the way i just started crying towards the end of the book— that’s how you know it’s a good one because it catches you off-guard.

BOBITMS follows our three main characters— maría, lottie & alice— whose stories are interconnected. they’re also TOXIC. VAMPIRE. LESBIANS. need i say more?

maría is a complex female character who you both understand (at times) but also hate, at least for the second half of the book. lottie was my favourite! she reminded me of rebekah (“the originals” tv show)— “but i haven’t lived at all”— when she finally found herself to be free, she didn’t even get the chance to live. alice is the character you’re likely to understand the most, who you empathise with the most. i can’t even hate her for that ending because frankly, it was deserved. catty was my favourite side character— i saw what was coming for her a mile away and yet i still sobbed when it happened. her rage and her pain was understandable, and a part of me felt like she left so alice didn’t feel obliged to separate herself from eloise for catty’s sake, so she didn’t have to choose.

I met Victoria Schwab a few years ago and she is so lovely! At the time she only had the Shades of Magic series under her belt, I loved Addie LaRue so had high hopes for her new standalone and it did not disappoint!

Bury our Bones spans 3 different timelines, the 1500s Maria a passionate but repressed young woman with flaming hair whose only hope in life is to attract a suitor who will take her out of her boring life in a small village, until she meets an intriguing widow who changes the course of her life forever. Lottie in the 1800s after an ‘incident’ at her family’s country minor, she is sent to London for the season and to learn how to be a proper lady and find a husband, her life like Maria’s is mapped out for her, until she meets an intriguing widow. Present day, Alice moves to America to pursue college away from the cobbled together family that she has never felt a part of, always the wallflower until a night spent with an intriguing purple haired girl changes the course of her life forever.

3 women tied together by blood and midnight soil. This book is full of intrigue, a mystery, romance and love that passes through time and skirts the border between love and obsession, stepping into the realm of danger.

Despite being 560 pages long I managed to finish this in one day it was so good it kept me turning the pages. I absolutely loved it!

Really enjoyed this, although slightly slow to start and get in to (it is all relevant for the story though!).
Love Victoria's writing style, and her ability to really make you feel how the characters feel. This is only my second ever sapphic book I've read, and I 100% enjoyed this more than the other one. This was a story about love and what it feels like to have it but also to lose it, and it utterly immersed me.

I’ve never read a Schwab but I’ve been drawn into the hype machine of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil so whimsically requested the ARC expecting a rejection and MY GOD. Her prose is beyond stunning, the descriptions of places and people pouring from her pen in a way that feels effortless but oh so intentional. It is poetry, capturing the details of lives and places like an anthropologist studying the world, and refracting in those observations the perspective of the characters we follow. The strength of those characters - headstrong Maria, calculating, vicious Sabine, insecure, broken, Alice and romantic, withering, Lottie - bellows from the pages, and it’s far too easy to get lost inside of them and experience their worlds - so different - through their eyes. Schwab’s prose is biting, her claws sharp and gleaming as she dissects the societal structures which constrain these women, and so deftly dismantles them with an arched brow, and a sharp tongue. I felt so deeply for them reading their stories; I felt emboldened like Maria, free and bloodthirsty like Sabine, I felt a sadness and kinship with Alice, and wistful and mournful like Lottie. I felt these women beside me and every night as I devoured Schwab’s story I became them through their beautifully written experiences - such is the power of fantastic literature, which is transformative and evocative, visceral, bloody and deeply resonant.

thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc!

v. e. schwab never fails me! as someone who fell in love with this author from her series 'a darker shade of magic', i knew i had to request this arc as soon as it was available. 'bury our bones in the midnight soil' is a dark, twisted tale following three women and their stories as they grow vampiric roots. the book explores each character's follies and vices: desire, hunger, greed, bloodlust and the plot threads together deliciously and the women's stories become tangled.

i enjoyed this book so much! each character was so fleshed out and so distinct from each other - i loved how their stories intertwined and how each girl had their own individual character arc. to me, alice was the most interesting - her meekness felt so familiar and there was a sense of curious dread as it made way for something much more sinister. i think this book explores vampiric existence so well - in particular, the dichotomy of human emotions and life everlasting. the longing for company, the desire for love, the need for friendship - all starkly contrasted with the utter disregard for human life. i would 100% recommend this to fans of amc's 'interview with the vampire' and lovers of toxic lesbian vampires in general.

