REVIEW: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
V. E. Schwab is a chameleon author. All their works, whether standalone like the awesome The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, novellas like the charming Gallant, or a longer series like The Fragile Threads of Power, are very different sorts of stories, linked only by the fact they are all in some ways a dark fantasy and all written by Schwab’s masterful pen.
V.E. Schwab’s latest literary offering is Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, the story of three young women linked through the centuries, their lives twisting together like the roots of vicious flowers growing in the same patch of soil. Maria is wild, headstrong, sure there is more to the world than her tiny town, and desperate to escape. Charlotte is sent away to the city and feels herself being wedged into a life of conformity that she does not want. Finally, there is Alice, who crosses the ocean to escape her grief and start anew, not realising that heartache is not so quickly left behind.
It is so hard to go into a read when you have sky-high expectations; the risk of it not being quite what you dreamed of feels very real. Everything I had heard about Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil made me want to love it. V. E. Schwab writes a toxic lesbian vampire fantasy? I started reading it, expecting it to be awesome. Luckily, it was. This is Schwab’s writing at its best. Beautiful prose, characters that feel so real they could be just behind you, whispering their life in your ear, and a plot that danced across the pages. I am slightly in awe that I read over 500 pages in just over a day without it feeling like a chore.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a modern gothic novel with some light horror. Schwab masterfully handles themes of loss, love, loneliness, and many others in a delicate way. Schwab’s characters are the most central part of this story, rather than it being an action-packed plot, and stepping into the world was so easy. This is helped by the fact that at the start, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil reads like a historical novel, and we have Maria’s perspective fully established before the reader has any fantastical elements. It also feels hauntingly familiar because vampires are a foundation stone of dark fantasy. But Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil isn’t a retelling. Schwab has written an entirely new and entirely brilliant story.
This is the sort of book that will speak to people’s souls. It might not have epic battles, political manoeuvring, or a quest to save the world, but it will make people feel seen. Readers will see little pieces that are like them, dotted across the three narratives. It feels like Schwab has put their everything into Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, and reading it was an excellent experience.
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is due for release in June 2025. Thank you to V. E. Schwab and the team at Tor Books for providing us with an ARC of the novel.
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