‘Interview With a Vampire’ Meets ‘Bridgerton’ in this 2025 Horror Masterpiece
V.E. Schwab’s 2025 novel Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is being hailed as a spiritual successor to Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire, blending gothic vampire fiction with Regency-era romance elements reminiscent of Bridgerton. The novel marks a significant entry into a storied literary tradition dating back to foundational works like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, which established the vampire archetype as a creature that defies societal and sexual norms.
Rice’s Vampire Chronicles legacy has spawned twelve novels, major film and television adaptations—including the acclaimed AMC series with three seasons and a fourth in development—and countless imitators. Many subsequent works sanitized Rice’s sympathetic monsters for young adult romance audiences. However, Schwab’s novel reportedly avoids this trend, instead taking the established themes and structures of vampire fiction and reimagining them into something distinctly original.
The novel appears to honor the genre’s history while offering fresh perspective on the romantic, gothic elements that have captivated readers for centuries. By combining the literary depth of Rice’s work with the romantic sensibilities of contemporary period drama, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil positions itself as a sophisticated entry in vampire fiction for adult audiences.