This is mostly because of the open-ended ending that just leaves enough room for every possible outcome to have actually taken place. The overall story was good, but not excellent. So, well done to everyone involved with making this. If someone had hit play and told me I was listening to an unexplained mystery as told by the surviving members of the band that actually lived it, I’d totally have believed them. The narrators all did a wonderful job of actually sounding like they lived the experiences being talked about and, I’ll be entirely honest, there were large portions of this where I felt the acting was so good that I just totally forgot it was fiction. I can’t speak for the printed version, but the documentary style of this worked insanely well via audio book. Which, if I’m honest, is the absolute best way for me. I’ll be honest, I had zero clue what to expect (having never experienced the author before), so this is one of those rare books that I can just go in blind and have no preconceived notion as to how good or bad I think a title will be. Wylding Hall was something that caught my eye on the Audible Plus collection and, with it being a freebie through that, I felt there was zero risk in giving it a go. But whose story is the true one? And what really happened to Julian Blake? 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. 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. 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.

Wylding hall by elizabeth hand