Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is a 2025 fantasy horror novel by American fantasy and science fiction author V.E. Schwab. The novel follows three women across three different periods and settings: María in 16th-century Spain, Charlotte in 19th-century England, and Alice in 21st-century Boston. Each woman wrestles with hunger, love, and rage as their stories begin to entwine and intersect. Schwab is a prolific author, writing and publishing over 25 books under the names V.E. Schwab and Victoria Schwab. Her notable works include The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Gallant, The Cassidy Blake series, The Vicious series, The Threads of Power series, and The Shades of Magic series. Much of Schwab’s work deals with themes related to power, freedom, and resistance; Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil explores these themes through the lens of the fantasy and horror genres.

This guide references the 2025 Tor Publishing Group Kindle eBook Edition.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide depict and discuss child death, graphic violence and blood, themes of sexual assault, physical and emotional abuse, toxic relationships, antigay bias and societal oppression, and death and grief.

Plot Summary

In the 16th century, a young woman named María lives in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, a village in Spain along a pilgrim’s trail. As a child, María meets a mysterious widow who works as an herbalist. María yearns for a different life outside her village, so she marries Viscount Andrés Olivares, who takes María to his estate. Remembering the widow, María uses herbal tinctures to prevent pregnancy, as she doesn’t want to be a mother. Andrés becomes frustrated with her inability to conceive. He is often away during the day, so María bonds with her maid Ysabel, who is Andrés’s illegitimate half-sister. María falls for Ysabel, who does not seem to reciprocate her feelings. Andrés’s parents arrive and treat María poorly because of her non-titled background. His mother, the countess, is particularly cruel. Andrés is called away, and María must go live with his parents in León. He also gives Ysabel in marriage to one of his vassals, breaking María’s heart.

In León, María is miserable for two years until she again sees the widow from her childhood. She follows the widow to an apothecary shop, which the widow owns. The widow does not seem any older than she did 10 years ago. She introduces herself as Sabine Boucher, and she remembers María. María procures contraceptive tonics from Sabine, though she tells the countess they are tonics to aid conception. Andrés returns to León sporadically and attempts to impregnate María, but the contraceptive tonics work. María visits Sabine frequently, and Sabine teaches María to read and how to use the herbs to make various tonics. María begins to have feelings for Sabine like she once had for Ysabel. Sabine plans to leave León, and she tells María that she could have the same freedom of widowhood. María balks at the idea of killing Andrés until she returns home and he tells her that she cannot see Sabine anymore. That night, María sneaks out to see Sabine and tells her that she wants to join her. Sabine asks her if she trusts her, and María says yes. Sabine bites María’s neck and drinks her blood. María’s heart stops until Sabine makes her drink Sabine’s blood, and María comes back to life. María drains Sabine’s body of blood, turning her to dust.

María is still hungry. She returns home and kills Andrés and his parents before burning their house down. She changes her name to Sabine and leaves León behind. She journeys alone through the world, avoiding the sunlight that makes her sick and feeding on the blood of others, until she meets Hector and Renata in Seville in 1542. They are like Sabine, and Hector tells her that she’s been buried in the midnight soil, planted and reborn as a feral rose (or a vampire). Hector and Renata show Sabine how to hide her thoughts from other feral roses and how to read the thoughts of others. They also warn her to avoid grave dirt, which will drag her down, and that she can be killed if her heart is destroyed or if she burns. They journey through Spain together, killing and reveling in their violence. Sabine and Renata are intimate, but Renata has a stronger bond with Hector, who is her maker. Hector decides he wants to only kill clergymen, but his hubris leads to his and Renata’s downfall. Hector kills a priest and steals his robes, and the next night, the trio kills a group of parishioners. One of the parishioners escapes and rallies a mob to kill Hector and Renata, nailing them into coffins and burning them, but Sabine escapes through a graveyard. Though the grave dirt makes her ill, she manages to get out.

Sabine travels alone again until she meets Matteo, a fellow feral rose, in Venice in 1679. Matteo lives with his human lover Alessandro, who refuses to be buried in the midnight soil. Matteo has power over all Venice—he can make the city his and prevent other feral roses from entering. He promises to show Sabine how to do it if she plays a game with him: They will each select a victim to drink during Carnevale, but they must stalk them without drinking them until the start of Lent. Sabine agrees and finds the game satisfying. Matteo shows her how to mark her territory, and Sabine stays with him and Alessandro until Alessandro dies. Plunged into grief, Matteo suffers before turning Giovanni, a man who looks like Alessandro, into a vampire. Giovanni is unpredictable and goes on a killing spree that results in a mob catching and killing him. Matteo goes to North America, and Sabine moves on through Europe.

Sabine reaches England in 1823. She quickly learns about the season, debutantes, and the marriage market. She poses as the wealthy widow of a Spanish viscount. Sabine plays the game she played with Matteo each season, choosing and stalking a young girl, until she meets Charlotte Hastings.

Charlotte Hastings lives in Hampshire with her family until her brother James catches her kissing her friend Jocelyn. James suggests to their parents that Charlotte go live with their Aunt Amelia in London, to prepare for her debut in society. Charlotte is heartbroken, especially when Jocelyn doesn’t come to say goodbye. Charlotte struggles with proprietary and Amelia’s harsh critiques until she meets Sabine, who immediately befriends Charlotte. There is chemistry between them, and Charlotte begins to fall for Sabine like she once fell for Jocelyn. At each ball of the season, Charlotte looks forward to seeing Sabine, though Charlotte does occasionally dance with a man named George Preston. Sabine teaches Charlotte to dance in a private parlor after seeing her struggle.

