Bone of My Bone Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Updated on October 5, 2026

Verdict: A vivid, gory and genuinely strange 1635 folk-horror quest with prose readers keep praising, let down by a romance that many say never earns its place and a middle that loses its grip.

Best for: Readers who want historical horror first and a sapphic bond second, who can take graphic violence and religious themes, and who will forgive a love story that stays underdeveloped for the sake of atmosphere.

Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — open door, per romance.io)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.5/5 — a 3.78 Goodreads average across 3,239 ratings, pulled down by two complaints that keep recurring: the romance and the pacing)

Tropes: Folk horror, holy relic quest, nun and peasant, survival bond, forbidden devotion, journey across a war zone, necromancer pursuit, morally grey leads, faith and doubt, multiple POV.

Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen is a standalone historical horror novel from Poisoned Pen Press, set in Bavaria in 1635 at the height of the Thirty Years’ War, in which a nun who has lost her convent and a peasant woman with secrets of her own carry a saint’s gilded skull across a ruined countryside — each hoping the relic will grant her wish, and neither entirely honest about what that wish is.

It holds a 3.78 average across 3,239 Goodreads ratings and a 3.87 on StoryGraph from around 1,500 reviews, and its publisher bills van Veen as a Bram Stoker Award nominee and USA Today bestseller. The written reviews split harder than those numbers suggest — almost everyone admires the sentences, and a lot of people are unconvinced by the love story. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.

What Is Bone of My Bone About?

Bone of My Bone is folk horror before it is anything else — a historical novel built on German folklore, Catholic relic culture and the specific misery of a war that had been grinding across Central Europe for nearly two decades by 1635. That setting means hunger, soldiers, disease and a church that offers the only framework anyone has for what is happening to them. The supernatural elements grow out of that world rather than being laid over it.

Sister Ursula is defined by what she has lost: the convent that gave her life its shape is gone, and she is out in a world she was never prepared for, with nothing but her faith. Elsebeth is a peasant who knows how to survive and assumes nobody’s motives are as clean as they claim. The book moves between viewpoints — including chapters from a man named Otto — and readers note that it shifts between first and third person as it does.

What Makes This Sapphic Folk Horror Work

The prose: The most consistent praise in the written reviews. Readers reach for words like “visceral”, “evocative”, “poetic” and “beautiful”, and several who were lukewarm on the book overall still single out the writing.
The setting and the research: The Thirty Years’ War backdrop and the German folklore are named again and again as the reason to read it. At least one reviewer says it was their first real encounter with that period, and the historical grounding is praised by readers across the rating range.
Horror with real teeth: This is not gothic mood lighting. Readers describe body horror, gore and necromancy, and the ones who came for horror largely got what they wanted — it belongs on the dark sapphic shelf for its violence rather than for its romance.
Faith taken seriously: A strand of reviewers praise the way it handles belief amid suffering — the book treats Ursula’s faith as something with weight rather than a costume.
The unusual pairing: A nun and a peasant on a relic hunt, pursued by a necromancer, is a premise readers keep describing as unlike anything else they have read this year, and the forbidden-devotion angle gives the bond an edge.

Book Synopsis

The war has been burning across the German lands for most of Ursula’s life, but the convent walls kept it at a distance. Then the walls are gone. Ursula is alone on the road with her habit, her prayers and no idea how anyone survives out here — until she crosses paths with Elsebeth, a peasant woman who has been surviving out here for years and who has no patience for anyone who slows her down.

Soldiers force them together, and the forest hides them. Somewhere in the wreckage they find something that should not be lying in the open: the skull of a saint, gilded and grinning. There is a story attached to relics like this one. Return the skull to the rest of the saint’s body, the story goes, and you will be granted what you ask for. And both women have reasons to want a miracle that they are not ready to say out loud.

The journey does not stay simple. Someone else wants the skull — a necromancer with his own idea of what a saint’s bones are for — and the relic itself seems to have opinions. As the miles pile up and the countryside gets darker, Ursula and Elsebeth have to decide how much they trust each other, how much they trust the saint, and what each of them would be willing to do if the wish could only go to one of them.

My Review

The writing is the reason this book exists, and I want to say that plainly before the qualifications start. Van Veen writes violence and decay with a precision that is genuinely unsettling, and she does it without losing the beauty of the sentence. Even readers who ended at three stars name the prose as the thing that kept them going.