I don't think I can review Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil without dropping one potential spoiler - although it is a point I see mentioned in some of the author blurbs, so I think it's justified, if you want to go into this story in delightful ignorance of the central idea, stop reading now?

Still with me?

Well...

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is very much a vampire book. Across three timelines - one starting in 16th century Spain, the second in 19th century England and the third, present day Boston, MA, we see the workings of these ancient, corrupt creatures. It's actually often on familiar ground in its exploration of the idea, showing up the consequences for these long-lasting, but not immortal, monsters. The solitude. The loss of any possible human connection as mortals age and die. The need for secrecy. The ethical dilemma, when one's existence depends on taking human lives, and often.

Where VE Schwab adds something of her own to the conceit is in her chosen monsters - or perhaps I should say victims.

María is a peasant girl in medieval Spain. Blessed - or cursed - with good looks she seizes an opportunity to get out of grinding poverty and toil, but finds herself in an unfamiliar world without allies or friends. The life of a noblewoman is even more circumscribed than that of a poor girl. Can María repeat her trick and turn the table son the stuffy aristo who she's married?

Charlotte is a wealthy young woman in 19th century England. Like María, her only future seems to be a loveless marriage - until she meets a dazzling foreign contessa who awakes forbidden desire...

Finally, Alice, a young Scottish woman who's arrived to study at Harvard, has already made her move for escape, and has no wish to go any further, but she has little say in matters following a student party...

Each of these three stories is substantial and receives generous space in Schwab's novel, the book cutting back and forward. I don't always enjoy this device, the writer has to really know what they're doing but Schwab brings it off handsomely - with one "but...". This is the inevitable risk that any reader will enjoy one of the timelines more, or less, and resent some of the switches. For me, I found time spent with Alice a little frustrating. She wasn't a character I warmed to very quickly, and it didn't help that while the other two women's stories are more or less chronological, with Alice we get both her "now, in Boston" story and also callbacks to her previous life in her rural Scottish town and her difficult sister. The latter often interrupt the "now" timeline very abruptly and sometimes, very annoyingly. In particular I found Alice's sister, Catty, who these segments often dwell on, difficult.

Alice's dilemma in this book is - spoiler coming - that having been "turned" and (unlike the other two women) "turned" pretty much non consensually, she wants to work out what has happened to her and, if possible, get revenge. Alice is a new vampire, and that's a fairly simple motivation, unlike those of María and Charlotte, both of whom have spent long decades or even centuries becoming who they are. Alice's family history (fifteen years before, her mum died, her dad remarried, Alice is friendly with the new wife, Catty hates her and behaves in an increasingly bratty way) doesn't really affect that or bear on her current situation so these parts of the novel while I think insightful in terms of family dynamics, read as a distraction from the main story.

Which is a shame, because the main story is terrific! We see lots of gore. We see jealously. We see the tedium of a centuries-long existence. The loss of family and friends. The different vampires here cope with, or endure, this situation variously but with a consensus that there is a hollowing out process going on, robbing all, in the end, of their remaining humanity. (How to deal with that?)

Schwab also deftly portrays a rather vampire-specific, but immediately recognisable, strain of abuse and coercive control which, once you stop and think about it, absolutely fits with the situation. (Do bear this element of there story in mind if that's something that you might struggle with).

Above all this novel is superbly plotted, with the dance of her vampires across the centuries well choreographed to bring them together and ignite a final conflict with a few twists I absolutely hadn't anticipated. At the level of the writing itself, Schwab is always excellent of course and Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil is very, very readable.

So overall, I enjoyed Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil, and would recommend it, with the one caveat above.

I had exceptionally high expectations for the new book from my favourite author—with a concept that seemed tailor-made for me, no less—and it blew every one of them out of the park. More atmospheric and lyrical than it is fast-paced and plot driven, the book follows three female vampires born in different time periods and drawn together by a latest victim. A book about the queer experience as much as it is vampirism, it perfectly encapsulated the complications faced by sapphic women in a male-centred world—isolation, rage, desire—which is something that you can tell is deeply personal to the author, and that I’d been hoping Schwab would write about for a while. Its darkly toxic romance is perfect for fans of Interview With the Vampire, or fans of Schwab’s previous work like the dark gods of Addie LaRue and the cat-and-mouse obsession of the Villains series. The timelines and perspectives jump around a lot but never became confusing, showing us a glimpse of the past or a peek into the present at the exact moment it was needed. This made it all too easy to root for each of our three conflicting narrators even when they were doing things that definitely shouldn’t be rooted for, and really dialled up the shock factor of the ending—although, ultimately, it was the only way to wrap up this epic tale spanning the course of centuries. A story of hunger and decay to really sink your teeth into, this is one that’s going to stay with me for a long time.

