Title:

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Author:

V. E. Schwab

Category:

Science Fiction / Fantasy

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

May 12, 2026

hen I was much much younger, Anne Rice published a book called An Interview With the Vampire. It was a sensation (I think it was eventually made into a movie), spurring a vampire craze that hasn't died down in the decades since. Personally, I was bored with An Interview With the Vampire and did not read any of the many subsequent volumes. The vampire mythos holds no attraction for me; I am not interested in tales of dark, handsome undead men luring women into dangerous situations. Although I have read a few vampire novels since then (Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin, Sunshine by Robin McKinley, and the truly awful The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova), I would have skipped Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab if I had known it was a vampire book. (I believe the word vampire is only used three times in the entire text). I picked this book up because I really liked The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue; I expected something magical and well written. I was a good ways into Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil before I realized it was a vampire novel. I finished it because V. E. Schwab can write. I was interested enough to keep reading, but I was secretly hoping that all of the main characters would be truly dead by the end of the book. None of the characters are likeable. You won't find yourself hoping that one of the main characters gets away with slaughtering yet another innocent human.

This is story of Maria, a copper-haired girl growing up in Spain in the sixteenth century. Maria longs for something beyond a life of bearing children and running a household for a poor husband. One day, a caravan passes through, and Maria spots a lone woman. Even the grey veils that she drapes herself in cannot hide her beauty. Maria learns this woman is named Sabine, and that she is a widow. Being a widow means she can choose her own path. Maria longs to be like Sabine; little does she know that their paths will cross again, years later, when Maria has become a young wife while Sabine-the-widow appears not to have aged a day in the intervening years.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is also the story of Alice in the twenty-first century. Alice is a bright Scottish girl who has just enrolled in Harvard. Alice has come across the ocean, determined to try different things and activities. Ordinarily, Alice might have skipped the party invitation, but her roommates persuaded her to join them. "New Alice" tried to fit in with the wild party, but the loud music, the drinks, and the crowds drove her to distraction ... until she encountered Lottie, a girl with purple hair who seemed to understand just what Alice wanted.

Finally, the book is also the story of Charlotte, a boisterous young woman in 19th century England. Her parents send Charlotte to live in London with her strict Aunt, who will teach Charlotte how to be a proper young woman and attract a suitable husband. Charlotte has no interest in finding a husband and finds the etiquette and balls tedious. Until at one ball, she encounters an enigmatic widow who knows just what to say; who seems to understand how young Charlotte longs to be free.

Perhaps it is a character flaw on my part, but I want the books I read to be plausible (if they are set in magical fantasy worlds, then I am fine with magic and breaking the laws of physics). A book set in our Earth's historical times should be believable. I kept wondering - how can these vampires leave so many dead bodies lying around without arousing the hue and cry? Even if the bodies were carefully hidden (though usually they are not), shouldn't someone notice that the former occupants of a mansion have gone missing and now a strange new woman is living there instead?

How is it these vampires never need any money? At one point, Sabine throws a ball in the London Season in a mansion she has occupied. But she has no servants, no staff. Even if the vampires can steal whatever wealth is being carried by their victims, that certainly wouldn't be enough to support a luxurious lifestyle. The need for money is never addressed.

The human body contains eight to twelve pints of blood. Even a ravenously hungry vampire with an insatiable appetite wouldn't be able to consume so much. Imagine how distended your body would be if you drank a gallon and a half of liquid.

Every time another victim gets attacked, the scene should be splattered with blood. The clothes of the attacking vampire should be saturated with blood. We have blood pressure, so when the carotid artery is severed, blood should spray wildly in all directions. Maybe a vampire bite could magically heal if the victim is left alive, but if the person is turned into a corpse, I could not believe that the bite wounds would magically disappear from a dead body.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is 533 pages long in the hardback edition. I felt it was at least 100 pages too long. Did we really need so much detail about the entire long lives of Alice, Maria/Sabine and Charlotte?

Schwab has proven that she can write interesting stories; I would be willing to try another of her books. But I will scan the reviews more closely to see if there is any mention of vampires.