The Book Nook Chronicles

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Oh the final post of 2025, finally made in the third month of 2026. What can I say? At least I am consistently inconsistent. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil was another recommendation from my American Cancer Society readathon from August. Ironically, it made my last two books of 2025 my first V.E. Schwab’s reads which I didn’t realized until writing these reviews. I was definitely more of a fan of Bury Our Bones, and can now confidently say Schwab will be an author I’m watching out for when looking for new releases.

Thank you to my friend and fellow former Barnes and Noble bookseller, Kate, for recommending this read!

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil Review

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5 on StoryGraph

Genre: Fiction

Author: V.E. Schwab

Page Count: 535

Publication Date: June 10, 2025

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil follows three women, turned vampires, throughout different stages of history and how they all come together in this thrilling dark fantasy.

We’re first introduced to María in 16th century Spain, a woman uninterested in getting stuck in the mundanity of an arranged marriage. María befriend the local witch/apothecary, Sabine, in search of an escape. The two quickly become lovers. The escape she is offered, it turns out, is becoming one of the living dead. As the years pass, María becomes darker and more power hungry, changing her name to Sabine’s-which I’ll be using from this point forward.

Our second main character is Charlotte, a young lady from 19th century England who is in love with her best friend. After the two women are caught kissing by Charlotte’s brother, she is forced into finding a husband where she conveniently meets Sabine. The two fall in love and Charlotte is transformed into yet another female vampire.

Our final focus is on Alice, a queer college student in modern-day Boston who’s still figuring herself out. She meets an intoxicating woman at a party and proceeds to have a steamy one-night stand. When she wakes up the next morning, something is different, but she’s not sure what. Once she figures out that she is no longer human, she goes on a mission to find her mystery woman and figure out what the hell happened.

If I had to pick a favorite character out of the three mains, I would have to go with Alice. She’s the most confused by her transformation, but uses it to her advantage becoming a Bostonian vigilante, feeding on creepy ass men who would otherwise be sexual assaulters. Charlotte comes in a close second for me. She is timid and simply seems to want to exist after becoming a vampire. Her heartbreaking love story with her best friend, Jocelyn, is a subplot I could read over and over again.

Sabine, although a major source of momentum throughout the story, is my least favorite. From the start it is clear that power in every form is her main driver. Power over herself, power over others, and eventually power over the afterlife. She’s pure evil, but also a great foil to Alice, so I guess I can live with her being in this book, but only just.

In this entire novel, Schwab does a fabulous job of highlighting lesbianism throughout the ages. The mix of guilt, rage, and liberation experienced by all three women is masterful and keeps you wanting more with every page. The prose are honestly beautiful and make this one of those books that you wish you could erase from your memory so you could read it for the first time again. Nine times out of ten, I’ll take a standalone any day, but I’m almost sad that I’ll never get to revisit these three ladies.

I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book if you’re into female empowerment and rage, dark gothic fantasies, or just a good spicy read. It has it all, and more.