Karen’s Reviews > Wylding Hall > Status Update

Suffice to say that the description of those pictures in that last chapter severely creeped me out.
Difficult to erase.
Not going to be an easy night sleeping.
Thanks, Elizabeth Hand…thanks so much for that 😵‍💫

Pale girl with silvery hair.
Long white ragged dress.
Bare feet.
Busy bar in 1970s backwater England countryside.
Nope, I doubt anyone thought she was odd or out of place (or time).

Rath (n). I had to look it up.

(in Ireland) a strong circular earthen wall forming an enclosure and serving as a fort and residence for a tribal chief.

And here I thought we were dealing with a simple faerie mound.

Fairy mounds.
Interesting.

I’m loving the format of this book.
So perfect for the arrangement.
Revealing the pieces one breadcrumb at a time.
Very cool

From chapter 7, toward the end:

“…like a kid playing with electricity. Fiddling with the wireless, touching the electric fence to get a little shock.”

This book gives me the same chill that I get every time I read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. It gets under your skin.
Goosebumps🆒

I grew up on folk music,so the added delight is the well-researched background in this book.
Songs, titles, songwriters, performers.
It brings back fond memories.
But it’s true. The songs have meaning, sometimes buried deep inside innocent sounding lyrics.

I saw where some readers didn’t enjoy the format of this book.
I find I like it.
It’s immersive, seductively so.
It feels like sitting at the feet of each character as they explain how they painted their portion of a mural.

At the start of the next chapter (chapter 3), one of the greatest initial sighting house descriptions ever:

“The house was a glorious wreck. Like some drunken grande dame who’s lost everything except the clothes and jewels she’s wearing and refuses to leave the after-party. I’ve known a few of those girls.”