Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

Santo Domingo de la Calzada, 1532.
London, 1837.
Boston, 2019.

Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots.

One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild.

And all of them grow teeth.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Vampires, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Audiobook, LGBT

515 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 10, 2025

About the author

This author also writes under the name of Victoria Schwab.

VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades universe, the Villains series, the City of Ghosts series, Gallant, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Fragile Threads of Power. When not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she can usually be found in Edinburgh, Scotland, tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.

Reviews

[Fairuz ᥫ᭡. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab
a stunning aesthetic drenched in emptiness

I am so f*cking disappointed.
This was my first V.E. Schwab book and I truly wanted to love it—like, I was READY to have my soul ripped out, to be haunted, to feel something. But instead? I got 18 hours of vibes and repetition.

🕸️ Queer Romance (F/F)
🥀 Vampire Mythos
🕸️ Multiple Timelines
🥀 Female Rage & Revenge
🕸️ Gothic Atmosphere
🥀 Interwoven Narratives

The premise? So cool.
Toxic lesbian vampires? Different timelines? Female rage and revenge? SIGN ME UP. And yeah, the first few chapters got me hyped—there was an atmosphere, a tone, a promise of something sharp and devastating.

But that promise? Broken.

The plot doesn’t exist. It’s all gorgeous language, pretty metaphors, moody settings, and then…nothing. It felt like being led down a beautiful path only to find it loops back in circles. Every chapter sounded poetic and profound—but dig deeper and there’s just nothing there.

The characters blurred together.
Three women, centuries apart, but their voices? Practically identical. María had the most potential, but even she got swallowed by the vagueness of it all. And don’t get me started on the ending—it was so underwhelming I thought my audiobook skipped something. No tension. No payoff. Just…a quiet whimper of a finish.

Also?? 18 HOURS??
That’s nearly a full day of “roses in midnight soil” and “foxed pages” and aching metaphors. My ears are still recovering from the sheer volume of repetition. I’m sorry but not everything needs to be drenched in aesthetic prose.

The only good thing?
The writing is technically beautiful, and the narrators gave their all. But that’s like saying the gift wrap is stunning while the box inside is empty.

Final thoughts:
If you want vibes and vibes only, sure. But if you're looking for plot, momentum, or characters who actually feel distinct and real—look elsewhere. This was all glitter, no gold.

Bury Our Bones tried to be lyrical and haunting but just ended up lost in its own prettiness. I expected to bleed with this book. Instead, I just bled from boredom.

[liv ❁ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always had a deep love for vampire books and, though things like Twilight can be incredibly fun, my real love for vampires stems not from the monsters themselves, but from the societal implications of how they are born. Schwab NAILS this aspect. Schwab does not shy away from the symbolic love of vampires, with each of the three women we follow having one very distinct “problem”: they want too much for the world. They burn and they want. Queerness is at the heart of the story, as is a desire for control in a male-dominated world. Whether that be from having to marry in order to have status or wanting to stand up and protect oneself from the potential violence. There is yearning, there is want transformed into need, and there is a very stark warning of the cyclical nature of abuse. This is by far my favorite modern depiction of vampires. It is clear that Schwab was writing with the knowledge that the scariest thing about vampires is that their wants deviate from society’s and they now have the power to fulfill those desires, even if they are no longer capable of being satiated.

I had a few pacing issues with the book and wasn’t fully engaged until the third pov came in (about halfway through the book). I am usually not a huge fan of modern books with time jumps, but Schwab does an excellent job and the reasoning for it was clear to me, making it feel almost cinematic. This was overall a very satisfying, symbolic book that is not afraid to dive headfirst into desire - both in love/lust and for control. It’s not necessarily anything new but it’s done incredibly well and Schwab does not shy away from some dark topics stemming from the nature of desire and “wanting too much.”

Would also highly recommend the audiobook!

pre-read:
toxic. . . lesbian. . . vampires. . . somehow inspired by florence + the machine. . . *faints*

[Ayman · Rating 3 out of 5]

all vibes and a very slim plot. which usually i’m okay with but in this case i was begging for something to keep me going.

now don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad. it’s actually great and the writing is just so mesmerizing however i just didn’t care? like i don’t care about any of these characters. i was waiting for an overarching plot to connect at the end (not a plot twist) and was left feeling “eh?”

the atmosphere is eerie and complex however a bit too slow for me. which again, i wouldn’t have minded had i been given something to anticipate. i like slow books. i expect them from this author. but overall, the pacing dragged in parts, and I found myself wishing for more movement in the plot and characters. I think if you’re into quiet horror or slow-burn suspense, this might hit harder for you. for me, it just didn’t fully stick the landing. i was, dare i say, bored at times 🥱

i did only really like 1.5/3 of our toxic lesbian vampires. maría and charlotte. alice and her backstory, i couldn’t care for. i fear there was a lot of missed potential for this particular character. i liked the otherworldly tone and the way grief and guilt were explored, but emotionally, i just couldn’t connect the way i wanted to.

what i did like however was the want and need parallels. these women that are so barred by society’s standards and expectations of them. the freedom that they think they get from vampirism. putting men in their place or in their grave. very pleasing 🙂‍↕️

here for anyone that enjoyed more than i did though. good for you 🫶🏽

2.5 ⭐️

[Emily May]

DNF - approx 25%

I really couldn't get into this one. Can't say if it picks up later, but the 150 pages I read were very slow. There have also been three different perspectives and multiple timelines so far, which doesn't help when the pace is dragging because it gives us less time to become invested in any one of the stories.

Also-- and I really do wonder if this is a way in which my preferences have changed, as opposed to the author's style -- this book felt very juvenile. It read like YA with a bit of sex and cussing thrown in (so, basically, like most YA these days). The characters were very basic, especially in Maria's chapters, where she fits every headstrong, obstinate heroine trope while still coming across as emotionally immature. Her husband and in-laws are such sexist caricatures, devoid of nuance, that it was hard to take them seriously (please do inform me if they experience some interesting growth later).

I have enjoyed Schwab's books in the past but it's been a good six or seven years since one wowed me. Perhaps I have just outgrown her work.

[Sara Carrolli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long journey, but so worth it!!!!

This is a story of toxic lesbian vampires, but it’s also so much more!!! It was a sloooowwww burn, but by the end of it every pov and backstory felt necessary to the big picture (also how I felt about Addie larue & I saw some similarities in this with the time periods we journey through/the pacing)

I was immediately invested in the first few povs we got, they’re all in completely different time periods & it just makes you wonder how it’s all gonna interconnect eventually. I do think the middle slowed a BIT, but as soon as the toxic vampire plot picked up I was HOOKED! This whole story just felt so refreshing & was a great first fantasy in a while, it felt completely different to so many fantasy plots we see so often now
(Also recommend the audiobook!)

