Any writer who experiences spectacular success knows the emotional undertow that goes with it: yes, people loved this book, but what about the next? And the next after that? Comparison is inevitable.
In many ways, V. E. Schwab is better-positioned than most other authors to avoid this fate. Before The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue stormed onto the scene in 2020—selling more than two million copies and spending months on bestseller lists—Schwab already had an established career writing across genres for multiple age groups. Her first book after Addie, 2022’s Gallant, was Gothic fantasy-horror marketed to a young adult audience, and while many of Schwab’s longtime fans picked it up, it was clearly differentiated from her preceding mega-hit.
Fast-forward to 2025, and now patience has paid off for Schwab’s fans who have eagerly awaited Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, an adult book that, like Addie, follows supernatural characters through the human world over decades and centuries. Some share of Addie’s two million-plus readers will be sure to wonder: how different is this book from that one?
The good news is that both readers who long for the comfort of the familiar and those who hope for the electricity of the unknown in Bury Our Bones should find themselves satisfied. In a sense, the book is review-proof: a huge swath of Schwab’s readership only needed to hear “new book” and “sapphic vampires” to smash the pre-order button. As a huge fan of Addie myself (I raved about it for CHIRB here) but with no particular interest in vampires, I set out with a bit more caution. I needn’t have worried. In Schwab’s hands, even the well-trod territory of immortal bloodsuckers turns fresh and new.
Three very different women form the core of Schwab’s story: Maria in 16th-century Spain, Charlotte in 1820s London, and Alice in 2019 Boston. The danger of splitting narrative focus is that it invites even more comparisons: readers almost inevitably favor one timeline or character over the others, impatiently skimming the non-favored sections until their favorite character returns to the page. But again, Schwab mostly avoids this trap. While I did have a favorite timeline—having read dozens of Regency romances set in the world of the marriage mart during the London “season,” I found myself almost giddily delighted with Schwab’s yes-the-ton-but-also-vampires take—all three women are essential to the story, and following each of their intertwined stories from the beginning provides depth and importance that isn’t achievable without that level of detail.
The fact that these vampires are women and these women are vampires is far from incidental. Asked to name literature’s most famous vampires, most readers would default to male examples: Dracula, Lestat, Edward Cullen. The best-known fictional woman in a vampire’s world is likely Buffy Summers: not a vampire (except in her own worst dreams), but a vampire slayer. The collective human imagination has always been intrigued by the competing aspects of vampirism—immortality and vulnerability—but has any other author this talented explored how both aging and power sit differently in women’s bodies than men’s? That’s the unique spin that Schwab brings to age-old vampire lore, and what a rich theme it proves.
For two of the three main characters in Bury Our Bones, sapphic vampirism is set up as an explicit alternative to the confines of heterosexual marriage. For the women in the earlier time frames, marriage is a weapon, a competition, an escape, a prison, and much more; I found the way the characters’ lives as vampires contrasted with the conventions of marriage so interesting that the contemporary time period appealed to me less than the other two. But of course, as I said earlier, all three timelines intersect in such a way that each strand of the braid is essential. It’s a complex, rich, rewarding novel.
So, will Schwab’s fans find themselves just as thrilled with Bury Our Bones as they were with Addie LaRue? It depends entirely on why they enjoyed Addie. With her fierce desire for independence but her determination to harm as few people as possible over the course of her centuries-long life, Addie LaRue was an easy character to love; the vampire women at the heart of Bury Our Bones share the first trait but not necessarily the second. They may not always make wise decisions (I actually gasped “No!” more than once) but their poor decisions—understandable, intriguing—make for a riveting read. Fans who responded to Addie based on its inventiveness, complexity, era-spanning scope, historical detail, and gorgeous writing will certainly enjoy the same qualities in this book. And Bury Our Bones is also poised to appeal to an entirely different audience from Addie. It’s darker, less reassuring, more idiosyncratic. Fortunately or unfortunately, that tone feels ideally suited to the times we live in today. Some of the best feminist fiction doesn’t stop at promoting women’s rights, but allows us to revel, cathartically, in women’s wrongs. In Schwab’s capable hands, those wrongs feel oh so right.
FICTION
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
by V.E. Schwab
Tor Books
Published June 10, 2025
