Idle Grounds

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

As always with these things it started with a birthday party.

On a bright summer day in 1989 New England, Abi, three years old, vanishes from her aunt’s secluded home. Upstairs, her young cousins are looking out of the window. Something is unfolding in the distance at the edge of the forest – something sinister that is watching them back.

The adults don’t seem to notice that the youngest of the group has disappeared. Too busy bickering over politics and reminiscing about the family’s domineering late matriarch, Beezy, they leave the children with no choice but to get Abi back themselves. As the cousins embark on a quest through their grandmother’s sprawling estate, buried family secrets come to light and long-awaited plans are set in motion. Will they lose themselves while trying to find her?

Idle Grounds is a chilling, evocative and darkly comic debut about childhood, legacy, and the burdens and privileges we carry with us.

'Deviously subtle and intoxicatingly sinister, Idle Grounds conjures up a new language of nightmare symbolism to fill the reader's heart with dread. A deservedly assured debut!' LEON CRAIG

© Krystelle Bamford 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

This richly imagined, atmospheric novel marches to its own beat . . . It’s a novel that constantly wrongfoots the reader, switching seamlessly between moments of terror and hilarity. Idle Grounds will trick and tease you to the bitter end
The Times
Bamford conjures, in vivid, amplified language, how children fluidly and unpredictably make sense of the world … [Idle Grounds] is unsettlingly, sharply funny at times, with carefully built-up layers of dis-ease delivered in a comic deadpan
Guardian
This debut novel is superb
The Telegraph
Idle Grounds is a masterclass in misdirection
Financial Times
Unsettling, puckish, and brilliantly written, this novel is an absolute one-off. I loved it
Claire Fuller
Magical, perplexing and funny in a wholly original way
Rachel Yoder
An acid trip of a novel. Weird, sinister and darkly funny. I can't wait to see what Bamford does next
Amy Twigg
An unforgettable narrative voice that brings to mind both JD Salinger and Shirley Jackson.
Francine Toon
With an unrelenting, formidable energy, Bamford has a style characterised by a startling vividness and valiant humour … this is a debut which marks the arrival of a singular new talent
Irish Times
Glimmering with foreboding, Bamford’s debut is an eerie consideration of family secrets in a sun-dappled setting . . . The novel casts an atmospheric spell with its surreal episodes and hints of unhappiness . . . One family’s murky hinterland is evoked in modern gothic form. Curious and original
Kirkus Reviews

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