[Victoria Schwab · Rating 5 out of 5]

After Addie, I swore I’d never put so much of my actual self into a book, and then I went and did this. Stripped down to my heart and bones and built a novel out of it. Everything I loved and everything I wanted and everything I feared.

It’s hard to process that one day some of you will read it too.

I’d normally never give my own work stars, but given what it took to get down onto paper, I’m making an exception.

[emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

why is every fantasy book titled like mad libs.

https://emmareadstoomuch.substack.com...

you may be thinking to yourself, "sure, emma, of course you're right about that" [i can't come up with a hypothetical in which i'm not correct] "but that hardly seems like a promising first thought about a book. why did you read this?"

great question, made-up commenter.

i thought it would be fun to read every goodreads choice award winner.

it wasn't.

it was a decision that butterfly-effect'ed me to pick this up, something i had absolutely zero intention of reading otherwise. in fact i had never heard of it. such was the level to which i swore off ve schwab after committing the heinous act of blasphemy that was hating addie larue.

avoiding this sort of experience is precisely why i promised myself no more of this author.

this is exactly what i thought it would be:
- several perspectives, all alike in white feminism and plotlessness, who are in fact identical except for their inconsistent accents
- literally just addie larue, except with vampire immortality instead of devil-dealt immortality
- POVs connected by toxic relationships alone
- a boring and arduous narrative (or lack thereof)
- a stupid ending to a stupid book

witnessing each of these protagonist women abusing each other and being selfish and greedy and dumb and then making weird quasi-profound statements about freedom and gender-based violence between sex scenes and blood-sucking scenes (which are, of course, the same) so that we can try to hold this to an unnecessary and insane Fantasy Feminist standard is just annoying.

this is one of the most pointless books i have ever read.

bottom line: i just complained my way into one-starring this.

[Maddy ✨ ~The Verse Vixen {AFK brb} · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Where Rot and Roses Coexist —A Girl, A Ghost, A Vampire’s Kiss”🥀

There are books that bruise. Books that don’t love you back, but haunt you anyway. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is one of them.This book was beautiful in premise, bleeding with potential, drowning in shadowy metaphors and blood-soaked longing… but in execution, it teetered between gothic brilliance and indulgent decay.They promised me roses and rot, and I did get both — just not quite in the bloody bouquet I wanted.

A modern gothic about hunger, love, and the cost of survival..

So Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a lush, haunting meditation on what it means to be hungry—for love, for freedom, for a life of one's own making—and the violence that can hide beneath beauty. Schwab uses the vampire myth to explore the ways in which women are forced to survive in a world that would rather see them tamed or buried, and the cost of claiming power in a world that punishes desire. The novel is both a love story and a horror story, a tale of found family and monstrous inheritance, a warning about the dangers of promises and the rot of immortality. It is also a story about grief, and the ways in which the dead shape the lives of the living. In the end, the novel refuses easy answers: there is no going back, no undoing what has been done. But there is always the possibility of a new story, a new life, a new hunger. The lesson is both brutal and hopeful: survival is not the same as freedom, and the only way to break the cycle of violence is to write your own ending.

This is not a vampire novel—it’s a requiem. A ghost story of girlhood, of promises forged in blood, of hunger both physical and emotional. Schwab writes with the kind of prose that feels unearthed rather than written: lyrical, languid, laced with the smell of damp earth and grief. Every page reads like an open wound. Beautiful. Festering.

🕯️The Atmosphere:
Gorgeously gothic. Think crumbling estates, blood-soaked mirrors, and girls whispering secrets through time. Every scene smells like rust, roses, and something feral. It's giving ✨Gothic Lolita meets Crimson Peak✨, and I was seated.

But like…sometimes it felt like it was performing gothicness rather than embodying it. A little too much lace, not enough blood.
╰┈➤Characters:

✦María / Sabine
Restless girl turned monster.
María is a wild, red-haired girl from 16th-century Spain—always too much, always too hungry. Her longing for more—love, freedom, escape—leads her to Sabine, a mysterious widow who is both healer and vampire. After surviving a violent marriage and deep betrayals, María kills her husband and his family, burns everything down, and becomes Sabine. Over centuries, she becomes both mentor and monster. Her love is possessive, her hunger insatiable. She's a woman who cannot be tamed, and yet she's destroyed by the very desires that once set her free.

✦Charlotte / Lottie
Hungry heart, haunted soul.
Charlotte Hastings is sent to London to be polished for marriage, but she wants more. She falls in love with Sabine, who gives her immortality—but at a cost. She tries to hold onto her humanity, but guilt and grief drown her. She becomes the very thing she feared, caught in a toxic cycle of love and violence, always trying to rewrite the ending but never quite breaking free.

✦Alice
Gentle soul, forced to survive.
A Scottish girl at Harvard, Alice is grieving her sister, Catty, when she’s turned by Sabine—not for love, but to punish Charlotte. She wakes up starving, alone, and scared. Alice’s story is survival in its rawest form. She’s forced to kill the only people who could’ve offered her answers—Sabine and Charlotte—and walk away with nothing but hunger and the need to make something new of herself.

✦Ysabel
Illegitimate daughter, secret companion.
Ysabel is María’s maid and the count’s illegitimate child. Gentle and loyal, she’s a soft presence in María’s rigid world. Their friendship hints at something deeper but is crushed by patriarchy and violence. Her death is a reminder of how love and loyalty are never enough when power is at play.

✦Andrés
Husband, oppressor, victim.
A viscount who marries María for bloodlines and control. He’s violent, entitled, and brutal. She kills him, and it’s both a victory and a curse—her first act of freedom, and the beginning of her monstrous rebirth.

✦Hector
Ancient mentor, poet of monsters.
An old vampire who becomes Sabine’s mentor. He teaches restraint, balance, and the rules of rot. Wise but flawed, his bond with Renata and Sabine is familial but messy. His death reminds us even monsters fade.

✦Renata
Feral lover, tragic companion.
Renata is fire—playful, cruel, alive. She teaches Sabine pleasure, danger, and the edges of desire. Her death—burned alive in a coffin—marks the end of any softness in Sabine and the beginning of the rot.

✦Giada
Mortal muse, lost love.
An Italian artist’s muse and Charlotte’s brief happiness. She represents everything Charlotte wants but can’t have. Sabine kills her, like always. And that shatters what little hope Charlotte had left.

