Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

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Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab

Fantasy

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Repeat author

by V.E. Schwab

Excellent choice

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Quick take

Sink your teeth into this dark and deliciously gothic vampire novel by the author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, LGBTQ_themes

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Nonlinear_Timeline

    Nonlinear timeline

  • Illustrated icon, Salacious

    Salacious

Synopsis

This is a story about hunger.

1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.

This is a story about love.

1827. London.

A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage.

2019. Boston.

College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.

This is a story about life—

how it ends, and how it starts.

Content warning

This book contains scenes depicting sexual assault and the death of a child.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

I

Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Spain

1521

The widow arrives on a Wednesday.

María remembers, because Wednesdays are for bathing, and her hair takes an age to dry after it’s been washed and combed. She remembers, because it is warm for the end of April, and she is sitting in a patch of sun at the edge of the yard, sucking on a cherry pit (one of the first of the season) and holding a lock up to the light to see if the hair is turning darker, or if it is simply still damp.

María’s mother says she is becoming too vain, but then, her mother is the one who makes her go to bed each week with clay in her hair, hoping it will mute the glaring strands. As far as María can tell, it isn’t working. If anything, the hair looks even brighter.

She would not mind so much, María’s mother, if the hair were honey-colored, or earthy, even auburn, but such an angry shade of red, she says, is a bad omen. Not a warm color, but the hot orange of an open flame. One she cannot seem to douse.

Something tickles María’s shin. A thread has come loose on the hem of her dress, and she will have to ask her mother to fix it. Her mother is a seamstress, small fingers making perfect lines. The trick to sewing, she is always telling her, is patient hands and patient hearts, but María came into this world with neither. She is always pricking herself with the needle, losing her temper and flinging the work aside, half-done. Born restless, her father used to say. Which was fine for a son, but bad for a daughter.

María rolls the cherry pit along the inside of her teeth as she pulls at the thread, unraveling her mother’s patient heart a little more, when the church bells begin to ring.

And just like that, the day is suddenly more interesting.

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Why I love it

This might be the hardest “Why I Love It” I’ve ever had to write. When I love a book this much, it’s hard to find the right words to do it justice. I could write about the toxic lesbian vampires that are absolutely the reason I picked up this book. Or I could tell you about the lush, beautiful writing that had me savoring every page. I could also talk for hours about the themes of feminine rage and hunger that haunted me long after I finished reading.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil follows the story of three women through three time periods. There’s María, who is wild and wants to forge her own path in life. There’s Charlotte, who spends her days in London’s high society until she sees a different future for herself when she receives an enticing invitation from a widow. And then there’s Alice, who searches for answers about the mysterious girl she met at a college party one fateful night. As each woman goes on her own journey, they will all discover a hunger that lives deep inside them.

If you loved Schwab’s 2020 BOTY finalist The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, you’ll be thrilled to hear that she weaves an equally brilliant story here in Bury Our Bones. It’s an intoxicating read filled with complex, flawed characters that will leave you spellbound until the final pages.

Other books by V. E. Schwab

Member ratings (113)

Fantasy
The Teller of Small Fortunes
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Kingdom of Claw
Our Infinite Fates
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
The Lost Story
Silver Elite
The Courting of Bristol Keats
Water Moon
A Curse Carved in Bone
A Fate Inked in Blood
Five Broken Blades
Heartless Hunter
The Road of Bones
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Where the Library Hides
The Kingdom of Sweets
Hera
A Sorceress Comes to Call
Hell Bent
Kaikeyi
Weyward
The Unmaking of June Farrow
The Fragile Threads of Power
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
The Book of Magic
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The City We Became
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
Piranesi
Thistlefoot
Half Sick of Shadows
Ariadne
Ninth House
The Invisible Hour
Sourdough
Siren Queen
Fate of the Fallen
Immortal Longings
Practical Magic
Fantasy
View all
The Teller of Small Fortunes
Rebel Witch
Kingdom of Claw
Our Infinite Fates
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
The Lost Story
Silver Elite
The Courting of Bristol Keats
Water Moon
A Curse Carved in Bone
A Fate Inked in Blood
Five Broken Blades
Heartless Hunter
The Road of Bones
Ink Blood Sister Scribe
Where the Library Hides
The Kingdom of Sweets
Hera
A Sorceress Comes to Call
Hell Bent
Kaikeyi
Weyward
The Unmaking of June Farrow
The Fragile Threads of Power
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance
The Book of Magic
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
The City We Became
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
Piranesi
Thistlefoot
Half Sick of Shadows
Ariadne
Ninth House
The Invisible Hour
Sourdough
Siren Queen
Fate of the Fallen
Immortal Longings
Practical Magic