"Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil crosses centuries, continents, and cultures to tell the story of three women…. whose afterlives are not what they expected. Vampire fiction the way it should be done, and a compellingly dark companion to the more life-affirming Addie LaRue." — Paste Magazine
"Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect…..A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop." — Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"Schwab's fantasies are always a big draw, and this enticing tale of lesbian vampires that crosses centuries [is] irresistible." — Booklist
"Schwab’s haunting prose and character-driven plot will keep readers up until the very last page." — Library Journal (starred)
Praise for The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue:
"Completely absorbed me enough to make me forget the real world.” — Jodi Picoult
“A dizzying kaleidoscopic adventure.” — Naomi Novik
“Perfectly suspended between darkness and light, myth and reality.” — Alix E. Harrow
“One of the most propulsive, compulsive and captivating novels in recent memory.” — The Washington Post
“Epic yet intimate, sweeping but not sprawling… As we live through these darkened days, I feel brighter for having added Addie to mine.” — Slate
“Warm and intense… I rooted for Addie throughout.”— The New York Times Book Review
“Beautifully explores what it means to be alone.” — USA Today
“Irresistibly contagious.” — Locus Magazine
“An achingly poignant romantic fantasy about the desperate desire to make one’s mark on the world.” — Oprah.com
“The kind of book you encounter only once in a lifetime.” — Peng Shepherd
★ 03/01/2025
In 1521 Santo Domingo, Maria notes the arrival of a widow to her town. A decade later, after Maria marries, the same widow gives Maria the opportunity to escape the confines of her marriage, which has turned abusive; the escape is to be effectuated in a way Maria could never have imagined. In 1827 London, Charlotte meets a young widow who entices her to choose a life of freedom from expectations. In 2019 Boston, Alice meets a young woman for a passionate evening and wakes up to discover that her life has been changed irrevocably. Three young women with stories of grief and loss, of freedom and madness, of death and blood, become entwined with each other through the centuries. The only way they can escape each other is to face each other. Using alternating points of view, offering rich worldbuilding, and leaning into themes of obsession and humanity, Schwab (The Fragile Threads of Power) creates a memorable vampire story. VERDICT Schwab's haunting prose and character-driven plot will keep readers up until the very last page.—Kristi Chadwick
★ 2025-03-22
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up toThe Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