✦Penny
Innocent victim, forced companion.
A New York bookseller and Charlotte’s lover. Turned by Sabine just to hurt Charlotte, and ultimately killed by her so she wouldn’t suffer. Penny’s death marks the death of Charlotte’s belief in love or peace.

✦Ezra
Ancient survivor, voice of reason.
An old vampire running a Boston coffee shop. He’s gentle, wise, and tired. He teaches Charlotte and Alice about survival without cruelty. A rare vampire who believes in something softer than hunger.


📍Sabine and Lottie: "Monsters Make Terrible Lovers"..
Sabine is not a romantic heroine. She’s a hunger, a vengeance, a godless ache in a corset. And Lottie… she is everything that breaks quietly. Their love is the root of this novel, gnarled and tragic and bound by a promise too sacred to survive. It is not tender. It is not safe. It is obsession. And it’s… breathtaking. At first.

But the novel lingers. Circles. Sabine remembers, Lottie decays, the promise breathes like a second skin—but nothing moves. For all the agony and atmosphere, their story begins to collapse under its own weight. The ache becomes noise. The poetry becomes haze. And I wanted more—more story, more stakes, more than just longing stretched thin across centuries.

🧛‍♀️ Gothic to the Bone – But Was It Enough? 🥀🦇
The plot is not so much a narrative as it is a ritual—cyclical, obsessive, drenched in guilt and decay. There’s something poetic in that, yes, but also… tiring. The novel feeds on repetition, on lyrical brooding, on the echo of metaphor. But after a while, even roses lose their scent.

🗡️What’s the plot?
They told us vampires were sexy.
they forgot to mention the rot.

this isn’t your sparkly-immortality fantasy. it’s a centuries-long bloodbath stitched together by girls who were never given a choice — until they started making their own.

spain, 1580.
maría is sixteen, married off, thrown to the wolves — and reborn in silk and fangs by a woman named sabine.
sabine offers power. protection. pain.
but every gift comes at a cost, and maría pays in girlhood and grief.

england, 1800s.
lottie is tired. tired of rules, of corsets, of men.
sabine offers freedom.
lottie says yes. and finds herself trapped in a mansion with a woman who’s rotting from the inside and calling it love.
but this isn’t love. it’s control.
and lottie is done being devoured.

now, modern day.
alice is a harvard girl with rage behind her eyes and nothing to lose.
sabine bites her. turns her. thinks she’s made herself a new weapon.
bad idea.
because alice?
she’s not here to play pet. she’s here to burn the whole bloodline down.

this book is not a love story.
it’s a curse.
it’s decay.
it’s women breaking the teeth of the things that tried to own them.

they wanted docile.
they got feral.


🩸 What Bit Me (in a good way):
-The dual timelines? Delicious.
María/Sabine and Alice mirror each other in this twisted echo chamber of grief, hunger, and choices that don’t feel like choices. The generational haunt is real.

-Promises as power? Obsessed.
When Charlotte makes a vow, it becomes a chain. Literally. Words are spells, prisons, and soft knives. Loved the metaphor, loved the horror.

-The rot of immortality? Yes, yes, YES.
This book gets that eternal life isn’t sexy. It’s lonely. It’s losing everything soft inside you. Vampirism here is a slow moral erosion, and it made my bones hurt in the best way.

🕷️ What Missed (and dragged):
-The pacing…was embalmed.
Some chapters dragged like wet velvet. I wanted the narrative to sink its teeth in — instead, it sometimes politely nibbled. Gimme the bloodbath, not the polite tea.

-Alice felt undercooked.
She had the grief, the rage, the sister-shaped hole — and yet I still felt like I was watching her from a fogged mirror. I wanted to burn with her. Instead, I simmered.

-Too many metaphors, not enough emotion.
There were scenes where the prose got so poetic it drowned the punch. Roses, rot, ruin — yes, all the pretty words — but I needed more gut. Less aesthetic, more ache.

🦴 The Writing – A Blessing and a Curse
Schwab’s prose is undeniably gorgeous. She knows how to paint rot with elegance, how to make despair taste like wine. But sometimes, it felt like style swallowed substance. The metaphors came in waves. The emotion repeated itself. The pages became echoes rather than revelations.

This novel feels like a spell—but spells can trap, not just enchant.

🔪 Plot Devices:
-Dual Timelines & Mirrored Lives
Past (María/Sabine) and present (Alice) echo each other — patterns of hunger, violence, and doomed love repeat across centuries.

-Promises as Chains
Vows have magical weight. Charlotte’s promise not to hurt Sabine binds her, turning love into a cage.

-The Rot of Immortality
Living forever erodes the soul. Vampirism = decay. The longer you live, the more monstrous you become.

-The Rope Between Sisters
Alice’s grief for her sister Catty tethers her choices — a metaphorical rope pulling her through rage and revenge.

-Predator vs. Prey
The climax plays like a vicious game — compulsion, poison, betrayal — with hunter becoming hunted.

-Foreshadowing & Recursion
Roses, teeth, hunger — symbols repeat. Every generation faces the same brutal questions:
What are you willing to do to be free?


To be a woman is to hunger. To survive is to become a myth. 🩸🌒

🌹🎭 Verdict: Rotting Beauty

This book is a fever dream—a haunted lullaby sung beneath the soil. It drips with gothic elegance and aches with female rage. But it also gets lost in its own reflection, too obsessed with the poetry of its pain to deliver a fully satisfying narrative.

I wanted more story. Less reiteration. More climax, more evolution, more fear.

But still… something about it lingers.

A rose bloomed in the dark.
Its petals were soft.
Its teeth were sharp.
I just wish it had bitten deeper.I didn’t love this book. But I didn’t walk away untouched either.

It’s a novel made of hunger and ghosts.
Of women who loved too much and lived too little.
Of promises that bloom, even as they decay.

[♥︎ Heather ⚔ (Semi-Hiatus-attempting return) · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m landing at 3 stars for this one, and honestly though.. it kinda felt like a 1 star 😩

I usually trust V. E. Schwab completely as an author. Her books are normally automatic favorites for me, 5++++ stars- but this one. Meh.

The prose is strong — that’s never been Schwab’s problem. The opening pulled me in immediately and I fully expected this to be another standout.

The atmospheric vibes are amazing, I loved the lore, loved the world building. All top tier.

But the longer it went on, the more exhausting it became.

The female rage and male hatred are handled with such a heavy hand that it started to feel repetitive rather than impactful. What should have felt sharp or emotionally charged just kept hitting the same note over and over until I found myself disengaging instead of becoming more invested.

At a certain point I was rolling my eyes and scoffing to myself.

And the pacing absolutely didn’t help. The story drags badly in the second half, lingering far past the point where scenes feel meaningful. I switched back to audiobook simply to get through it.