Charlotte receives news that James and Jocelyn are engaged. She is heartbroken and doesn’t know how to return home at the end of the season. She attends a ball in Sabine’s home, and Sabine notes her sadness. She takes Charlotte upstairs, and they play cards and discuss Charlotte’s desire for freedom. Sabine tells Charlotte to come find her when she knows what she wants. Later, George visits Charlotte and, to her surprise, he proposes. Charlotte panics and flees, going to Sabine’s house. She tells Sabine that she knows what she wants: she wants to live free with Sabine. Sabine turns her into a vampire.

Charlotte wakes alone, but Sabine soon returns with George. She makes Charlotte kill him, and Charlotte immediately feels horrible guilt—guilt that will haunt her with each kill. Sabine and Charlotte flee London and travel through England and Europe. For a time, they’re happy together. However, Sabine soon begins behaving erratically, as vampires begin to lose pieces of their humanity as they grow older. Sabine’s bloodthirst and lack of remorse begin to bother Charlotte even as she finds herself falling in love with her. Sabine teaches Charlotte how to claim space for herself to keep others out, but Sabine becomes enraged when Charlotte claims a room in the house and hesitates to let her enter. Later, Sabine brutally kills a young girl after Charlotte asks her not to, and her eyes seem devoid of life. Sabine claims not to know what came over her, and she makes Charlotte promise never to hurt her.

Sabine and Charlotte celebrate their 100th anniversary in 1927 and meet Jack and Antonia, two other vampires. They go to their club with them and have a lovely time, but later Sabine is jealous and angry that Charlotte would want to be around anyone but her. She takes Charlotte to bed and violently bites her neck to the bone. During World War II, Sabine has another episode and goes on a brutal murder spree. Charlotte finds her, cleans her up, then tries to kill her, but because of her promise, she is physically incapable of harming Sabine. Sabine wakes up and sees the knife, and Charlotte knows there’s no going back. She flees, and with Jack and Antonia’s help, leaves London behind.

Paranoid about Sabine pursuing her, it takes Charlotte 10 years to finally begin to relax. In Rome in 1953, Charlotte meets Giada, an art model. They fall in love, and Giada accepts Charlotte’s vampirism. Giada wants Charlotte to turn her, but Charlotte doesn’t want to be someone’s Sabine, so she refuses. In 1959, Sabine finds them and kills Giada. Charlotte flees again and goes to Boston, where she meets Ezra, Antonia’s friend. Ezra keeps an ear to the ground for Sabine and hears nothing about her for years, but the women that Charlotte dates start going missing, and she knows Sabine is responsible.

Charlotte stays away from everyone until 1994, when she moves to New York and begins dating a woman named Penny. On their four-month anniversary, Charlotte comes home to find Penny has been turned into a vampire by Sabine. Heartbroken, Charlotte kills Penny to spare her the curse of vampirism. Afterward, she only has one-night stands with women, and she records their names and attributes in the back pages of one of Penny’s books.

In 2019, Charlotte has a one-night stand with a Harvard student named Alice Moore. Alice is from Scotland, and she came to Harvard to see more of the world after her older sister Catty died. Catty wanted to travel, but she never got the chance after she ran away from home at 17 and was killed in a car accident. Alice’s mother also died when she was young, and she wears a pendant with dirt from her mother’s grave around her neck, which was a gift from her stepmother Eloise when Eloise married her father. Catty never accepted Eloise, and her decision to leave stemmed from the subsequent discord within the family.

When Alice wakes up after her night with Charlotte, whom she knows as Lottie, she feels seriously ill until she bites, drinks, and kills a male student who attempts to assault her. Alice struggles to understand her vampirism until she finds Ezra at his coffee shop, and he brings her to Lottie’s hotel room. Lottie explains her past with Sabine, whom she believes turned Alice. Alice is enraged that she was killed and made a vampire because of Sabine’s petty jealousy, and she struggles with panic attacks triggered by the situation. Lottie lies to her and tells her that if she kills Sabine, she’ll turn human again. Lottie cannot kill Sabine, but Alice can. Lottie takes Alice out to a club to lure Sabine, and Sabine appears and takes Alice to her apartment. Sabine tells Alice that it’s Lottie’s fault she died, and though Alice doesn’t agree, she poisons a chalice of blood with her mother’s grave dirt. Sabine refuses the chalice, as she only drinks blood from the source. Alice also notes she’s wearing chainmail to protect her heart. Alice attempts to seduce Sabine and asks to shower before they’re intimate. Alice turns on the shower before breaking the sink and taking a giant shard of shale. Sabine joins Alice in the shower, and Alice stabs her in the heart with the shale. Sabine smirks as she dies, turning to dust.

Alice waits in the apartment until Lottie arrives. She’s still a vampire, so she realizes Lottie lied to her. Feeling hollow, she doesn’t stop Lottie from drinking the poisoned blood. Lottie falls to the ground, severely ill, and Alice stabs her in the heart with the silver hairbrush from her bag, likely the same one Charlotte used to kill Penny. Alice leaves the apartment, determined to live what life she can. She’s alive, and she’s hungry.