Audiobook Review – Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand, Narrated by Jennifer Woodward, John Telfer (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Length: 4 hours and 37 minutes
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Release Date: March 20, 2015
ASIN : B00V04BPF4
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook borrowed through Audible Plus
Rating: 3/5 stars
“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?”
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.