What frustrates me most is that I wanted to love this. I went into a reread expecting to take my time and savor the story, annotate the beautiful words… and I’m just glad it’s done instead.

I didn’t hate it. But I also didn’t enjoy reading it — and that’s not what I expect when I pick up a Schwab book.

*
*
*

Welp, slid from a 5 star to a 3 star.... full review coming up shortly. Damn this book felt like a brick...


⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ "𝓑𝓾𝓻𝔂 𝓶𝔂 𝓫𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓼 𝓲𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓶𝓲𝓭𝓷𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽 𝓼𝓸𝓲𝓵, 𝓹𝓵𝓪𝓷𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓶 𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓸𝔀 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝔀𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓶 𝓭𝓮𝓮𝓹, 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓲𝓷 𝓶𝔂 𝓹𝓵𝓪𝓬𝓮 𝔀𝓲𝓵𝓵 𝓰𝓻𝓸𝔀 𝓪 𝓯𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓵 𝓻𝓸𝓼𝓮, 𝓼𝓸𝓯𝓽 𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓹𝓮𝓽𝓪𝓵𝓼 𝓱𝓲𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓹 𝔀𝓱𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓽𝓮𝓮𝓽𝓱." ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
🥀🍷⚰️🦇🧛🏻‍♀️

I'm guessing Macmillian knows what a huge release this one is going to be and is only offering samples on audio - I think it was about 19 chapters I was able to listen to early and omg I'm even more excited to finish the entire thing on release day.

The timing actually works out for me since I've been slammed with new home projects. I'm thinking this one is going to be a definite 5 stars for me. I adore you, Victoria Elizabeth Schwab, thank you for blessing us with another banger. 💘

·•—–٠✤٠—–•·
VE Schwab saw Leigh Bardugo's 'The Familiar' flop so hard and was like 'Hold my Beer' 🍺😅

Can't wait for this one. And... it looks like we now have a cover! 😍

Expected Release Date - 06/10/2025 (OMG What a hike... please come through for me Macmillan 🙏🥰)

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Three girls, centuries between them, stories intertwined, all buried in the midnight soil. A Sapphic love story, a book of feminist rage, a waltz through history spanning continents.

₊⊹⁀➴ 🥀Lesbian Vampires
₊⊹⁀➴ 🖤Toxic Relationships
₊⊹⁀➴ 🥀Morally Gray Characters
₊⊹⁀➴ 🖤Revenge/Murder
₊⊹⁀➴ 🥀Female Rage
₊⊹⁀➴ 🖤Lovers to Enemies
₊⊹⁀➴ 🥀Killing Eve x Ann Rice Vibes
₊⊹⁀➴ 🖤Violent Game of Cat x Mouse
₊⊹⁀➴ 🥀Hunger x History

"𝓣𝓸 𝓫𝓮 𝓪 𝓻𝓸𝓼𝓮 𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓼𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓹 𝔀𝓱𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓽𝓮𝓮𝓽𝓱..." 🥀

Sapphic vampire story you say? 😍 I mean...

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ Connect with me on Instagram ˗ˏˋ★‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹

[Esta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil feels like V.E Schwab opened a vein and wrote with whatever came out. Blood, memory, desire, rage and regret, perhaps.

This book goes far beyond vampires though. Schwab writes of women who are full of fangs, full of want, fury, contradictions, a yearning for freedom, selfhood, safety, rage and sometimes revenge. And the freedom to love who they love.

She writes of women who’ve been consumed their entire lives by patriarchy, by silence, by roles they didn’t choose and what happens when they begin to consume in return. Schwab explores predator and prey. Who’s dangerous now? I support women’s wrongs.

Subsequently, this leads to a meditation on humanity, power, consent, hunger (literal and metaphorical), longing and grief. It’s V.E. Schwab at her most raw, her most autobiographical and maybe her most damning.

If you’ve read Schwab’s coming out story on Oprah Daily, you’ll recognise the tonality. There is a sense throughout that Schwab is cracking her soul open.

Her prose is rhythmic and deliberate. For some, it will read as purple. For me, it read as lyrical and poetic even though it sometimes teetered into too flowery. I embraced it anyway.

Anyway, I’d take a guess that if you loved The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue’s wandering lyricism, you’ll vibe with this book too, and if you disliked it, then you may not. I’d say it's character-driven over plot, and meanders before the stakes (🧐) get tighter. But if you’re drawn to character-led stories and can surrender to the cadence, the rhythm of metaphor-rich prose laced with queerness, gothic tones and a touch of light horror, you’ll be swept away.

For me this was ferociously alive, even when dripping in death.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

She’s beauty, she’s grace, she will bite your face?

(Picking up my jaw off the floor—RTC!!!)

[jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

i cant deny this oozes VESs signature charm and essence.

from strictly a storytelling standpoint, i love the prose and the way the narrative is constructed. its what helps me stay so engaged with her character driven novels since im a plot girlie. i really enjoyed how hunger, rage, and desire are portrayed across the various story arcs in this. VES is so talented at breathing life into her characters and making their thoughts/feelings not only tangible, but beautifully poetic.

that being said, i really only connected with 2/3 characters. maria/sabines story is so wonderfully told and she is definitely the leading lady in this novel. charlotte also has a compelling story, but it felt like i was getting the summary of her history, rather than living her life with her. and alice… well, lets just say alice feels like an afterthought. i found myself wanting to skim through her chapters because i just wasnt interested.

so while there is a lot to love about this, its just not my favorite book by VES.

↠ 3.5 stars

[Emmy Rosam · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars ⭐️ One of my favourite reads of the year so far this book still HAUNTS ME!

TOXIC LESBIAN VAMPIRES!!!!!!!!

[ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

genuinely don’t think i have words for this. new favourite book of all time??? DEFINITELY best book i’ve read in the last year or two. omg. toxic lesbian vampires you have my heart. would be surprised if this wasn’t my number one book of the year

[Sydney Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I just lived a thousand lives.

[Noelia (thisbookishlove) · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Vicky Schwab we trust, and in Vicky Schwab we believe.

This is my third book from this author, and once again, I can confirm she doesn't disappoint. She rarely ever does, I must say. Which means that I'll probably read whatever she wants to publish at this point, to be honest, even if it turns out to be something as ridiculous as a guide on how to install a bloody lightbulb or the whereabouts of her cat. Never mind.

That's the power this woman's pen has over me, a spell that was cast the day I crossed paths with Addie LaRue, a book that came into my life just in the right time and that I still hold very close to my heart up to this day.

