Tag: house of idyll

House of Idyll is a novel in which a young singer gets the chance to stay at an artists’ retreat run by her favourite band, only to find something sinister lurking underneath. Angelina is a barista in Hollywood, wanting to make it as a singer-songwriter, until she’s suddenly plucked away and offered the chance to stay at the compound owned by rock band Black Idyll. There, she can live and work on her music for free, and she even gets to see Jesper Idyll, the band’s iconic frontman and her teenage crush. As Angelina stays longer, she notices weird things like spooked horses and mysterious figures, but it is hard to tell where the dream ends and the nightmare begins.

Having read Dawson’s Bloom and Guillotine previously and being interested in stories about ideas of rock stars, House of Idyll sounded like a book for me. I particularly enjoyed Guillotine and House of Idyll feels similar to that for a lot of the book, as someone who isn’t used to a luxury lifestyle explores a very different world. However, where Guillotine is an ‘eat the rich’ horror thriller, House of Idyll is more of a rock star drama with some threatening vibes. I was expecting far more horror from this book, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy what it was.

Following Angelina’s perspective, the narrative is very slow burn, building up her sense of unease and how it clashes with the fact it feels like all of her dreams are coming true. There’s a lot of build up, and my main issue with the book is that the ending is incredibly quick and doesn’t really conclude a lot of the plot points that came up, other than the reader assuming there’s a reason that fits in with the reveal at the ending. In my opinion, there could’ve been more dread and more meaning to the final twist if we knew a little bit more about why certain things, like character deaths, had needed to happen in the way they did. However, I did like the final twist, and it almost feels like there could be a sequel that might delve further into the darkness.

House of Idyll is a fun, quick-to-read book about secretive rock stars in a weird compound, so even though it was a lot of build up for a very quick conclusion, I enjoyed that build up and the atmosphere it created. It had the trashy rock star vibe that I often want from novels about musicians, and don’t always get, so it’s perfect if that is what you’re looking for, rather than a scary horror story.