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Tag Archives: V.E. Schwab

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: A Review

Wait. V.E. Schwab, one of my all-time favorite living writers, has written a vampire book? A lesbian vampire book?!

I’m in.

What does it mean to hunger? What would you do if you were never satisfied? Would you find more people like yourself to share in that desire? What if you could make more people like yourself?

Maria lived in Spain in the 1530s, and was that perpetually wanting child. When she was eventually married off to a wealthy nobleman, she thought that she would want for nothing else. She didn’t anticipate that her husband only wanted her to be a vessel for a child. What the viscount didn’t know was the Maria had befriended an old widow, Sabine, who concealed a dark secret.

Now you may have guessed from my intro here that Sabine was, in fact, a vampire. She had also developed feelings for Maria and so, in an attempt to set her free of the bonds that would tie her to her husband, she turned Maria. In Maria’s desperate, wanting frenzy, she didn’t stop when Sabine offered her own blood in return, draining away everything that the old widow was. Soon, Maria finds herself alone, with no one to guide her in the strange world of night that she’s plunged into.

In 2019, a young girl named Alice meets another girl at a college party. After what seems like it will be a one-night-stand, Alice realizes that there was more to Lottie than met the eye. Knowing what she has become, but finding it almost impossible to believe, Alice sets out to find Lottie again. There are answers to be found, and most of them seem to trace back to Maria, who is now going by the name of the woman who turned her all those centuries ago.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is beautiful. It hit stores on Tuesday, June 10th. My utmost thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

The Fragile Threads of Power: A Review

V.E. Schwab is back, and ready to take you on another rollicking ride.

It’s been seven years since the events of A Conjuring of Light. Seven years since King Maxim died, and Arnes’s capital of Red London was plunged into darkness. Seven years since Black London’s monstrous ruler, Osaron, tried to destroy everything that Kell, Lila, and Rhy held dear. In the wake of the battle to save the worlds, many things have changed. Rhy Maresh is now the king of Arnes, with Alucard Emery ever by his side as his lover and bodyguard. However, Rhy is seen as a target of ire for the people of Arnes as magic seems to be fading from their world. A group known as The Hand plots to kill him, hoping that removing the magicless king from the throne will restore their own dwindling power.

Meanwhile, Lila and Kell have begun a journey on board Lila’s ship. Sailing under no flag, they secretly aid King Rhy by observing and investigating things that might be of interest to him. Kell’s own access to magic is hampered by the lingering effects of the battle with Osaron years before. As such, he’s been forced to train his martial skills under Lila Bard’s watchful eye and serving as her lieutenant aboard the ship. Lila’s magic does not seem diminished, but with the shifts the world is undergoing, it may only be a matter of time. She’s had seven years to boost her own skills since then, and she’s only grown more comfortable with her Antari nature.

And then, in Red London, there is a young girl running a repair shop. She, like Alucard Emery, has the rare gift of seeing the lines of magic that swirl around and between things and people. She’s taken to using that skill to repair magic items, and she may be the unwitting key to The Hand’s plans for King Rhy.

V.E. Schwab promised us an eventual return to the world from the Shades of Magic trilogy, and that wait has paid off many times over. The Fragile Threads of Power skillfully introduces new players and reminds of why we loved the returning characters. The new threat to the Arnesian throne feels almost too believable in a kingdom already torn between people who can access magic and those who can’t. Prepare yourself for a journey as we launch into the first book of a sequel series that promises to be just as addictive of a read as its predecessor.

My utmost thanks to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a fair review. The Fragile Threads of Power is available for purchase as of today, 9/26/23. As Travars.

Gallant: A Review

Gallant is the tale of a young orphan girl named Olivia Prior, and the ghouls that she can see. Olivia lives at Merilance School for Independent Girls in London, and she has no idea who her parents were, or why she was left there. Her only connection to her heritage is a journal that once belonged to her mother, filled with notes that seem to slowly veer into madness as they go on. “I’m so sorry I don’t know what else to do…you will be safe as long as you stay away from Gallant.”

