Brutal, blood-drenched, beautiful, and breathlessly alive. This is going to be my best read of the year for sure.

We follow three women as their tale spans centuries and countries, each tale interlinking in ways you don’t expect. Thankfully there’s no ennui ridden vampires lamenting their immortality, no sir, 2025 is the year of Hungry Female Rage Vampires and I am Here. For. It.

This book feels like a natural progression of VE Schwab’s incredible talent, it is insistent and immediate and so, so rich. I can’t wait to read it again.

Absolutely phenomenal. I was so invested in these three interconnected stories, they hooked me in from the very beginning. Schwab’s writing is so considered and lyrically beautiful, while the plotting is pacy and twisty. There are moments of joy, tension, intrigue, and well-measured poignancy. Gorgeous, diverse settings across history and around the globe. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil was an unforgettable read, I’m going to be thinking about Sabine, Lottie and Alice for a long time. This will definitely prompt me to read more of Schwab’s backlist this year.

TOXIC. LESBIAN.VAMPIRES! Following three women through centuries and across countries, this is a character study on an epic scale. We first meet Maria, then Alice and Lottie - each of our main characters is introduced with their year of death, and you find out what happened in their lives before and after becoming vampires. Standard lore is adhered to but the title of the book is referenced very poetically to explain the origins of vampirism. This is such an unexpected delight of a book - it's dark and sad and frequently violent but the writing drags you right along with our protagonists, as section by section you are given more and more information regarding their histories. I loved it.

First of all, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Pan MacMillan for giving me the absolute pleasure of being able to read this ARC.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is not my first V.E. Schwab book and certainly won’t be my last. V.E. Schwab has the most miraculous way of making the ordinary into the profound. The way she writes characters, settings and stories is inthralling and beautiful. You feel transported into her work and so connected to the world she has created.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a gothic, sapphic, epic tale that spans over hundreds and hundreds of years about Maria, Sabine, Alice and Lottie and how their individual stories intersect and diverge. The tales are beautifully crafted depicting love, loss, humanity, inhumanity and the never ending need to find fulfilment. Having individual sections of each woman’s tale never once pulled me out of the story as I was craving to know more of each character and how their lives unfolded and what led to choices that were ultimately made or not made. Everything was so profoundly woven together

Much like The Invisible life of Addie LaRue, this book was thought provoking and will stay with me for awhile. I look forward to rereading it and discovering new things painted throughout and new thoughts it provides. What an absolute pleasure to read.