Adored adored adored. Every sentence of this book was like poetry, and it was so filled with atmosphere it felt almost hypnotised by it. The writing is stunning and the ‘story’ of an afternoon in a group of cousins in childhood is just stunningly told.

It was an interesting read. Very different. A little confusing at times, and not at all what I was expecting. But very different and very original.

An eerie triumph of voice and atmosphere, this is hard to write about because it is nebulous and ill-defined, but that’s kind of the point - it’s the wide-eyed wonder of a childhood day spent outdoors exploring somewhere new you’re not really supposed to be. It has a magical realism vibe, where things aren’t necessarily logical but make emotional sense, with an ominous undertow bubbling away.

Spooky, strange debut told from the perspective of a group of cousins, 2 of which go missing at a family party. I found the plot itself to be slippery and hard to follow but really enjoyed the themes of generational storytelling and mythmaking, as well as the really dark sense of family psychology. A little like The Virgin Suicides except you struggle understand your parents, rather than the girls next door.

Hard to describe without actually describing the plot. Strange slightly fever dream of a book that captures that sort of innocent, timeless wanderings and sense making of children. It took me a while to get into it I’m honest because the style of writing can be difficult to follow (I think this is intentional).
I did enjoy it though and it was a very short read if you want something to pass a winter evening!
Thank you to netgalley for the copy!

I'll admit this story ended up being weirder than what I was hoping for, and now I'm not sure I liked it.
I did like the cousins dynamics among themselves, and how they see the adults in their lives, their interpretation of those adults - especially Frankie.
But it lacked something for me. I think this book is too short to have so many characters. Most of the time I completely forgot there were that many cousins on their 'adventure'. Except for the narrator and 2 other kids, they all read identical to one another.
Also, the writing style didn't appeal to me that much.
Not bad, in my opinion. Just not my favourite.
I wanna thank NetGalley and the publisher for gently providing me with a free eARC of this novel.

I really didn’t know what to make of this book. I enjoyed reading it and it was well written - a masterclass in scene setting and creating an uneasy vibe throughout. There’s an almost oppressive feeling woven through the book which doesn’t come to a head until the very end when summing up the fate of the characters.

The book is reminiscent of childhood, where you’re constantly vying for adult attention but mainly just left to your own devices. The parents and aunts/uncles are mostly a mystery, except the weird and wonderful Frankie. The book reflects the odd and complicated relationships within families well. Overall a pleasant if not disconcerting read!

Goodreads shows this book with a hideous reddish cover which, although I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, cheapens the book, while the green cover shown on Storygraph and Netgalley is a better reflection of the little gem that this book was.

It's a very short book, I am not even sure it even counts as a novella at 112 pages, but it's tense, mysterious, touching. We follow a group of children, cousins attending the birthday of kind Aunt Frankie who devoted herself to caring for her cruel elderly mother, as the adults around them ignore their worries that little Abi has gone missing. The children all decide to go and look for her together in the woods around Frankie's house, when Travis, twelve, also goes missing.

It's hard to explain but I found that the book really makes you feel what it can mean to be a child, with everything being a bit magical and a bit scary. The atmosphere felt gothic at times, and it was beautifully written and just easy to get absorbed into. I haven't looked up Krystelle Bamford yet but I hope she has other books out.

Free ARC sent by Netgalley.

I requested this because I thought it sounded creepy, and it's true there is a sense of dread while reading. I can see why people like this, but the writing style didn't work for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

In short this one is strange, weird and tense. It’s the story of a group of cousins at a party who go in search of something they’ve seen in the woods, and one of the group who goes of one their own. I actually really enjoyed it, you never quite know what’s going on, just that something dark and strange is lurking and has the power to make everything go wrong. It’s quirky and funny, and written in a way that takes you along for the ride. It’s a nice short one and completely different which makes it all the more enjoyable.