I remember V E Schwab talking about her toxic lesbian vampire novel in 2022 during the Gallant tour, and have been excited to read it ever since then. Bury Our Bones in The Midnight Soil did not disappoint.

The story follows three overlapping timelines of our three women - Sabine, Lottie and Alice, from multiple centuries. You do get a lot of backstory and a lot of detail but honestly it just adds to the richness of the story. And it all comes together in the end in a surprising, beautiful tragedy.

‘Everyone else looks like they’re having fun, so Alice does her best impression of a mirror ‘ - Alice is a first year university student in Boston, struggling to find her own identify and purpose. A one night encounter with the hauntingly intriguing Lottie takes Alice on a journey she didn’t expect. As she treks Boston to try and find Lottie and some answers, we learn the story of Sabine, Lottie and how they came to be who they are. This story beautifully writes about vampires without the cliches, while still giving respect to the common lore, in V E Schwabs own way. This is not a cheesy vampire love story; this is a story about the power of women, toxic relationships, life and death.

V E Schwab is an incredible writer. Her words bury into my soul in the best way. ‘ After all, what grows in the midnight soil is not a different flower, only a bolder bloom’.

They say: Toxic, lesbian vampires.
I say: sign me up!

We follow Maria, Lottie and Alice learning how to be themselves in world where not everyone fits in. Spanning centuries and lifetimes, Bury Our Bones is an exploration of love, sexuality, humanity and society.

Not only do we explore time from the 1500s to 2019, we also explore the world. From Spain to Venice to London to Rome to Scotland to Boston. The story shows that no matter where you are in the world or in time, there is always someone who feels lost and like they don't belong, clinging to the wall watching the world go by.

The prose has the power to transport you and I honestly just felt like I fell right into this book and never left. We follow each girl as they come to terms with beginning their afterlife and finding their place in the world. The writing was magical, lyrical and haunting and was my favourite part of the book, V E Schwab at her best.

If you're looking for a plot heavy, fast moving book this will not be for you. But if you're looking for beautiful writing, flawed characters and exploration of what it is like to find yourself in an unaccepting world then I would definitely pick this up.

I enjoyed this book far more in the beginning. This was a book where ‘the ending ruined it for me’

I adored how we slowly got to follow each character. Maria I loved from the start but Sabine toward the end I struggled to see the point? Of where she started to twist into something horrid.
And I get that this was a book about toxic vampires, of toxic relationships and how you can be trapped within it and be unable to ever be free. But how it concluded when there were years of this turmoil just fell so flat for me. I was like ‘oh that’s it?’ To me it didn’t seem feasible. I couldn’t suspend my belief to believe that the ending ended as it did. I felt that it needed another 30-50 pages to really flesh this out. It was a try succeed cycle where I wanted a try fail and then success cycle. Everything came far too easy.

There were moments particularly in Alice’s pov where I guessed a lot of things. Even when we were looking at her past I knew the reveal.

And Lottie. I did enjoy her story (though I’d almost argue her introduction wasn’t that great) I love regency London. But the turning point I knew what was going to happen because of Sabines POV the moment leading up to it dragged on for far too long. But the turning point happened and I was fully invested in her arc.
But the melding of the characters coming together from Sabine to Lottie and Alice I felt needed more page time. The reasoning behind Alice turning was I struggled to believe.

The characters as a whole were incredibly fleshed out and complex. But the plot as they wove through together I struggled with a lot. So unfortunately this is a miss for me.

I do thank to thank Tor for the e-arc.

This was my first V.E. Schwab book and it did not disappoint. Passion, bloodthirsty, love & hatred spread over 400 years. This book follows three young women and their tumultuous relationship with life/death and each other. A really enjoyable read, I can’t wait to read more from this author!

First of all, a big thank you to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan | Tor for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Honestly, first of all, I need to say that I took a huge gamble with this book - my track record with works by V.E. Schwab is a 50:50 toss of like or loathe. But since I adored "The Invisible Life od Addie LaRue", and we get "toxic lesbian vampires" as the tagline, I took the plunge and was heavily and wholeheartedly rewarded.
4.5 stars from me!!

This review contains general plot spoilers!

