V.E. Schwab delivers a haunting tale that intertwines gothic atmosphere with emotional depth. Schwab masterfully navigates multiple timelines, crafting a narrative that is both intricate and compelling. The character development is profound, offering a deep exploration of identity and transformation. This standalone novel stands as a testament to Schwab's prowess in blending fantasy with poignant human experiences.

Thank you to NetGalley & Tor Publishing for the eARC!

4.5 ⭐

Wow, wow, wow! My first book by V.E. Schwab, and I loved it! Beautiful, metaphorical writing, nuanced, flawed characters, and incredibly immersive storytelling. It's a slower-paced novel, and I did want a little more from the ending, but Schwab's prose is so intoxicating that I didn't mind it too much. Schwab really knows how to get you emotionally invested in each of her characters! Now I need to read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue asap.

I really wanted to love this one since I’m a big fan of Scwabs other works but this story didn’t draw me in. As always Scwabs writing is top notch, her prose are luscious and almost like poetry in parts. Unfortunately I found the story boring, I didn’t really care about either if the 3 main characters. All this build up to the ending and it was anticlimactic. I’m sure many will love this story it just wasn’t my favourite of Scwabs.

Thanks to NetGalley & Tor Publishing Group for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

A very fun and thrilling tale that takes us hundreds of years into the past and to present day. These are definitely toxic vampires and I like how Schwab handled the vampire mythology and rules--it worked very well and kept things fresh.

I really couldn't stand Alice though and all of her whining. I loathed having to go back to her chapters--she's just a very unlikable protagonist, which is saying a lot considering the other two vampire protagonists are EVIL. I wish we got more of the time periods the vampires were lurking in--but Schwab was focusing primarily on vibes, not details, which is fine but y'know...eh. The ending was rather anticlimactic in my opinion.

This is a petty grievance, but I really don't like the cover. I don't feel like it suits it at all and feels very generic. I hope they re-release this book with a better cover that screams vampires.

Overall, very entertaining story!

Ah, vampires, good old blood-sucking, undead, nocturnal creatures who have had the media in their chokehold since, well, the dawn of time. And when one of my favorite authors announced that they are coming out with a book about the lives of three lesbian vampires from different points of history, I immediately said, “sign me up!”

So, as you have expected this one was one of my most anticipated books of this year… and with a heavy heart I must honestly say that it was underwhelming. But don’t ring the alarms just yet, I didn’t hate it by any means, I just… didn’t like it.

But let’s start with the positives: V.E Schwab's writing is, as always, immaculate. I think it was the only thing that kept me invested in the story. Her beautiful prose and effortless command of the language were enough for me to stay hooked. Her characters are always vivid and full of colors as they come to life from the pages, and I believe that Schwab is a master at writing multiple-nonlinear-povs (i.e. Vicious being one of my favorite books of all time). However, the story itself fell flat for me, it was too…lackluster. All three of our heroines, Maria/Sabine, Lottie, and Alice, were strong and shining on their own, in their respective timelines, but when they came together (no spoilers) it was anticlimactic, to say the least. I think that their stories would’ve felt better as separate standalone stories. But well I guess, this is just my preference.

Another factor contributed to my unfortunate dislike of this book, is that some have compared it to the Interview with the Vampire, and I (hot take) am not a huge fan of this story (Put away your pitchforks, let me explain!) I simply realized that, in the end, vampires are just not for me. I made peace with it because for as long as I remember I never truly enjoyed vampires in any media. (Maybe a variation of vampires like in the manga Demon Slayer or Tokyo Ghoul but not strictly traditional blood-sucking-Twilight-Dracula-esc ones). Though I'm not very sure where this disdain comes from, in retrospect, I don’t think I genuinely enjoyed something with vampires...ever. For some reason, their stories feel stale for me, repetitive even. Perhaps because they are always mostly white, or their stories are always mostly set in Europe, or perhaps none of that at all, and I’m just not enlightened enough to vibe with the vampires.

And so, with that being said, I would not not recommend this book because it was simply just not for me (and I’m just one oddball who didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to). Again, this wasn't a bad story, just a story that I didn't personally enjoy, it definitely has its rightful audience.

Overall rating: 2,88 ⭐

Bury Your Bones in the Midnight Soil is dark, tender, and beautifully unsettling in the way only Schwab can manage. The prose is lyrical without ever losing its edge, and the story moves like a whisper through a haunted forest, soft and eerie, but with teeth. This is a tale of grief, legacy, and the quiet violence of memory. I was totally absorbed from the very first line. Schwab's ability to craft atmosphere is on full display here: you can feel the damp earth, smell the old roots, hear the silence between the trees. And the characters? They ache. Every single one of them feels real and raw, like they’ve been living just out of sight this whole time. I also loved the audio book portion with the different voices and accents. Best audiobook version I've listened to by far. I loved how it blends folklore and familial pain, how the supernatural serves as both metaphor and literal threat. It's gothic in the best way,moody and immersive without being weighed down by it. Highly, highly recommend this to anyone who wants to be haunted in the most poetic way possible.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is the vampire book we’ve always needed. We’ve had every kind of vampire book but toxic lesbian vampires adds a great fresh and needed element to the world of vampire fiction.

