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

Name: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
Series: Stand Alone
Author: V.E. Schwab
Publisher: Tor/ Fairyloot
Format: Hardback / Fairyloot SE
Genres: Adult, Historical Fantasy, LGBTQ+ Romance
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Rating:

Synopsis: Goodreads
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.

Review:

“Bury my bones in the midnight soil, plant them shallow and water them deep, and in my place will grow a feral rose, soft red petals hiding sharp white teeth.”

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is one of the most hauntingly beautiful stories I have read. It’s fantastical, yes. It is a story of vampires. But it is not just a story of vampires. As the synopsis says, it’s a story about life, how it ends, and how it starts. It’s about love. Hunger. Revenge. Anger. Want. Need. Fear…

Bury Our Bones follows three women in three separate timelines across history. Three women who couldn’t be any more different, and yet in ways so similar. Mariá, Charlotte and Alice all find themselves vampires for one reason or another and we follow them as they figure out what to do with their new found immortality after they’ve emerged from the Midnight Soil, a feral rose… and of course, as stories converge and the romance blossoms, we find out what hundreds of years can do in both beautiful ways and horrible ways.

I genuinely don’t know if I can find the words to describe how much I loved Bury Our Bones. Almost immediately I started getting those five star feelings, and then when work started to take away my ability to focus on this book (and believe me, you do have to focus!) I started to worry I was going to blame the book. So, I paused for almost two weeks before switching to the audiobook and using my commute to keep chipping away at this beautiful book.

The three narrators were excellent! My enjoyment of the audiobook initially boosted this book into God Tier territory for me – this is why I have started breathing before rating so that I don’t end up adding one thousand books to God Tier… But, I think that really speaks volumes for just how good the audiobook was. As I said, you do need to be able to focus on this one as we are following three timelines and I imagine if you’re the type to lose focus if you’re not physically looking at the words, then you might not get as much enjoyment out of this as I did. However, I cannot rate the audiobook highly enough.

V.E. Schwab is not a new to me author, and yet she is a new to me author. Before this I had only read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (loved the nod to Addie in Bury Our Bones! It’s a blink and you miss it moment, but it’s there!) and whilst I loved Addie LaRue, I didn’t know with 100% certainty whether I was going to continue reading her work. Then I heard some more comments about Bury Our Bones and I knew I had to read it. I don’t regret it one bit – but now I have an issue because I have the desire to read all of V.E. Schwab’s books and there are a lot of them!

That’s a good thing though. Reading a book and loving it so much that you trust the author to tell you a good story each time. Good, yes. But not necessarily good. I cried hard during Addie LaRue, and Bury Our Bones got me a number of times too… I hope for my own mental state that not all of Schwab’s work is going to hurt me in that way… and yet, I’m excited for what her back log of work will bring me!

Bury Our Bones, as I said is a beautiful book. I don’t necessarily think it’s one of those books that you’re cheering for one character or another throughout, or trying to solve a big mystery… but rather, it’s one of those stories that takes you on a journey and you have to let it. I honestly think this was perfect. There is not a thing I would change about it. Historical Fantasy huh, who knew I’d love it?!

Just in case you haven’t read Bury Our Bones, the below is some minor spoilers about some characters! Nothing major, but I’d still recommend not reading this unless you’ve finished Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.

Mariá was wonderful. I loved her character while she was Mariá. As soon as she became Sabine, it continuously felt like she was mixing with the wrong crowds and I did expect her to almost be the villain of the book. But Charlotte and Alice I actually loved the whole way through. My opinions of all three women made the ending very hard for me! But I did love it.

Not many of the side characters really stuck with me but Matteo and Alessandro, and Ezra did… But Melody I think stuck with me the most and she was in it the least of the side characters I’ve mentioned. I’m just so intrigued by her and how her abilities work! Hey Victoria, if you’re writing stand alones in a connected world, could we get a story for Melody? That would be great!

So, yes I absolutely recommend Bury Our Bones. It is not going to be for everyone, and so it’s not a blanket recommendation! But it is a beautiful story, and I’m not surprised I’ve seen so much love for it across BookTok/ Bookstagram / BookTube. Because it, in my opinion, is worth every moment it takes to read it.

“Careful. In nature, beauty is a warning. The pretty ones are often poisonous.”

Reading With Tyler