Some authors feel like family or like an old friend you get to see from time to time. They're always there, even if they're not always close. And you come to them when everything else seems to fail and fall to pieces.
They make you feel at home, cozy with a warm blanket on your lap and a cup of coffee in your hand.
It's something in their words, the way they weave them together, that no matter what it is, it always hits home.

They're your Roman Empire.
Tolkien, Sanderson, Martin, Rothfuss, Longarela, Belen Martinez, even Ali Hazelwood ,(yeah, I know, don't judge me, I'm just a girl)...they're all like that to me.

And now, with her newest entry on my Reads list, Vicky Schwab has successfully made it to the ranks.

You go, girl!!!!

But, that being said, and fangirling aside, I concede she's not an author for everyone.
I would never recommend any of her books so lightly, without a warning or two, and fellow reviewers shouldn't either.
So don't feel guilty if Vicky Schwab's books don't appeal to you. You're not to blame, especially when we reviewers fail to tell you that those traits we fans love and praise about her might also be the reason why some of you don't.

Like, for example, and this is in Vicky Schwab's own words, she's a slow writer, meaning she takes forever to put things in motion.
Her books are anxiety-proof, not suitable for readers with little to no patience at all.

"Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil" is no exception. So, don't come at this expecting instant action and things moving at lightning speed, because simply it is just not the author's way. And definitely not this book's business.

This book is one meant to be savored slowly, like a fine wine.
It unveils its secrets little by little, layer by layer, just like an onion. It demands a patient reader, willing to play by the rules set by the author.
One only needs to confide in the process. Take Vicky Schwab's hand and trust her to take you wherever she wants you to go. And I mean every word.

As you all know, I'm not one to cross someone over a different opinion. But if there's a thing that bothers me a lot, it's the lack of perspective when reviewing, as a result of the incomprehension of basic narrative and literary devices. Not that any of us are obliged to know, of course, but if you're aiming for a top reviewer badge...well, there's a thing called Google.

You see, I have to draw the line and cross them out when the excuse for rating this book lower than it truly deserves is, in their words, because "there's no plot." Which is a funny thing to be said, and deeply incorrect, for a story with a character-driven narrative.

And this, my friends, is the crux of the matter.
As readers, we simply are more accustomed to plot-driven stories instead of character-driven ones. They're way more popular.

I know, I know. Before you start scratching your head, please, let me enlighten you.

While in plot-driven stories there's a conflict or event happening in act 1 that leads to a plot to solve such conflict in act 2, which leads to a resolution or a sense of it by act 3, in character-driven ones...there's no such thing. Well, not that clearly.
Instead of a conflict or event carrying the plot through the whole book, we have the characters and their actions, their decisions carrying the whole story on their backs.

In this type of story, there's no Hagrid crashing up onto the Dursleys' cabin to tell Harry he's a wizard and finally deliver him his Hogwarts letter telling him he has a place at that prestigious School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Nor is there your cousin (uncle in movies) vanishing in the middle of the air on his 111th birthday just for you to find out that he has bequeathed you all his stuff, including a golden ring, which then you find out is not just any ring but the One Ring, the one that belongs to the Dark Lord Sauron, sending you on a quest of epic proportions to destroy such a malevolent artifact.

In character-driven stories the rule is just to keep on reading and find out by yourself. There's no clear direction, no safe path through the woods, and no light to guide you through. That's what I meant when somewhere above I mentioned all that stuff about trusting the author and the story he or she is trying to tell.

It all comes down to the saying "good things come to those who wait." And they truly do.
"Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil" pays off, but only if you're willing to stay, let yourself be carried through, and let the words Vicky Schwab poured from her heart and veins get inside your soul.

I second the reviewers who said that, because it actually feels like it. This book isn't just another book but a window to the author's deepest core, her longings, and her fears. It does feel personal and vivid, with her breathing and beating in every single turning of the page. As a Swiftie, her writing style reminds me a lot of the lyrics of my favorite blonde.

It feels like a friend spilling out her deepest secrets. Or like sneaking into the diary of someone who left it casually open for you to find. It's heartfelt, intimate.

I'm starting to feel this is not so much a review but an invitation to you all to get lost within these pages. I came into this almost completely blind and without a single clue of what I should expect about it. And I personally think that going into this with that state of mind is the best choice anyone could make. Trust me on this.

I know this book has been marketed as toxic lesbian vampires, but having finished this, I can say that there's much more than that.
Yes, there are vampires on it. And regarding this aspect, save some minor aspects, for the most part the author keeps it simple, staying true to the vampirism lore.
And yet, they're nothing like the vampires we've seen arise in pop culture in the last ten years or so, ever since Twilight.

No vegan, shiny vampires for Vicky Schwab, but bloody, violent, vicious, and cruel ones.
The cruelty of these creatures is worth saying because we are used to seeing women portrayed as weak, sensitive, and motherly. All feminine qualities if we take tradition into account.
But, despite the fact of being a very feminine book and throwing a word or two about how matrimony was more a way to imprison and control women in the past (just like the beginning of Addie LaRue, for those of you who've read that book), the author doesn't shy away from the fact that we women are also capable of committing cruel, violent acts and that control, manipulative, and narcissistic behavior are not just inherent to men, as some women wrongly assume.

Women are also creatures of vices, dark desires and thoughts, and longings. They might be represented in here as vampires, but the effect is just the same.

At the end there's a twist you won't see coming. And probably the best book I've seen of late where an unreliable narrator has been used with such wit. I'll leave it there.

So, if you're feeling brave, step into these pages. Let yourself be shocked and amazed.

Only if you're willing to venture into the dark.

And only if you let these Creatures of the Midnight in.

Quality-based rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Liked-based rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[lexie · Rating 4 out of 5]

legend says if you say “toxic lesbian vampires” three times fast then i appear

[Bailee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to know what kind of magic VE Schwab possesses to make me feel this way after reading. This was beautiful and tragic and toxic in such a phenomenally written way. One of my favorites of the year.

[Rebecca Roanhorse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is VE Schwab at the height of her powers writing her absolute best work, and this, my friends, is how you bring back vampires. Sexy, flawed, dangerous, and absolutely vicious (see what I did there?). The characters are enthralling, the story structure is very smart and keeps the pacing brisk. The timeline(s) spans centuries and continents and cultures, and somehow Schwab makes it all sing. I stayed up reading until the wee hours, desperate to find out how all the characters were connected and how it would all play out. I always say that yes, I'm an author, but I'm a reader first. This one reminded me of what a joy that is. Perfection!



I received an ARC which in no way impacted my honest review.