I love the viciousness of Maria. I love that Schwab shows what the long term of not being human can do to a vampire. When their humanity is completely gone. The long game she plays with Lottie after she betrays her, is diabolical. How swiftly she can kill without even thinking twice about it. It reminds me a lot of Marcella is Vengeful, that rage they both share.

Alice’s story stuck with me the most. I knew what would be the ending of her story, but I still cried so much when it’s revealed. It had my heart in pieces for her and how devastating it was that the sister was so close by.

I also loved Lottie’s story as well. I do want justice for Penny because while her time in the book is very short, it actually really stuck with me. She was just about to say how excited she was that she would be able to read so many books! This stuck with me because that’s the only reason eternity sounds like a great idea. I wanted a happy ending for Lottie too…

But, THAT ENDING WAS SO CRAZY. Omg, I jumped up from my chair when she drank it. When I first read it, I thought that it was a little too fast/easy for Sabine, but that’s death, it can happen quickly. That her version of vampires while immortal, are also very mortal creatures. I think Schwab was trying to portray that it can be easy and fast and completely surprise you.

Overall, this book is amazing. I loved each part of everyone’s story. Each had their own emotional and devastating experiences. I don’t think Schwab could ever disappoint me, their writing is just too beautiful.

The audiobook is also VERY well done!! I loved being able to hear their accents with the audiobook. 5/5 on narration, 5/5 on reader experience!!

Wow. I deeply loved this book.

The multiple storylines kept me hooked the whole time, and the writing itself was absolutely beautiful. This may be a new favorite of all time for me! I went into this completely blind, not even knowing it was about vampires, and ended up falling in love with all of the characters (even Sabine) and their journeys throughout the story. This is one I won't stop thinking about for a long time.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this early! And thank you to V. E. Schwab for writing such an impactful story with such memorable and relatable characters. I loved it.

I mean, truly, what more could you want from a story than vampires who are super toxic and hot lesbians and writing so beautiful it literally makes your chest ache? Honestly, there’s nothing better than that. This is most definitely my all-time-favorite VES book to date. Wow wow wow. I cannot express how great this was!
4.5 stars.
P.s. WE NEED MORE STAND ALONE STORIES! THANK YOU VES! I have become so sick of drawn out series

When is a book by V.E. Schwab ever not five stars? Never, is your answer.

When The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue released, I was a mess, sobbing the ugliest tears and wailing about the beautiful tale to anyone in my immediate vicinity; it didn’t matter that no one around me cared, only that this this thing, this story, existed and it both broke and awakened something inside of me. It was never a question of whether V.E. Schwab would be able to create that same magic again, it was only a matter of when.

And now, that time has finally arrived with Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.

As an avid enjoyer of all things vampire (the good and the very very bad representations), I haven’t actually read much vampire literature, except for Dracula, which I picked up earlier this year and immediately knew that I needed to explore more. Since then, books like Carmilla and Lucy Undying have made their way onto my tbr list, and so, it only seemed fitting that V.E. Schwab’s newest book fell right into my new category of obsession.

This story gave me everything and more than I could possibly want or imagine. It has all the gothic horror vibes and lush imagery as you follow these three women through their lives and their deaths. And each one of them had such different stories to tell and unique ways of telling them that I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated.

As much as I would have loved to have more more more of this story, I don’t think there’s anything I would want changed about the final product; it is quite literally a masterpiece as it is, and I think extending it would only diminish the overall effect of the experience. V.E. Schwab said all that needed to be said and created a stunning record of the world through the eyes of these young women with a fresh and new take on vampire lore.

And while I didn’t break down into tears like I did at the end of Addie LaRue (this isn’t that kind of story), I felt so deeply for these characters. I empathized with them, I pitied them, I worried for them, because they all deserved better in their own right, and yet the world and time is cruel and it can and will crumble you if you are here too long.

Bury Our Bones is an exploration of queerness through time, grief and guilt, and what it truly means to live even after you are no longer human. I am so deeply grateful to NetGalley and Tor for gifting me this e-ARC, it means the world.

toxic lesbians vampires!!! it’s a story about 3 women in different time periods and how their stories all interconnect. i feel like i was hooked from the first chapter and just wanted to find out more. i like the fact that we go back and forth between the characters in their timelines until we see how they’re all connected. i was shocked at the ending and didn’t really see it coming. i love v.e. and will auto buy everything she does!! thank you so much to the publisher and netgalley for the arc!!