Born without a voice, Olivia communicates via sign language (and occasionally writing, but she rightly refused to wear a chalkboard around her neck). Her inability to speak and the refusal of others to learn to sign has caused her more than a few conflicts with the other students and the matrons at school. Her only real companions at Merilance are the ghouls, partial shades of the dead who linger in our world. While she’s the only one at the school who seems to realize they’re there, they do not speak to her, and vanish from her view when told to go away.

Then one day, everything changes when a letter from an unknown uncle arrives for Olivia. “You are wanted. You are needed. You belong with us,” it reads. She is whisked away from Merilance by a driver who was sent to take her to the family home, Gallant, far from London. There, she meets her cousin, Matthew, and finds that her new home is also filled with ghouls. Ghouls that look like the family portraits hanging in the hallway. And there’s the issue of the mysterious, crumbling wall at the back of the garden, and the iron door that is set in the middle of it. There are many secrets held by Gallant, and Olivia’s mother’s journal ended with warning her to stay away.

The far side of the wall has more in store for her than she ever could have imagined, for there, Olivia finds a dark echo of the grand house. This shadow of Gallant is crumbling, and the master of the house is hungry for something only a Prior can provide. “Do you know what you are, Olivia Prior? You are amends. You are a tithe, a gift, and you belong to me.”

Gallant is an absolutely phenomenal Gothic fantasy, showcasing Schwab’s talents at writing for younger audiences. I loved every minute of it, and I’m very grateful to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. It’s out in the world as of March 1st, so go grab a copy!

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: A Review

You’ve met Addie LaRue. You’ve met her a thousand times, and you’ll meet her a thousand more, and you’ll never remember her.

You might hang on to a trace of her. Some faint, lingering tune she hummed in the hours you spent together will come back to you, and you’ll have no idea where it started. You’ll paint a picture of a girl with seven freckles on her face, a constellation that you know you never saw in the night sky, but a pattern that tiptoes around your brain for the rest of your life.

You know Addie LaRue, though you never heard her name. She goes by so many, she can’t even keep track of which one she told you. It doesn’t matter. You’ll turn away from her for a split second, and when you see her again, it’ll be as if she never existed to you before. Out of sight, out of mind.

Addie LaRue can be seen, but not remembered, even by film. Addie LaRue is a living ghost. Addie LaRue… is cursed.

When she was young, Addie LaRue was engaged, but she was not in love. Fleeing from an arranged marriage, Addie pleaded to whatever gods might have heard her. In her desperation, she made a mistake. “Never pray to the gods that answer after dark,” she had been warned. But night had fallen, and her prayer was heard, and a bargain was struck.

Now, three centuries have passed. Addie has traveled the world, learning to survive on her own. Three centuries with no one able to say her name, save for the dark being who came to her on that darker night, and who returns on occasion to see if she is tired of being forgotten. Three centuries to live as little more than a fleeting shadow.

From the fields and cities of France, Addie eventually made her way to New York, a bustling place just perfect for her to blend into. She grew comfortable there, pushing at the delicate edges of her curse to leave seed ideas in the minds of artists. “She has scattered herself like breadcrumbs, dusted across a hundred works of art.” Still, the real Addie was just as easily and quickly forgotten.

Until she wasn’t.

One day, Addie met Henry, a young bookseller. Against all odds, and in defiance of everything Addie had come to learn in 300 years, Henry remembered her. Somehow, he remembered her, and her carefully built world twisted beneath her. Soon, she is falling for Henry, and wondering if this might be what love feels like.

But Addie isn’t the only person in the world to have made a desperate plea, and she’s not the only one to have had it answered in an unexpected way. Now, everything is poised to change forever, and Addie must decide how much she is willing to risk in order to save man who remembers.

Victoria Schwab has crafted another fantastic world, equally as wondrous as the myriad Londons explored by her other heroines. This book has had my heart for months, and now it can have yours as well.

Today, Addie belongs to the world. Go find her. May you never forget her. I know I won’t.

My most sincere thanks to NetGalley for an eARC of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue in exchange for an honest review.