[bookish · Rating 5 out of 5]

i’ve been informed that the ending in the final published version is different than the one I read in my ARC copy so i’m back here after i read it. to be very honest i prefer the ARC ending so much more then the final one. it simultaneously gave a very satisfying closure while being emotionally driven while the final published ending was emotional but in a sad way. it showed that the toxic cycle never stopped and it will continue… ☹️ not gonna lie I’m now happy i that originally experienced the ARC end. it was much more powerful.

~•~•~

it’s like a dark, addictive, and sapphic fever dream. If you love a story that sinks its teeth into you and refuses to let go, this is exactly that kind of book. It’s intoxicating, toxic, and beautifully haunting. a perfect mix of sapphic desire, obsession, and ruin wrapped in Schwab’s lyrical prose that feels both dreamy and gut-wrenching all together!!

it doesn’t explore sapphic relationships; it devours them. the tension, the manipulation, the inescapable pull between the characters isthe kind of love that is equal parts poison and oxygen. you know it’s destructive, you know it’s a bad idea, but the characters (and me) keep coming back for more 😫
the relationship dynamics were raw, flawed, and painful, every interaction felt like thin line between passion and destruction.

if I could describe the writing I’ll say it’s a lyrical nightmare In the best way. the prose is just gorgeous. It’s sharp, and the way the author paints emotions and tension is hypnotic. you you feel it all. some words and discretions literally sinked to my bones, and I’m obsessed with that!! 🔥

this book pulls you in with feeling not with action and twists. If you’re looking for a tight, structured plot, be warned: this is not that kind of book. and that’s exactly what makes it so special. this story itself isn’t about what happens. it’s about how it feels. It’s about sadness that settles in your chest, love that hurts more than it heals, and the slow unraveling of people who are doomed from the start. and I loved that about it because in my opinion not all fiction needs a plot. Some books are meant to be character driven.

it was a slow burning disaster I couldn’t escape. it was romance at all. it’s about sick obsession, longing, loss, and the things we do to hold onto what we shouldn’t. the story moves with the weight of inevitability, like watching a car crash in slow motion. you can know and feel the tragedy of these characters but you just keep going. there’s something deliciously eerie about the way it unfolds, like the characters are trapped in their own fate, and we’re just watching it happen. It’s beautifully unsettling and unforgettable!!

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is the kind of book that gets under your skin and stays there. It’s messy, painful, and breathtakingly written. If you love stories that lean into toxicity and obsession this will perfect for fall season ✨



***ARC provided by the publisher—Tor Publishing Group—in exchange for an honest Review.***

[Maddie Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

RATING BREAKDOWN
Characters: 3⭐️
Setting: 5⭐️
Plot: 4⭐️
Themes: 4⭐️
Emotional Impact: 4⭐️
Personal Enjoyment: 6⭐️
Total Rounded Average: 4.5⭐️

The standout of this novel is Schwab's prose. It is precise and poetic. It feels meaningful and deep. The style is so appropriate for the sweeping historical backdrop and captures the intensity of the themes. This story is about temptation, hunger, and addiction. It's about power—the power these characters take, and the power taken from them. Mostly, it's about the relationships that suck the life out of you, and the cost of liberation. It shows how toxicity is a spreading kind of poison. It landed like a cautionary tale. It felt classic in tone and romantically sinister.

I found the characters to be fairly unrelatable, more plot devices than real people I could connect with. That said, they moved me through the plot well, and the multi-pov structure was super engrossing. This lack of connection to the characters did dampen the emotional impact of the story, but cerebrally, I was captivated the whole time.

The story is definitely slower on the pacing side, and that may deter some readers, especially given that this is a slightly larger stand-alone novel. That said, if the setting, tone, and themes are working for the reader, it will be delicious, start to finish. It was for me.

I recommend this to the vibe-readers who can't get enough of drama, addictive prose, and a twisted, dark set of characters exploring the shadow of power and desire.

[Elizabeth (Plant Based Bride) · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thoughts and feelings about this one kept roiling, so I decided to make a video analysis diving deeper into this (problematic?) depiction of ‘toxic lesbian vampires’: https://youtu.be/Jg9gTCZ6OgY

A quick disclaimer before diving in: I’m not much of a vampire fan. I’ve occasionally enjoyed books that explore them in unique ways, but I tend to lose interest quickly regarding the “figuring out the rules” phase of vampirehood. That trope has been done so many times, and I felt frustrated the first time it appeared in this book, only to then watch two more characters go through the exact same discovery process. The shock at not being able to go out in the sun, the horror of craving blood - it’s not compelling anymore on its own. If authors want to revisit this, they need to offer something more to keep it fresh: rich character development, beautiful and poetic prose, or a strong thematic integration. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel this novel delivered any of those things effectively enough to justify revisiting the trope not once, but three times.

Maria, one of the protagonists, is deeply unlikeable, and not in a fun, complex way. She’s painted as “not like other girls,” red-haired and beautiful, bristling at gender roles in ways that feel clichéd rather than compelling. I briefly hoped that her queerness might add some interesting dimension, but my hope faded quickly. She ended up as a bundle of tired tropes rather than a fully realized character, and was insufferable, to boot.

Alice, on the other hand, I found genuinely intriguing. Her backstory was layered, her personality distinctive, and her circumstances compelling. I loved her chapters and found myself gritting my teeth through Maria’s, just waiting to get back to Alice’s perspective. In the first half of the novel, the POVs felt reasonably balanced, but in the second half, we’re introduced to yet another character, Charlotte, and we suddenly spend an inordinate amount of time on her and Sabine’s story, while Alice is largely sidelined.

Now, I don’t mind multiple POVs or timelines in theory. When done well, they can create a rich tapestry of narrative. But in this case, it didn’t feel well-balanced or well-handled. Charlotte eventually became interesting too, but her story was told in such painstaking detail, starting from her teenage years all the way through her life, that it felt unnecessary and out of proportion with the rest of the book. If she had been the sole protagonist, or if we had opened with her story and skipped Maria’s altogether, maybe it wouldn’t have bothered me. But introducing her so far in and then sidelining another character to accommodate her backstory felt frustrating. Of course, I was especially annoyed because Alice was the character I connected with most, so others might not find it as bothersome if they gravitate toward a different protagonist, but for me, it felt uneven and unnecessarily so.

The writing style didn’t help either. It’s emotionally distant and dense with similes and metaphors, many of which felt clunky or oddly phrased. That lack of emotional resonance made it harder to connect with the book’s presumed themes of losing your humanity, grief, and cycles of abuse. The style created a barrier to the very feelings the story seemed to want to explore.

