Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil Book Review

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, I finally got my hands on my most-anticipated release of 2025: V.E. Schwab's Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. Unfortunately, I finished it. But I enjoyed every sentence, and now I get to convince you to read it too!

Genre: Dark Fantasy / Contemporary Fantasy + Historical Fantasy

Category: Emotional Read

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Rating: 5/5 Stars

Plot: 5/5 stars

Characters: 5/5 stars

World: 5/5 stars

Pairing: (NOTE: With three main characters, it only made sense to give them each their own pairing. Let me know which you like best!)

Maria: Midnight sangria + chocolate cherry cake

Charlotte: Iced lavender London fog + raspberry rose scones

Alice: Drambuie coffee cocktail + Forfar Bridies

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Sabine has walked the earth long enough to know that not all flowers grow well in the garden. Some thrive, and others wither. And a wretched few must be dug up before they ruin everything.

PLOT

Schwab's "toxic lesbian vampire book" is just that: a character-driven plot featuring three queer women whose lives fall apart as they make deadly connections.

As if love and horror could not go hand in hand.

Maria wants more than what women are allowed in 16th-century Spain. Upon meeting an intriguing stranger, she makes a life-altering decision and vows to live without regret. About 300 years later, Charlotte's forbidden love gets her shipped to London. While learning to be a "proper" young lady, she meets a captivating woman offering freedom—with strings attached. In 2019, Alice moves across the world to Boston in search of a new life. But a chance encounter at a college party turns her world upside down and leaves her aching for revenge.

Their stories play out across continents and time, illustrating how people allow circumstances to mold them in different ways...or how they take matters into their own hands. While one POV provides the bulk of the lore, another unpacks the relationships and connections, and the third deals with consequences.

This is a book about love and loss, hunger, freedom and autonomy, obsession, manipulation, adaptability, sacrifice, accountability, identity, and rebirth. Here, Schwab illuminates the shadow aspects of womanhood—the things we’re taught to hide or deny, like wildness, independence, selfishness, greed, anger, and desire.

Readers should consider the content warnings before going in. As a vampire book, there is obviously blood, death, and violence. The characters also experience abuse, SA, toxic relationships, and grief.

Death is a kind of freedom, after all.

I had an idea of how this book was going to go before I cracked the spine, but Schwab's plot twists upended some of those preconceived notions and theories I'd begun building. Coupled with the delicious suspense of each POV, I was thirsting for more (pun intended) each time I closed the book. I wanted to devour and savor it at the same time. But if you prefer a fast-paced, plot-driven narrative, this may not be your cup of tea.

Every Schwab book I read inches her closer to the top of my favorite authors list, and this was no exception. Her prose begs to be tabbed, imprinting itself into the corridors of the heart and mind. I wanted to soak in as much as possible, so I listened to the audiobook as I read. And I cannot recommend the audio enough; each of the narrators did a fantastic job, and it lent so much to the experience.

CHARACTERS

"It is a lie, you know, that you only get one story."

Sometimes characters overshadow each other, whether they're meant to or not. That's not the case here. The FMCs and their arcs are fascinating, and each feels like they are THE main character.

Readers are sure to love Maria for how magnetic and vibrant she is, supporting her rights and wrongs. She is intoxicating, charming, dangerous, and at times unpredictable—a walking cautionary tale written for those who love chaotic femme fatales.

She is a flame in the dark, and the night is full of moths.

"The world will try to make you small. It will tell you to be modest, and meek. But the world is wrong. You should get to love and feel and live as boldly as you want."

Charlotte is the gentle, bookish girl who gets to live out a paranormal romance fantasy...and the nightmare it often becomes. Readers will love her goodness and cheer for her as her desperate story plays out. Or they'll rage against her weaknesses and decisions.

"Stories matter, Alice. When you live long enough, they're all you have."

Alice is somewhere in the middle: a lost soul in search of a fresh start as the past haunts her relentlessly. She's for the shy girls, those who don't always feel comfortable in their own skin, and the ones who reinvent themselves. She's also for those who are tired of being passive and keeping the peace.

No—disappearing would be better, because maybe in the absence of Alice she could become someone else.

There are two other women in the background whose stories were interesting and tragic. One in particular, I wish I could have had an alternate ending to read; it's not that her ending doesn't make sense, but that I'd be interested to see how differently her story could have played out in another version of life. But that's all I will say about them.

At first, I was bummed we weren’t getting more from one of the characters, but the further I got, the more I appreciated how the other stories were leading and catching up to her while explaining vital histories.

My favorite and least favorite character changed multiple times, as they all deserved revenge and happiness...to an extent.

WORLD

If there's one thing you can expect from V.E. Schwab, it's that whatever she writes will be indulgently aesethic. Schwab pays homage to traditional vampire literature while also twisting the lore into something original.

"All things are touched by time, and we are no exception."

As the plot plays out, we're taken through a Spanish village, carnevale in Venice, Italian cafes, cemeteries, London society, Scottish towns, urban streets, abandoned houses, and vampiric clubs.

The best way I can describe Bury Our Bones is Addie LaRue and the Villains series meet True Blood and Interview With a Vampire with a splash of Bridgerton. Needless to say, the atmosphere is gothic, luxurious, and addictive.

TL;DR

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil had everything I've come to expect from Schwab: morally grey characters in desperate situations, moody vibes, addictive prose, and an impeccable gothic atmosphere. It felt like a love letter to her fans with its nods to some of Schwab's previous works.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, but especially to readers who enjoy vampires, sapphic romance, villainous main characters, multiple timelines/POVs, a character’s descent into madness, or having your heart torn out as happiness is snatched from a character time and again. I will also never stop recommending the audiobook—it's one of the best I've come across.

If you’ve read this book, let’s talk about it! And you can help me lovingly bully Jordan into reading it.