We follow the POV of three ladies in different centuries - Maria from the 16th century, Charlotte/Lottie from the 19th century and Alice from contemporary Boston. Over the course of the book we follow them one by one and watch them entangle.
It's a rather slow read in the beginning to set up the actual impact of what is happening (this is the only part which caused me not to give 5 full stars) - however, once the plot picks up the pace, the reader is in for a ride, and oh how wild of a ride it is. We follow Maria and then Lottie through the centuries, interspersed with the current-time chapters with Alice. It is truly well crafted.
The different centuries felt actually distinct from one another, and all the protanonist ladies felt truly distinct.

All of our protagonist ladies are so called "misfits", "other", free spirits with a hunger for freedom and autonomy, and who rebel against the mold society wants to smush them into. It is a cathartic read. (Personally, I have seen much too much of myself in Alice.) Each of them has different reasons for resenting their life and their standing in society, and even though they might seem similar at first glance they are different at its core.

This work definitely deserves the tagline of "toxic lesbian vampires" - their relationships are truly messy and messed up, the dynamics are very unhealthy, occasionally outright abusive and scary, and occasionally hit a tad close to home. (I advise everyone to have a look at the cw/tw)

Schwabs writing in this work captured me. Although i did critisize the pace in the beginning, I find no reproach for the writing itself. The prose is beautiful, and helps you immerse yourself easily.

With over 500 pages I was holding my breath on whether or not BOBITMS would stick the landing - the set up put my expectations up high (and was not disappointed!)

It’s got to be a 3.5 ⭐️ for me. Which I’m sad about because when I started it, I was hooked. Took my kindle everywhere couldn’t put it down. If it had all been like that, beautifully written and utterly intoxicating and addictive it would have been five stars. But there were definite pacing issues the further through the book it went. I couldn’t have cared less about Alice’s sister and her life at home, it just slowed the book down. There were a couple of surprises that got me but towards the last quarter of the book I just wanted it to be over.

Thank you Netgalley and Tor for the chance to read this eARC.
Not for me unfortunately, bored of reading books with a blatant disrespect for Christianity.

Thank you, NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is the story about Sabine, Charlotte and Alice, the young woman caught in the middle between the two of them. It’s a love story, and it’s a story about vampires.

Unfortunately, it’s kind of boring.

I really like V E Schwab, but this book wasn’t it. It starts out with two different POVs - Sabine and Alice. Sabine lives in the past, Alice in our time. They both have things happen to them, but for at least the first half of the book the stories didn’t seem interconnected, which frustrated me. When the connection finally appeared, it was slightly disappointing.
As for the plot - it’s basically just their lives. There’s no saving the world, no big evil. Just some girls doing their best (or worst).

Sabine is a very interesting character. I enjoyed how she took what she wanted and how she wasn’t a victim. But honestly - she was just unlikable. From the very beginning I just wanted to say „could’ve told you that would happen“. I had no sympathy for her.
Charlotte frustrated me with her naïveté and her passiveness. Alice was the only one I actually liked, but unfortunately her storyline was the most boring one.
There were some side characters I enjoyed reading about, but most of them weren’t very memorable.

What I did enjoy was once again the historic aspect of the story, which V E Schwab does brilliantly. Framing the storyline in historical context, passing through the years and places. Very nice, even though I could’ve had even more of that.

Overall - there were some very nice scenes and some parts of the vampire lore were pretty awesome. But the book kind of bored me.

It took a little while to get into this but since then it was fantastic!

The writing made me feel like I was there with the characters. I felt all their emotions!

The back and forth with the characters and the timelines was a little bit of a struggle to get used to.

I felt each character was toxic and flawed but that made them real

Honestly this is V.E. Schwab's best novel yet. It has haunted me. Stuck its feral teeth into my mind and buried its roots down deep. The prose is lyrical, the characters an artful study in loneliness and love, and simmering just beneath the surface is rage at an unjust world. I absolutely adored this novel.

The writing was outstanding. the characters feel raw & real. the prose is lyrical. This book really and truly haunted me and consumed me in the best way that so few books do.

I was very excited to receive this proof as I know each time I read anything by this author I will have a great time and this book hasn't disappointed!
Just like the author has been upselling this book as lasbian toxic vampires and that's exactly what you get along side layers of characters flaws and their struggles. The time stamps really help us to get to know these characters and how deep their story goes.

Sapphic Vampires? SIgn me up already. Thank you netgalley for this arc, this was my first VE Schwab read and I really enjoyed it. I'm excited to read more now from VE Schwab as I now feel like I'm massively missing out!