One of my biggest issues, though, was how repetitive and overlong the book felt. Not only are we made to watch three different characters go through the same adjustment to vampirism, but there are also smaller repeated details that just felt unnecessary. For instance, both Maria and Alice have moments where they see sisters but can’t remember who is who - an oddly specific repetition that felt extraneous the first time and baffling the second. Then there are the frequent references to Orpheus. If these had formed an extended metaphor or tied into the story in a meaningful way, I might have appreciated them. But instead, they felt more like filler, repeated without purpose, as if Schwab forgot she’d already used that comparison.

And of course, there’s the classic “corset makes you pale and unable to breathe” moment. Naturally.

Overall, I found this novel too long and repetitive, with little payoff in terms of theme, plot, prose, or emotional impact. It felt like pure vibes (and the vibes were minimal at best, sadly), with the exception of Alice’s story, which was the one bright spot. I think I would’ve enjoyed the book far more if it had focused entirely on Alice, with brief glimpses into vignettes of the other characters’ lives as they intersected with hers. But that’s not the story we got.

I didn’t hate reading it, but I was often bored, frustrated, and rolling my eyes. It felt like a huge missed opportunity. I know this review sounds harsh, but it felt like hundreds of pages of padding around the core of a story with real potential, and that’s always the most frustrating kind of read.

At the moment, I’m sitting around 2.5 stars, rounded up. I might adjust that depending on how I feel as I sit with it longer. I have loved some of V. E. Schwab’s previous work, so I imagine my extremely high expectations were part of why this felt so disappointing. It does seem that others have enjoyed this far more than I did, and I’m glad for them!


Representation: lesbian MCs, gay and bisexual secondary characters, secondary characters of colour.


Trigger/Content Warnings:
Loss of Parents
Animal Cruelty
Animal Death
Sexual Assault
Murder
Blood
Blood Drinking
Internalized Homophobia/Lesbophobia
Emotional Abuse
Suicide


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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

[Laura Greenhalgh · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was exquisite!!! TOXIC. LESBIAN. VAMPIRES. there is yearning, obsession, abuse, female rage, morally grey characters and revenge all while exploring the line between holding on to and letting go of the past. V.E. Schwab has such an atmospheric and poetic writing style. this story was gothic, haunting and extremely thought provoking. it is fairly slow paced but this allows you to form a strong emotional connection to these characters and gives so much depth to the story. the three women this story follows were all complex and intriguing characters. if you loved A Dowry of Blood or The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - you will absolutely devour this book!

[cherie ^_-★ (busy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars ⭐
⤷ mini spoiler-free review!! ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

i’m not quite sure what i was expecting going into this book, but it definitely wasn’t this. i have mixed feelings.

the premise was captivating, the writing beautiful, and the book richly atmospheric, but the execution fell flat.

i understand this is meant to be a character-driven story, but the lack of plot progression made it feel stagnant. as the chapters went on, the pacing dragged and the repetition began to wear on me. at some point, i found myself feeling… bored.

that said, i still enjoyed the book overall and had a great time buddy reading it with my besties. please check out their reviews—they captured my thoughts better than i ever could:

♡.ᐟ anh’s review
♡.ᐟ manas’s review
♡.ᐟ veerali’s review


pre-read
i read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab over four years ago and all i remember is loving it, so i’m really looking forward to picking up another one of her books. toxic lesbian vampires?! i’m SAT.

br with my besties anh, manas, and vee 💖

[Paige · Rating 4 out of 5]

rtc

sapphic vampires? who am I to say no 🤭🎉

buddy read with the girls misty & meagan 👯‍♀️

[Léa · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I went into this with incredibly high expectations and it met EVERY SINGLE ONE. The toxic sapphic vampires, the ode to classic vampire lore whilst also including their own unique attributes, the yearning, the melancholy and the writing!!! There is something about the way that V.E. Schwab writes that is as vivid as it is beautiful and this floored me in all of its small heartbreaks, joys and humanness (somehow, ironically).

this throughout it's entirety was an EASY 5 star until the ending.... which makes me so sad (will I potentially accept it as time goes on... maybe, but it did unfortunately dock the rating slightly)

[Melanie (meltotheany) · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley

“In fairy tales, big things happen in threes.”

this is a hard one to review, because up until the 50% mark, i actually did believe this was going to be a five star read for me. i guess i will get into that more as i write more, but the feeling of disappointment is very strong with this one, but also this is a very high three star rating at the same time.

this is a story about three women across history, and we slowly watch all of them become vampires in very different ways. in 1500s spain, we watch a girl born into terrible circumstances do what she needs to to survive. in 1800s london, we watch a bridgerton-esqu girl want to be able to love freely whomever she wants. and in 2019 boston, we see a girl who is grieving and attempting a fresh start once and for all.

and i think that my biggest disappointment was kind of woven into this premise, because even though we follow three girls and are watching their stories weave together, it feels disjointed. i am not claiming to be an editor, or even a writer, but to me this felt like the author really kind of only wanted to write about maría, and then added these other two storylines to attempt to just connect everything (and all the big wonderful ideas she had) together! and this is where it gets so hard to rate this, because maría’s story was for sure my favorite and the reason i believed i was going to have a five star on my hands!

i love a generational story, and seeing all the puzzle pieces fit together, but everytime it would switch to alice, i would just find myself a little annoyed. and i did like alice a lot more than lottie, which feels bad to type, but maybe that’s because the disconnect of these two timelines already impacted me. but to me this 500+ page book read like 75% maría, 15% lottie, and 10% alice, and i guess i am not saying that’s a bad thing, but it just didn’t blend well to me, it felt forced to me, and kind of like it was making alice the main mc by the end, which i just didn’t like, no matter how many tears i did shed for her. and the abrupt feeling of how the story went just left me closing this book with a three star feeling!

the constant theme of this story is predator vs prey, and we see that constantly reflected back. We get to see a lot of predators going after prey, but we also get to see how sometimes it’s not so easy to distinguish between those two words and archetypes. this is a story about abuse, and how abuse can look so very different, and how cycles of abuse happen. and how those cycles of abuse can change you, forge you, haunt you… forever.

i also adored and respected the way ve schwab really highlighted vampirism in historical literature with queerness, and gender roles, and even just feeling ostracized from society for being different. it is very felt and honored in the text, and i loved it. and just the concept of hungering for so many things, some of which you can easily get, and other things that might be a little harder, and a little harder to hide, too.

again, this is a very high three star, because there really is so much i did love about this. i loved the themes, discussions, and concepts being explored. and i think i am probably going to be in the minority with loving maría’s storyline the most, which in turn is the reason i didn’t love this more, but this was also very loudly pitched as “toxic lesbian vampires” so i am sorry if i wanted to see my girl’s story go in a different direction, other than making it connect to two other stories, okay? lol >.< happy reading, friends!

