Bone of My Bone
"A must-read for people who love stories as moving as they are horrific." — Booklist, Starred Review
Bram Stoker Award–nominee and USA Today bestseller Johanna van Veen unveils a sapphic folk-horror tour de force—perfect for fans of The VVitch and The Salt Grows Heavy. A skull’s grin is eternal…
The year is 1635.
Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying man: the gilded skull of a saint.
It is said that if you reunite the saint’s skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic’s power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing truth: the magic they seek comes at a cost.
At the journey’s end, they’ll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.
"Decadently atmospheric and deeply unsettling, Bone of My Bone delivers a deliciously disturbing tale about survival and the choices we're forced to make along the way. Johanna van Veen's sublime prose and worldbuilding left me completely enthralled." — Monika Kim, award-winning author of The Eyes are the Best Part
- Pages
- 401
- First published
- May 26, 2026
- Language
- English
- Edition
- Ebook
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Shelved by 5 Litcadians
Reviews
Finished August 23, 2026
★★★★☆ Bone of My Bone is everything I love about gothic horror. Set in the Netherlands in the late 18th century, the story follows a young woman whose life becomes entangled with death, folklore, and the unsettling possibility that the dead may not always stay dead. As the line between the natural and supernatural begins to blur, she is forced to confront things far more disturbing than she could have imagined. The setting is absolutely everything I want from horror—gothic, eerie, oppressive, and deeply unsettling. It's difficult to genuinely scare me, so while there were certainly moments that frightened me, I found myself more disturbed than terrified, which honestly worked even better for me. The story blends psychological horror, body horror, gore, grief, and dread in a way that kept me fascinated throughout. Johanna van Veen's prose is immersive and beautiful, but what I appreciate most is that she knows how to tell a story. The pacing was particularly well done. The beginning was a little slow while I was trying to understand what was happening, but once the story settled in, there was a clear goal and the plot steadily moved toward it without feeling rushed. I also loved the historical elements and the Germanic folklore surrounding vampires and the dead. The research woven throughout the story added depth without taking away from the fiction, and the folklore was one of my favorite parts. There was something fascinating about seeing those beliefs incorporated into such an unsettling story. The one thing keeping this from five stars was the relationship between the characters. I liked them and became invested in their story, but I felt their relationship could have been developed more. There was just a little something missing that would have given the emotional side of the story that extra spark. Overall, this was a very strong four stars for me. If you're a lover of gothic or folklore horror, I'd absolutely recommend it.