freedom, music, poetry, and a little hashish in the air, the light and joy of creation is offset by the shadows of Wylding Hall. Amidst the fun, unexplainable events offset what could be the greatest summer of their lives.

Hand writing the band members’ recollections from a contemporary view, she keeps things loosely in perspective by pointing out the differences in lifestyle a half-century of technology has brought about as well as several decades of age, maturity, and hindsight. Giving the novel a strong nostalgic feel, the social atmosphere and feel of the 60s and 70s counter-culture comes into fuller light. The novel heavily researched, Windhollow Faire is a fictional band, but the surrounding cultural references are not. The reader need not know John Bonham, Saint Dominic’s Preview, Todd Rundgren, The Wicker Man (the original, not the Nicholas Cage remake), The Pipes of Pan in Joujouka or the other little tidbits tucked into the narrative to appreciate the story, but doing so certainly provides that little cherry on top and gives the novel its full historical weight and pull.

Roughly three years since Hand’s last novel and four since her last short story, Wylding Hall has been a little while coming. But nothing has been lost. The prose is still finely crafted, there is still a soft touch with emotional undercurrents, Hand fully humanizes her characters, and of course, that little pinch of the fantastic to spice up the story is still added. The pagan elements utilized for their creepy and mythopoeic presence more than outright horror, the resulting story is Robert Johnson standing at the crossroads of British folk. Heaven can be touched, but you must pay the dark spirits of nature, not the devil.

Given the overall lack of genre attention (save the World Fantasy Award), the thought has crossed my mind that Hand’s talents are wasted on mainstream fans of science fiction and fantasy. It’s therefore it’s nice to see Open Road is not overtly advertizing the novel as genre, perhaps in the hopes more literary readers will take a look—and that look comes highly recommended.

One of the best books I've read through Netgalley. You know you've enjoyed reading something when the first thing you do afterwards is buy more of the author's books. I'd read at least a couple of Elizabeth Hand's novels years ago but lost track of what she was doing. I'm rectifying that.

Before reading Wylding Hall, I read a recent interview with Hand in which she mentioned some of Alan Garner's books as being favourites of hers. Garner wrote novels about Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, sometimes overtly fantasy, sometimes more strange and suggestive of fantastic elements. Ancient myths being replayed or echoed in the modern world were at the heart of novels like The Owl Service, which was filmed as a TV miniseries. A band of young English folk revivalists took the book's name for their own, doing a new take on 1970-style English folk rock -- which brings us back to Wylding Hall, a book about a fictional version of one of those bands and what may be a Garner-like ghost story they find themselves caught up in.

Wylding Hall takes the form of an oral history about a band and the mysterious events that occurred when they recorded their classic album at an old house in the English countryside, with the surviving band members, their manager, a journalist, a band member's ex-girlfriend, and a local talking about what happened -- the strange events in the house, the mysterious girl, the lead singer's disappearance.

There's a lot of nostalgia for early 70s books and TV shows like The Stone Tape, and for the music scene of the time (Hand acknowledges the recent book Rob Young’s Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music). Wylding Hall ties in with that without being a pastiche, by virtue of telling the story in the oral history format, with the characters being able to look back on the story's events from the present day. It's a technique that works well.

This is a fresh take on the classic ghost story. Highly recommended.

(Not the kind of book my library buys.)

Wylding Hall is a novel that will linger in the reader’s mind long after the last page is turned. Mysterious and haunting, Wylding Hall ensorcels the reader, making the impossible believable.

Myths and legends are captivating, particularly when you are young and open to believing that anything is possible. The sense of possibility beyond understanding encourages people to embrace old customs and superstitions and believe in magic.

After the death of a band member, the British folk band Windhollow Faire retreats to Wylding Hall for a summer devoted to the creation of their next album. Remote and filled with shadowy secrets, the country house provides incredible inspiration, but at a horrific cost. Not long after a trial recording of their new album, Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer and composer disappears without a trace.

Years later, when the album, Wylding Hall, unexpectedly returns Windhollow Faire to the spotlight, the band members reunite for a documentary, to tell the story of what happened that summer and what they think might have happened to Julian Blake.

Elizabeth Hand reveals the tale of Wylding Hall through the alternating narratives of the various surviving band members and associates. How much of each person’s story is true and what really happened to Julian Blake is up to the reader to decide.

Wylding Hall is a stunning gothic novel that does a wonderful job incorporating British myth and superstitions into a believable context. A sense of mystery and tense anticipation permeates Hand’s writing as more and more is revealed, chapter by chapter and layer by layer. I can highly recommend Wylding Hall to not only mystery lovers, but to anyone who enjoys unique books with a bit of magic.

I received a copy of Wylding Hall from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

–Crittermom

If you have ever followed a folk group or rock band in the early 70s, a band that went through some strange days in those strange but exciting times, you will very likely enjoy this book. If you have ever been caught up following any music group during your life, a group of mere mortals that you truly loved but then they simply faded from sight, then this book will probably fill some of those empty spaces.

Set in 1972, the members of an acid folk band are sent to Wylding Hall by their manager to work on their follow up album after a fairly successful debut. Wylding Hall itself had presence.

The place itself was immence. From outside, you just had no idea of the scale. It was originally a manor house, where a knight would have lived--you could see where the old part began, because the walls changed from wood and plaster to herringbone brick, with massive oaken joists and beams.
The hall grew narrower as I wandered along.
Diamond-paned windows, that beautiful leaded glass that catches the light and throws it back in rainbows, like a prism. (loc 839)

It's now unoccupied, in disrepair, but perfect for the band since it's remote, with only a small village nearby.

