Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab

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🩸 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil ⭐ 3.5/5

by V.E. Schwab
👉 Buy on Amazon (affiliate link)

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⚠️ Trigger Warnings

Child death • graphic violence & blood • sexual assault themes • physical & emotional abuse • toxic relationships • antigay bias • societal oppression • death & grief

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💀 Spoiler Warning

This review contains major spoilers, plot twists, body counts, and vampire gossip. Proceed at your own risk… or grab your garlic 🧄.

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🧛‍♀️ First Impressions

I was really looking forward to this one. The Goodreads reviews were glowing, and V.E. Schwab has a history of turning slow-burn fantasy into pure magic (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue still lives rent-free in my head).

But… this didn’t quite live up to the hype. Don’t get me wrong — Schwab’s writing is hypnotic. She could probably make a grocery list sound poetic. Her pacing is long and slow, yet somehow she keeps you turning the page.

However… why are there so many lesbians?! 😂 Like, I love sapphic stories — no problem there at all — but this book is crawling with lady-loving vampires. Apparently, “lesbian vampire” is an actual trope. My theory? Maybe vampires can’t get, um, certain blood-flow-related equipment working, so the women just… make do. 💅 I don’t know, but it’s a theory that amuses me.

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🩸 Overview

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (2025) is a fantasy-horror novel spanning centuries and continents — from 16th-century Spain to modern-day Boston — following three women connected by blood, obsession, and immortality: María, Charlotte, and Alice.

V.E. Schwab is known for her elegant, moody prose and rich worldbuilding (Vicious, Shades of Magic, Gallant). This one blends gothic horror with historical fiction and queer romance, exploring power, hunger, and female rage through generations of vampires.

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🕯️ Plot Summary (Full Spoilers Ahead!)

🩸 María (16th-century Spain)

María, a restless young woman in Spain, dreams of more than her dull noble marriage. She befriends her maid Ysabel, falls in love, and gets her heart broken when Ysabel is married off.

Enter Sabine Boucher, an ageless herbalist who teaches María about freedom and herbs (some to heal, others… less so). One night, Sabine offers María a taste of real freedom — by biting her and turning her into a vampire. María kills her husband, steals Sabine’s name, and flees into the night, leaving behind her human life and moral compass.

She joins other vampires (called feral roses, which sounds beautiful and horrifying at the same time 🌹) and learns their bloody ways. After centuries of violence and loneliness, she meets Matteo in Venice, a charismatic vampire with a flair for theatrics — and, surprise, a human lover on the side. Cue tragedy, betrayal, and lots of stylish bloodshed.

💃 Charlotte (19th-century England)

Fast-forward to 1823. Charlotte Hastings, a young debutante, gets caught kissing her friend Jocelyn and is exiled to London to find a husband. Instead, she finds Sabine — still undead, still dangerous, and still heartbreakingly magnetic.

Charlotte and Sabine fall in love (of course), but Sabine turns her into a vampire against her better judgment. Their relationship becomes a century-long cycle of passion, jealousy, and bloodlust. Sabine kills, Charlotte cries, rinse and repeat.

Eventually, Charlotte flees after realizing Sabine will never change. She tries to rebuild her life, falls in love again (with sweet, human Giada), but — shocker — Sabine shows up and kills her too. 😩

🩸 Alice (21st-century Boston)

Now it’s 2019, and we meet Alice Moore, a Harvard student who wakes up one morning and realizes she’s become the latest link in Sabine’s immortal soap opera. Alice accidentally kills a man (oops) and discovers she’s a vampire.

She crosses paths with Charlotte (now going by Lottie), who tells her the only way to become human again is to kill Sabine. (Spoiler: total lie.) Together, they hunt Sabine — and the final showdown is pure gothic drama: grave dirt, poisoned blood, chainmail, and emotional damage.

Alice stabs Sabine through the heart (with a piece of broken sink — honestly iconic 💅), turning her to dust. Then she realizes Lottie has lied to her, so she finishes the job by stabbing her too. The book ends with Alice alive, hungry, and completely alone.

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🧃 Thoughts

This book is beautifully written but also… a little overstuffed. So many characters come and go — Matteo, Ysabel, the original Sabine, etc. — and several deserved deeper arcs. I kept thinking, “Wait, what happened to Matteo?” (Seriously, how perfect would it have been if Ezra turned out to be Matteo in disguise? Missed opportunity, Schwab!)

Despite that, the themes of identity, desire, and immortality are rich. The sapphic love stories are front and center, but sometimes it felt like Schwab leaned too heavily on the aesthetic of dark lesbian vampires rather than developing their individual journeys.

Still, she’s one of those authors who could write 500 pages of shadows and yearning and I’d somehow stay hooked. 🩸

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📖 Final Rating: ⭐ 3.5 out of 5

Gorgeous prose, ambitious scope, but too many loose ends and underdeveloped side characters. It’s one of those books that I admire more than I love.

If you enjoy literary horror with queer gothic flair, this might still hit for you. If you’re looking for tight plotting and payoff, you might leave hungry. (Pun intended 🧛‍♀️).

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🛍️ Where to Buy

👉 Buy Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil on Amazon (affiliate link)

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📚 Similar Reads & Recommendations

If you liked the dark, feminist, vampiric tone of this book, try:

• 🩸 A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

• 🌑 Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu (the original lesbian vampire classic)

• 🕯️ The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

• 🖤 House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

• 🪞 Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield