In one of the most anticipated releases of 2025, V.E. Schwab crafts an entirely new sapphic vampire story. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (Tor 2025) is the best vampire novel since Interview with the Vampire (1976).
Set across three distinct timelines spanning almost five centuries and countless countries, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil follows three women growing up in vastly different and yet uncannily similar circumstances. In 1532 Santo Domingo de la Calzada, Maria knows she is destined to be a prize traded by men—a tool to be used for marriage, money, or status but never allowed to access anything that is truly her own. However, when she meets a stranger who seems to have the life and the independence that Maria craves, she realises there may be more to life than she realised.
In 1827 London, Charlotte arrives in the bustling metropolis having been sent away from her family’s estate. The marriage market is overwhelming and new, but when a beautiful widow takes Charlotte under her wing and introduces her to a hidden world of freedom, Charlotte must make a complex choice.
Finally, in 2019 Boston, Alice moves halfway across the world to an entirely new university, determined to use the clean slate to become someone new. However, when a one-night-stand with an alluring stranger shifts her world on its access, Alice is forced to search for centuries-buried answers and to confront who she’s always been.
As a longtime reader of Schwab’s writing, I—like everyone else—was excited to read this novel. I didn’t anticipate, however, that it would quickly become not only my favourite book she’s ever written, but one of my favourite vampire novels ever. This book combines Schwab’s familiar impactful writing with a plot full of twists and turns, none of which I ever saw coming. Every time you think you know this story, or that you know where the plot is going, the novel spins quickly in another direction. This novel will appeal to fans of Schwab classics like Vicious as well as fans of more recent character-driven novels like The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
I went into this novel knowing nothing about the plot, and I was drawn in by the way this story unfolded. The three timelines are distinct and yet expertly woven into each other. The portraits of these three women are built slowly, as Maria searches for freedom, Charlotte searches for connection, and Alice searches for meaning. We root for—and against—each of them in their own unique ways.
One of the things that sets this novel apart is its unique magic system. Schwab’s writing proves that vampirism hasn’t quite been done to death (no pun intended!). The vampires in Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil have unique powers, limits, and weaknesses that are both familiar to lovers of vampire stories and entirely refreshing.
Finally, I of course loved how queer this was. Schwab leans into the inherent queerness of the figure of the vampire with her “toxic lesbian vampires” at every turn. The romance and the violence of this novel is inextricable, as it is in any good vampire story, but Schwab turns the shifting dynamics between all of the women on their heads at every turn. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is filled with unexpected twists!
I highly recommend Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil as a must read for fans of Schwab’s writing, vampire novels, or Gothic fiction!
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Content Warnings: violence, gaslighting, abuse, death.
Rachel Friars received her doctorate in English Literature Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada in 2024. Her current research centers on neo-Victorianism and lesbian literature and history. Her work has been published with journals such as Studies in the Novel, The Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies, Queer Studies in Media and Popular Culture, and The Palgrave Handbook of neo-Victorianism.
You can find Rachel on X @RachelMFriars or on Goodreads @Rachel Friars.
