Shortlisted for Scotland’s National Book Award for Debut Fiction 2025
‘Short, ambitious, wildly original…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 Groundswill trick and tease you to the bitter end.’ —The Sunday Times
‘This debut novel is superb. Idle Grounds is a remarkable, preternatural study of a family reckoning with its own history. It’s rare to see children in fiction inhabited so fully. Bamford’s are decisive and autonomous, and deeply weird. She’s masterful at showing the preoccupations one has, briefly, in childhood. The frightening and inexplicable is always right there; age just allows us to ignore it. Bamford’s arresting novel briefly unveils the strangeness once again.’ —The Telegraph
‘Bamford conjures, in vivid, amplified language, how children fluidly and unpredictably make sense of the world… like all the best genre fiction it makes its own singular and potent space for the reader. The novel is unsettlingly, sharply funny at times, with carefully built-up layers of dis-ease delivered in a comic deadpan.’ —Guardian
‘Idle Grounds ushers the reader through the young clan’s quest with an unrelenting, formidable energy. One part child adventure novel, one part wry family history and another part social commentary, this is a debut which marks the arrival of a singular new talent.’ —The Irish Times
‘Idle Grounds is a masterclass in misdirection.’ —Financial Times, Best New Debut Novels
‘Funny, lyrical and surreal…Bamford keeps us guessing until the very end.’—Mail on Sunday
‘[A] gorgeous, spirited debut. Absorbing … the writing is so enthralling.’—Literary Review
‘The first time I encountered such an unsettling response to a book was The Sacred Fount, a late novel by Henry James, which I’ve subsequently re-read and never quite caught its sublime out-of-kilter-ness. It is a quality much in evidence in American-born, Scots-resident Krystelle Bamford’s extremely accomplished debut…immensely subtle and controlled.’ —The Scotsman
‘This is the voice of a shared memory: a bright summer’s day remembered through the prism of childhood confusion and subsequent endless retelling. The result is beautiful. Fragmented but vivid, fantastical but mundane. It’s dreamlike in both its wonder and in the underlying sense of dread and impossible-to-grasp contours. At less than 200 pages, this is a fleet-footed, precise exercise in atmosphere: a mordantly witty case study in unease.’ —The Monthly (Australia)
‘This strangely beautiful but dread-laden story is an incredibly vivid and fascinating debut. Bamford has written something really quite original and special.’ —The Irish News
‘Bewitching and immersive, like a dream that nags away for days afterwards.’—The Herald
‘A chilling exploration of privilege, memory, and the unsettling weight of inherited history. It’s a spiraling tale that you’ll feel compelled to finish in one sitting, quick-moving and innovative. Bamford shines light into the inner lives of children – their strange fixations and values – and make you feel like a child yourself, immersed in a world where everything feels a bit scary and a bit magical.’ —Oprah Daily
‘A literary journey rich with magical realism, beautiful and eerie all at once…Idle Grounds is a gorgeous first offering by an author with prodigious skill.’ —Booklist
‘Darkly comedic…an unsettling and atmospheric journey.’ —Town & Country
‘Deftly blending horror, suspense and humour—and full of sicky fingers, symbolism, and secrets—Idle Grounds is simultaneously razor-sharp and an eerie, haunting fever dream.’ —Bookseller, Fiction Book of the Month
‘I read this in a single sitting, sort of by accident. I started it and the shifty first-person-plural narration snagged me like a branch grabbing at my shirt and then suddenly it was 3am and I hadn’t gone to bed. There’s a deeply unsettling quality to this book, both in the way that Bamford ratchets up the unease but also in the way that she will sometimes strip it all away without warning. It is the story of a single summer’s afternoon, a bunch of cousins at a family reunion, something bad lurking in the later part of the day… but to say more would be a crime. An original stunner. —Lithub, Most Anticipated Books of 2025
‘Pensive and lush, yet sharp and funny, Idle Grounds is such a unique novel. Bamford’s style is bright and clever, and the book is easy to read and challenging in the way of great literature. It is weird, wonderful and highly recommended.’ —Bookreporter
‘A truly quirky debut, droll, smart, unsettling.’ —Saga Magazine
‘Arch and haunting…in barbed, poetic prose, Bamford captures the cousins’ uneasy communal existence. It’s a fresh spin on the well-worn trope of a family with secrets.’ —Publishers Weekly
‘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…Curious and original.’ —Kirkus
‘An eerie and powerful exploration of family and identity, Idle Grounds is truly a read like no other.’ —TAG24
‘Unsettling, puckish, and brilliantly written, this novel is an absolute one-off. I loved it.’ —Claire Fuller, author of Bitter Orange
‘Magical, perplexing and funny in a wholly original way.’ —Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch
‘Deliciously uncanny New England Gothic. In refreshingly idiosyncratic prose, Bamford captures all of childhood’s strangeness and cruelty. The landscapes of Idle Grounds are haunted not only by the old ghosts of family history but by the new ghosts that are born as each generation grows up.’ —Allen Bratton, author of Henry Henry
‘To read Krystelle Bamford’s astonishing debut is to be perpetually conflicted, like the child cousins it follows, between tearing at breakneck speed through the forest of its gorgeous pages to find out what will happen next, and deliberating with delirious languor, stopping to pick up, turn over, and marvel at each wryly glorious description, each exquisite joke. Idle Grounds left me like a kid with a dreadful yet delicious secret who tells everyone, I know something you don’t know!—but I can’t tell; you’ll have to find out for yourself.’ —Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead
‘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, author of Parallel Hells
‘An acid trip of a novel. Weird, sinister and darkly funny. I can’t wait to see what Bamford does next.’
—Amy Twigg, author of Spoilt Creatures
‘Every sentence positively bristles with unease. One of the most atmospheric novels I have read in a long time. Beautifully written.’ —Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
‘I knew I would like Idle Grounds very much, and it was doubly pleasant to realize I was right. Bamford writes from the shared consciousness of the junior branch of an entire family, and it felt as unnerving and delightful as when an eight-year-old takes you into their confidence for five minutes, in order to unload their pet likes and dislikes onto you…Reading this book expanded my memory and powers of retrieval and recall.’ —Daniel Lavery, author of Women’s Hotel
‘This book is like nothing else I’ve ever read. Equal parts alluring and off-kilter, with moments of genuine poetry, Idle Grounds is a peculiar and beguiling novel with a fiendish core.’ —Jane Flett, author of Freakslaw
‘Idle Grounds is hypnotic and fierce, a darkly funny and sinister story shot through with a pervasive sense of dread. From the very beginning, Bamford deftly establishes a sense of unease, unsettling the reader and hooking us in. The ending is a true gut punch.’ —Flora Carr, author of The Tower
Krystelle Bamford 