The setting for this book is the "anniversary" of the album from that time at the Hall as well as the mystery that happened there. It is told through the individual voices of the band members, manager and a couple of other people who happened to show up at the Hall during that summer. It is memory, recreation. I loved it.

I love the Gothic setting and mysterious background, each "you are there" remembrance. The inclusion of actual musical moments from 1972 is a great touch and adds authenticity.

I do recommend this book highly. I believe you will know if this is for you immediately!

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Unusual setting and genre (for me). Set in the 1970s a folk music/rock band of sorts has had its first hit and their manager Tom, knows that they have the capacity and the talent to pull in another great hit. The whole group of artistes are sent to Wylding Hall, a crumbling pile but with the isolation required for them to concentrate on their work. A motley group of youngsters complete with hash, very little money somehow make it work, but underlying it all is the strange sense of unease that there is something amiss with the Hall. The less sensitive ones brush it off but for some it is a danger that they will be pulled into a scheme they know nothing about, and still less how to handle it.

Told in individual points of view from both inside and outside Whylding Hall, the story keeps you on edge. I didn't know till the very end the outcome. I thought there would be a neat explanation. There wasn't.

Interestingly told from the point if music in the 70s and then the touch of the "other world" added a touch of both magic and mystery.

What rings true is that truth is malleable and there is no such thing as one story. When it comes to the past, to 'happenings' it's all about perspective and the reader gets into the memories of each member of the British folk rock group. Naturally, having been the 70's there is a hazy lining to what actually happened- particularly to Julian Blake, who seemed to vanish during their stay at the mysteriously errie Wylding Hall. Wylding Hall lends an ominous atmosphere to the story- the band made the best music of their lives while holed up without distractions. But something more happened. It kept me entertained, the beginning of the novel made it hard to get into but once I adjusted to the style I was keen on staying with the characters. Well done.

I loved this. It was like Fairport Convention meets Wicker Man (the Edward Woodward version, not icky Nicolas Cage), and the storytelling technique really worked to tease out the details of the plot. I only wish it had been longer.

I loved this book. It was the perfect mix of 1970s music fiction and gothic creepiness.

Very atmospheric with some truly terrifying moments; the characters were sympathetic and very believable. I was 'there' in the 1970s and Ms Hand has captured the feel of the times perfectly.

Highly recommended.

A beautiful, eerie, convincing novel.

Fans of Elizabeth Hand will recognize many of the themes and elements that she likes to return to. Music, subcultures and magic entwine to create a web that will enrapture the reader just as surely as it entraps her characters.

After a tragedy, the manager of the folk-rock group Windhollow Faire comes up with a plan to keep the band away from unfavorable publicity and get them started on a sophomore album. He rents out a rambling old manor house in a remote corner of England, and sets the band up with a rehearsal space there. His rules are: no friends, no journalists, no groupies. Just music. And they do indeed make wonderful music - the recordings from that summer are acknowledged to be better than anything any of them created before or since. But a bunch of wild hippie teenagers can't be expected to abide by too many rules.

And, it's hinted from the beginning, something else besides music happened that one wild summer. Something else besides drugs and sex, too.

The book proceeds from the idea that there's been a recent resurgence of interest in the music of Windhollow Faire, and a series of interviews on the topic of that summer at Wylding Hall is being conducted.

At first, the format is a little disorienting, as we read answers from people without being quite sure who they all are - but soon enough, the characters are firmly and vividly established, each with their own distinct voice and perspective. It captures a certain time period (the early 70's) and 'scene' perfectly (you can virtually hear the music), and adds in elements of pagan custom, ancient magic, and haunted house tales.

It works so well, because of the characters - how each person is affected (or not) is influenced by who they are. The crafted scenarios make even the oddest events plausible. Just enough is explained, and just enough left as enigma.

A lovely book, and highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Media for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are my own.

In 1972 a folk-rock band retreated to a crumbling Tudor manor house to work on songs for their second album. The guitarist disappeared, never to be heard from again. No one knows exactly what happened. Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand, is composed of interview material from the surviving band members, their manager, a journalist for NME, and a local kid who caught something weird on camera. Wylding Hall is frustratingly brief, even for a novella. Hand gives you hints of what might have happened, but the mystery of what really happened to Julian Blake remains.

Windhollow Faire, in 1972, was just starting to make a name for itself when manager Tom Haring sends the quintet of potheads off to the country to practice new material. Through the frame of interviews with an unnamed writer, each surviving member of the band gets a distinct voice. The bassist is resolutely grounded in the empirical. The drummer and fiddler aren't so sure there wasn't something supernatural going on. The other lead singer of the band seems to know a bit more, but she's been fighting off accusations of being a jilted girlfriend ever since that make her a less than willing informant.

Julian Blake is described by everyone who knew him as a shy man who didn't like to be touched. The only thing that draws him out of his shell are old songs and archaeology. When he discovers an old song by Thomas Campion, it's clear that there's something odd and wrong about it. It sounds like someone trying to cast a spell. That song and all the strange rhymes and folklore about wrens give the whole vibe around Wylding Hall a distinctly supernatural feeling.

Because we never hear from Julian himself, we will never know just what happened at Wylding Hall that long ago summer. This novella is definitely not for readers who don't like ambiguous endings.

I received a free copy of this ebook from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.