Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
by V.E. Schwab (Tor, 2025)
audiobook read by Julia Whelan, Katie Leung & Marisa Calin (Macmillan, 2025)
This feminist vampire take should be compelling, but loses its power somewhat as the spirit of repressed uprising rots away to reveal a downbeat metaphor for toxic self-centredness. While a lengthy perspective is justified, Schwab’s characterisation of Sabine is belaboured and disproportional.
The Fragile Threads of Power
by V. E. Schwab (Tor, 2023)
audiobook read by Kate Reading, Marisa Calin & Michael Kramer (Macmillan Audio, 2023)
A long book, very much focussing on the journey rather than the destination (a pit stop a third of the way through a trilogy). Schwab’s worldbuilding is fine. Her characters generally hold interest (Tes especially). Still, there’s a sense of manufactured epicness.
Shades of Magic: The Steel Prince
by V.E. Schwab; ill. Andrea Olimpieri (Titan Comics, 2019)
The depictions of magic—especially the Pirate Queen’s bone magic—are striking, but the art more generally is murky and the action scenes fragmentary and confused, providing verisimilitude (perhaps) but leaving the reader in a muddle as to who is doing what.
The Ash-Born Boy
by Victoria Schwab (Hyperion Books, 2012) [republished as by V.E. Schwab]; audiobook read by Heather Wilds (Blackstone, 2019)
![Book cover: “The Ash-Born Boy” by Victoria Schwab (Hyperion Books, 2012) [republished as by V.E. Schwab]; audiobook read by Heather Wilds (Blackstone, 2019)](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Schwab_Ash-Born-Boy.jpg)
A cheerless novelette serving as a companion piece to ‘The Near Witch’ but offering little more than an expansion of a tale told therein. A superstitious prejudice is called out as being unjust, but there is no catharsis beyond the character backstory.
The Near Witch
by Victoria Schwab (Hyperion Books, 2011) [republished as by V.E. Schwab]; audiobook read by Heather Wilds (Blackstone, 2019)
![Book cover: “The Near Witch” by Victoria Schwab (Hyperion Books, 2011) [republished as by V.E. Schwab]; audiobook read by Heather Wilds (Blackstone, 2019)](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Schwab_Near-Witch.jpg)
A claustrophobic fantasy that paints the evils of superstitious fear (and a pig-headed patriarchy) but which makes a protracted novel out of what should have been a novelette—and then omits the more interesting of the final confrontations. Narrated with bizarre emphases.
A Darker Shade of Magic
by V.E. Schwab (Tor, 2015)
On the one hand, a beguiling and assured piece of fantasy world-building; on the other, a rehashing of old character tropes and a denouement that does little justice to the scenario thus fashioned. Very readable but not as epic as perhaps conceptualised.