I loved this book for a lot of reasons, first and foremost, the narrator, our protagonist, is absolutely fantastic. Coming from the point of view of a child is a difficult thing to get right but Bamford nailed it. The narration is childlike in the sense that the scares are bubbling away and building up through what they're seeing and feeling and hearing, but in the next breath they're telling you about a great candy bar they had been obsessed with. Either that or they're making some flippant remark about a member of the family. It keeps true to the mindset of a child, painting the memory in such a light that it becomes unreliable in its horror. The foreboding of the 'bad thing' is so excellent, only mentioned briefly and then we continue on the journey with them. I loved the way I was on edge, I felt like the environment was built so perfectly for a horror, it's subtle and effective.

In the same vein, there is nostalgia sprinkled throughout this book which everyone can relate to, putting you more in the story and embedded, invested even, in what is going to happen. The family dynamics are engaging and real - again, excellently done.

Overall, this book is a 5 star for me, the pace is fast and the writing is engaging. A great read for someone who likes horror but not the gore, if you want to be spooked out, read this.

Zip zip zip.

The plot of ‘Idle Grounds’ is tricky to summarise as it’s not obvious what’s going on. The novel is set during a family party on a Summer’s afternoon when the parents are preoccupied with one another and the unsupervised cousins play outside in a ramshackle large garden. The narrator is now an adult looking back at this pivotal childhood event and also speculating about how their grandmother Beezy met her end before she was born. She’s inclined to let her attention wander resulting in several ‘intermission’ chapters that break up the narrative. The reader gets the impression from her unusual turns of phrase that the narrator is trying a bit too hard to seem literary and that adds a layer of humour to the account.
I was simultaneously intrigued and bemused by this strange book - it helps that it’s not very long. It reminded me of those songs about childhood from the psychedelic era that convey menace as well as nostalgia. A very real sense of threat is lurking even though we don’t know what it actually is!

The main storyline in this debut novel by poet Krystelle Bamford is set over one hot June day, in the 80s, in rural New England. A group of young cousins have gathered, with their respective families, for a birthday party at the house of their unmarried aunt Frankie. Left to their own devices, the children explore the house and, from the window of an upstairs bathroom, spot something eerie and undefined, prowling in the grounds of the property. Three-year-old Abi runs down and promptly disappears. For the rest of the day, the children, led by eldest cousin – twelve-year old Travis – explore the house and its surroundings, looking for Abi but, by the end of the day, discovering more than they bargained for.

This type of novel – in which a now-adult narrator looks back to a defining event in childhood/youth – has become a genre in itself. It takes an original writer to make such a story stand out, and Bamford fits the bill.

What, I felt, makes this slim novel memorable is the idiosyncratic voice of the unnamed narrator. It combines within it the wide-eyed wonder of the child who experienced the day’s events, and the more-knowing style of an adult who, perhaps, is trying too hard to sound like a “literary author”. The result is a narration which is at times eerie and unsettling, surrounded by a magical aura (we never learn what exactly the children were seeing from the bathroom window – probably a figment of their fertile imagination) and, at others, darkly humorous in an offbeat way. The narrator, for instance, has a knack for convoluted metaphors and irrelevant digressions, but then surprises us with passages of poetic intensity.

Bamford also keeps a tight control over the plot. As the day unfolds and things come to a head, there are several flashbacks and flashforwards which allow the readers to slowly piece together the dark history of this eccentric family, dominated by the matriarchal figure of Grandma “Beezy” and her mysterious demise. Thus the novel achieves a double-climax – one happens on the day of the main storyline, but it coincides with our discovery of what actually happened to Beezy. It’s all very clever and well-crafted, turning a now-common trope into a memorable debut.

4.5*

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2024/08/idle-grounds-by-krystelle-bamford.html

I was initially interested in the plot and subject of this book, but unfortunately found the writing to be incredibly hard to get through! It felt a little clunky and the characters were over written and hard to understand and root for. Not for me.