As someone who doesn’t like vampires but loves VE Schwab, I liked it more than I thought I would and can appreciate this for the feat it is, but it’s not a new favorite. Unlike what seems to be common, I actually loved the beginning and was hooked immediately. It just lost me with some of the pacing. Schwab’s writing is incredible, as always, though.

As someone who has yet to encounter the works of V.E. Schwab, I'd have told you there's no better way to make an introduction than with a paranormal historical fantasy about lesbian vampires... but the fact that she made something boring of what should have been exciting makes me honestly wonder what all the fuss is about.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a character-driven saga that examines themes of power and femininity through a lens of vampire mythology, but the problem is that's all it is. All character and themes, and no plot. It's an uneven, disjointed novel that suffers from pacing that drags and narrative POVs that are just long enough to incite curiosity but too short to create connections. To make matters worse, there's no real depth to the characters and none of the development needed to move a story forward.

This. Just. Dragged.

There's no sense of urgency, no momentum to the story. I prefer a book that has me turning pages, wondering what's next, how something is going to be resolved, when someone is getting what's coming to them, or when romance will bloom. Here, the only question I found myself asking was whether it was ever going to go somewhere. Admittedly, I started skimming after the 200 page mark, but I still feel confident saying this felt like 450 pages of exposition, 100 or so of rising action (most of which happens off the page), and then 10 pages of resolution.

I. Just. Didn't. Care.

Stylistically, I think I get what Schwab was going after here. I suspect she was after the feel of a Gothic melodrama, one where style matters more than substance, but my issue is that the story gets lost in the prose. I can appreciate that prose on a technical level, but I found it made for a very slow read when the story itself was already poorly paced. Maybe this is Schwab's style, and maybe her fans know what they're in for - I do seem to be in the minority - but as a newbie, this feels like a missed opportunity on so many fronts. I'd really hoped for more.

This was delightfully vicious.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil follows an ensemble cast of three women through hundreds of years and how their stories intersect and influences events.

This felt like reading Dracula, Carmilla, Interview with a Vampire and a Dowry of Blood. Dark, gothic, tumultuous (abusive) relationships. Queer/sapphic relationships. All with VE Schwab's amazing writing. I liked this as much as I liked Addie LaRue.

The story felt like a long walk in a dark forest, with every character pulling me along with them, sharing their story with me. It was slow and atmospheric, and I was unable to put it down without it lingering rent free in my brain. It still lives rent free in my brain.

Thank you NetGalley and TOR for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is an addicting tale spanning cities, seas, and generations, following three women and their interconnected stories.

Anything to do with vampires and I’m immediately intrigued, add in a story about vampires from Schwab and I’m sold. The writing was absolutely gorgeous, lush, and full of beautifully crafted prose that kept you compelled, savoring every word. The historical setting throughout different time periods was incredibly atmospheric and alluring. The characters and their layering narratives were super intriguing, and along with the Interview with A Vampire inspiration, this book sunk its teeth into me.

At times, the pacing and the length of the overall book I found a little distracting but I will always adore Schwab’s meticulous buildup of her stories and how immersive they feel. (Plus, I think this would be an incredible mini-series!!)

4.25/5

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.*

This was my most anticipated release of the year and this book did not disappoint. It was everything I had hoped for and more. I love Schwab’s writing style and I think the lavish prose was perfect for this story and these characters.

And the characters. I was so drawn in by all of women in this story. They were so well developed and their stories left me as thirsty as they were for more, more, more.

All I knew going into this novel was that it was about toxic lesbian vampires and honestly that is all you need to know. The plot is minimal- it is much more a character study- and it worked well for this book.

There’s not a single thing I would change about this book. I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy once it releases.

This review was originally posted on sffinsiders.com, and thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, VE Schwab’s latest release. This comes on the tail end of a vampire kick for me, the final of three. Vampires are not exactly my thing (most “common” monsters aren’t, i.e. vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc…), yet this KNOCKED it out the park.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil was my introduction to VE Schwab, and I regret not reading more of Schwab’s works sooner. I adored this book from cover to cover, and will get into why in a little bit. The timeline is quite whacky, hopping around between three different characters. The first takes place in Santa Domingo many centuries ago. The second takes place in Boston within the past couple years, and the third takes place in London within the last few centuries. The Santa Domingo and Boston timelines take precedent for the first two thirds of the book, with the prior evolving throughout history as the POV travels throughout Europe.