trigger + content warnings: abuse, anxiety, panic attacks, smoking, drinking, a lot of loss of loved ones in past, murder, death, one sentence mention of death of a baby, child death / murder, one sentence death of an animal (kitten), one sentence mention of animal death in past (rabbit), grief, a lot of talk of conception / pregnancy, marital rape, unwanted touching, plague, blood, self harm to get blood, vomit, fire, sa attempt, mob killing, mass murder, use of a slur for lesbians, homophobia, colorism, manipulation, gaslighting, drugging, talk of suicide, talk of war

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♡.) The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue ★★★★★

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

lol i’m supposed to believe a fledgling vampire could do all that?? sureee (not just that but that two centuries-old vampires would let their guards down to that degree)

i’m not sure that schwab is adding anything different to the vampire story that i have not read before. i’ve read female rage, queer led stories and all of them made more of an impression on me AND nailed the ending.

that being said the writing in this is gorgeous, i was swept away by the first half of this easily, but the pacing issues, narrative choices, and final three chapters undoubtedly contributed to this going from a 4 star read to a 2.5/3

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[Brend · Rating 4 out of 5]

.

[Hillary (abookishmarriage) · Rating 2 out of 5]

What was really buried was the plot.

This is absolutely a book that is all vibes and no plot. Sometimes I can go with that. This time I couldn’t. Why? The vibes were boring. And repetitive! We experience basically the same ideas and similar character arcs 3 times.

Ok yes, I understand theoretically each MC is different but the crossover between them plays out so similarly. Did we NEED this much back story? Arguably this could have been a killer 300 page book with one of these women as the MC, with Schwab committing to the type of story she wanted to tell.

As is…she just didn’t! And it shows. I swear I read for fun, I don’t need like…a lesson to takeaway. But I struggled to even define the point of this story.

And before I get yelled at, I f*cking love books where people sit in rooms and the talking is the action. This was not that. This was frilly prose, all style and absolutely no substance. The dialogue wasn’t the plot. There really was no defined plot. There was ENDLESS backstory. The whole thing was so incredibly self-indulgent, I’m not sure where the editing was.

More and more, I realize that for me, great writing is more than beautiful sentences, but rather a story well-told. And 600 pages is not inherently better than 300.

Also the ending was incredibly freaking dumb. The 75-90% marks were the high point but it took too long to get there, and the end was ludicrous. I don’t care about anyone in this book, and this is just not my kind of fantasy.

Also. Referencing that poem endlessly did NOT endear it to me. What did it even mean? Pretty words. No deeper meaning. Meh.

[Rosh · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a Nutshell: A multi-timeline vampire fantasy about needs, wants, and desires. Triple POV, but only one was interesting. Good prose, lacklustre plot, repetitive scenes. Mostly boring. Only the finale has a few thrills. This is an outlier opinion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Plot Preview:

1532. Spain. Maria. A beautiful girl married to a viscount who views her only as a vessel to bring forth his future children. She longs for freedom.
1827. England. Charlotte. An idealistic girl who's sent away to her relatives in London to hide a clandestine affair. She longs for love.
2019. USA. Alice. A Scottish girl who joins college in Boston hoping for a fresh start and a clean break from the past. But one mistake imperils her plans. She longs for revenge.
How do the lives of these three girls intersect?
The story comes to us in their third-person perspectives spread across multiple countries and centuries.

In all honesty, had I realised that this was a vampire story, I wouldn't even have picked it up. But even if I give the book some leeway for having characters I don’t enjoy reading about, I still won't be able to give it a high rating.

This book has 535 pages. These are divided across the three characters, but not equally. Maria gets the most focus, with Charlotte and Alice possibly getting an equal share of the rest. Alice's perspective is immaterial to the narrative for the most part, though we can see its connection with another timeline. Charlotte's POV begins decently but after a point, it becomes boring.

This leaves us with Maria’s perspective, which has a fantastic start. I was so captivated by her arc that the other two characters’ drab perspectives left me wondering why they were even present in the story. (They are relevant, of course. But the connection comes out much later.) The history, the characters, and the story development in Maria;’s initial arc was spot on. However, this stops once her vampire path begins. After this point, her track follows the same two (mostly unconnected) events: drink blood, feel lust. Repeated until the final section. This left me utterly bored.

No other character has that substantial a role to play in the overall book, even though a few of them have a strong presence for a few chapters. The male characters’ development is particularly lacking, with almost all of them sounding and acting the same, and not in a good way.

The story of the three girls spans multiple centuries, with each chapter clearly tagged with the year and location. I like the author's choice of appending each character's name with a certain date (Not going into spoilers.) It was an intriguing choice, and took me some time to figure out why that date was being mentioned. At the same time, we get the usual dose of feminine rage in all three timelines, which is highly unbelievable. No matter how advanced a woman’s thinking, a woman in the 16th century cannot spout the exact same thoughts as one in the 21st century.

That said, the difference in their time periods is a good way of seeing the changes in cultural and societal patterns. The subjugation of women and their spirits stays common to all paths, proving that women's rights have been crawling ahead only at snail speed. (And possibly, even regressing now in certain countries.)

The author's writing style is good. The prose is lyrical without being purple, and all the descriptions help us to visualise people and events well. Only at times does the description overpower the pacing. The steam content was too high for my preference; YMMV.

While I have a big problem with the repetition of the events and the minimal plot development for more than half of the book, I appreciate how each character has a distinct personality. This creates an interesting individuality in their response to events. At the same time, it is tough to believe that most of the interactions the girls have regardless of era are limited to other lesbians.

I can’t reveal more about the book because everything else would be a spoiler. Suffice it to say, the overly convenient plotting and the repetitiveness in the vampire lifestyle caused me to lose interest in the proceedings after a point. The finale redeemed the experience to some extent, but it was a case of ‘too little, too late’.

I am disappointed that my first VE Schwab book ended up like this. But what’s new? Almost every time I pick up a popular author, I end up disliking their works. 😒 Mine is anyway an outlier opinion, so please check other reviews as well before you take a call on this work.

Recommended to those who enjoy vampire fantasy novels with NA-level steam and feminine rage and character-oriented storylines and slow pacing. (I don’t mind the last two attributes, but the rest isn't my cup of tea.)

2 stars.


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I follow the Goodreads rating policy:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - Lifelong favourite!
⭐⭐⭐⭐ - I loved the book.
⭐⭐⭐ - I liked the book.
⭐⭐ - I found the book average.
⭐ - I hated the book.
The decimals indicate the degree of the in-between feelings.

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