This story is, of course, about vampires. Specifically, the making of them. We see how each character is turned into a vampire and how it changed every facet of their being. Some of the characters welcome it openly, some have their reservations, and some rage at this decision that was not their own. The three POVs all share that singular point of being a vampire, but could not be any more different.

This is a journey through the years, through the minds and hearts of our main characters as they navigate their new life as an unliving creature of the night. The standard vampire concepts are there (with some fun meta conversation) like needing to be invited inside homes, drinking blood, getting sick in the sun, etc…

My favorite aspect of this book is the prose. Each page sings. I know we are viewing these stories in familiar places, but that doesn’t stop Schwab from adding bits and pieces to make it all breath. Sure, we know what a villa in Italy or an estate in England might look like, but do we know what it feels like? Schwab makes sure that we do with every description, every page, every chapter.

The actual characters transform from their introduction to the various ways they bow out at the end. Sabine, who starts off with a different name entirely, is married into the life of a lady alongside a young lordling. She learns to hate it rather quickly, and befriends a widow. She learns of the widow’s nature and resolves to become a vampire herself. Her journeys are many, meeting friends along the way, traveling alone, finding friends and lovers and everything in between. And, of course, meals. She is aloof, for the most part, until she meets another of our POVs, and I shant say more.

There is so much grief in that one POV, it practically bleeds off the page. The emotions are sincere and the reader cannot help but feel each and everyone as the story goes along. We see Sabine evolve from an eager young girl, to a vengeful killer, to so many other things I could not possibly list them. Above all, she feels real.

The other main POV for the bulk of the book, Alice, wants to live a simple life as a college student with a fresh start. We get sneak peaks of her backstory along the way, and then she’s turned into a vampire. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know what to do. Most of all, she’s frustrated at her fresh start being taken away almost as soon as its begun. Her grief is different, yet for me it was easier to resonate with (I anticipate others might relate to Sabine more). She was perhaps my favorite character (and not because I was imagining a Scottish accent the whole time).

I won’t speak on the 3rd POV because there is a twist that is rather integral to the story with that one. But she, too, I did like. Though because we had less time with her, the others were more liked. Or hated, because the story weaves and winds around the lines of morality so much so we don’t know who to root for, against, or anything besides.

This book is, as you can probably tell, very emotional. There are bloody scenes of blood being drank, and sensual scenes of love being made between the undead and their prey or their lovers. This book, when weighed against all others I’ve read, is the absolute best at conveying a heartbeat to the reader. First of all, yes, I know the irony. Second of all, what am I talking about?

I mean the story moves you at even the slightest of provocations. Sure, it might not have the kick of a massive series where you spend an exorbitant amount of time with a single character. But it does pack a huge punch for a standalone. You feel as they feel, want as they want, love as they love, and hate as they hate. I truly was in awe each time Schwab imposed all this on me as the reader, and was overjoyed to find it happening again and again without end.

The atmosphere was masterful, setting the scene perfectly anytime we moved from one character to another, from one place to another. Even the side characters, there for a chapter or two, sometimes more, were so impactful in their movements and dialogue that you couldn’t help but wish they’d come back later, even if you knew it was improbable.

Its hard to compare, because the other vampire books I read were not exactly vampire books. One had a single vampire, the other had tooth-eating cyberpunk vampires. The Devils by Joe Abercrombie holds a special place in my heart when I read an ARC of it, but man does Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil put up a good fight. I won’t say their fan bases will be the same, but both were exquisite and Bury Our Bones will go down as one of my favorite reads of 2025.

If you like vampires and being emotionally devastated, I implore you to pick up Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab, you will not be disappointed.

A big thank you to Macmillan and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book. THIS BOOK.

I knew early on - early on - that this would be a five star read for me. I knew it would be a book that would stick with me, that would haunt me, that would grip me and force me to flip from page to page to page.

This book tells the story of three different girls at three different times of existence. It weaves all the stories together beautifully. VE has an incredible way with prose.

This story was sapphic, sad, powerful, and beautifully written. I loved it, even when the last 15% had me genuinely holding a hand over my mouth and feeling rite with tension.

Between this and Addie LaRue, I know now more than ever that I need to dive into the Shades of Magic trilogy.

I cannot wait to purchase every beautiful edition of this book I can get my hands on.

An interesting concept and well written prose, but honestly this one fell a bit flat for me. Some parts were interesting, but a lot just felt like filler and I had to drag myself through it. Some characters I would like to hear more about, but others I just didn't care for. I feel like this is a story I would enjoy in another format such as film.

For fans of Interview with the Vampire and The Familiar and especially Carmilla. Lesbian vampires across different times. I especially loved the later years as I like those historically. I am only taking off one star for wishing it was a little shorter but I savored page.