The second real strength is the world. Bavaria in 1635 is not a common setting in sapphic fiction, and van Veen uses it properly: the war is not a backdrop but the condition of every scene, and the folk-horror elements feel like they belong to that time and place rather than to a modern horror novel in period dress. Ursula’s faith is handled with care, too. The book takes seriously what it means to believe in saints when the world is ending.

Where it struggles is the romance, and this is not a lone gripe — it is the most repeated criticism in the written StoryGraph reviews I read. At least six separate reviewers describe the relationship between Ursula and Elsebeth as rushed, underdeveloped, unconvincing or arriving “out of left field,” and one calls it instalove. At least one of them liked the bond as a vulnerable survival partnership and wished the book had left it there. Right behind that sits pacing: a strong opening and a sagging middle, a second half that one reviewer says needed substantial revision, and at least one did-not-finish at the halfway mark citing relentless misery without forward motion. The extra viewpoints divide people as well — some praise Otto’s chapters as the most difficult and humane in the book, others say they crowd out the two women, one reader found Otto and the necromancer cartoonish, and another wanted the villain developed far more.

One expectation to reset: Bone of My Bone turns up on a lot of sapphic romance lists, some of ours included, and the evidence says romance is the wrong frame. It is a horror novel with a sapphic relationship inside it, not a romance with horror around it. If romance is what drew you, calibrate; if horror is what drew you, you are the audience it was written for.

My honest note: A beautifully written historical horror novel with a love story that never quite catches up to the rest of it. If you need the romance to carry the book, look elsewhere. If you want dread, history and sentences worth slowing down for, this delivers.

Element	In Bone of My Bone
Central relationship	Sister Ursula & Elsebeth — a displaced nun and a hard-edged peasant, bound by survival before anything else
Core tropes	Folk horror, relic quest, nun and peasant, survival bond, necromancer pursuit, morally grey leads
Setting	Bavaria, 1635 — a countryside wrecked by the Thirty Years’ War
Heat level	4/5 — open door (romance.io band, small sample)
Series	Standalone
Content notes	Graphic violence and gore, body horror, war and soldiers, plague and death, necromancy, religious themes of faith and suffering

How Dark and Spicy Is Bone of My Bone?

Darker than it is spicy, but not closed door. Romance.io places it at 4/5 — explicit, open door — although that band rests on only 16 ratings there, and the StoryGraph reviews I read barely mention heat. Goodreads reviewers do: one refers to a “steamy sapphic scene,” and another found the nun “more spicy than expected.” Heat is not the draw, and the book’s intensity comes far more from violence and horror than from desire, but expect some on-page intimacy rather than a fade to black. The bond itself is built on vulnerability and devotion, which is exactly why at least one reader wishes the book had not tried to turn it into a love story at all.

The darkness is where the content notes matter. Readers flag graphic gore and body horror, and at least one reader stopped because it was too graphic for them; another felt the book leaned on gore imagery more than it needed to. If you want the dread turned toward the gothic with far less on the page, Plain Bad Heroines and Our Wives Under the Sea both sit at a low-heat level behind closed doors.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you read horror for atmosphere and craft, you want an unusual historical setting done with real research, you can handle graphic violence and body horror, and you are happy for the sapphic bond to be one thread among several rather than the whole book.

You may want to skip it if: you need the romance to be developed and central, you lose patience with a slow middle, gore is a hard limit, or religious themes and a nun’s faith are not something you want to spend roughly 350 pages inside.

In short: a horror reader’s book with a sapphic heart, not a romance reader’s book with a horror edge.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

The discourse around Bone of My Bone is steady rather than loud. Four months after its May 26, 2026 release it has gathered 3,239 Goodreads ratings at 3.78 and around 1,500 StoryGraph reviews at 3.87, and the shape of those reviews is consistent: a cluster of horror regulars and long-time van Veen readers rating it highly, and a large middle band at three to three-and-a-half stars from readers who admired it more than they loved it. The audiobook, narrated by Amy Noble for Tantor and running about 11 hours 8 minutes, arrived on June 9, 2026. The publisher’s copy carries a starred Booklist review. It also made our Top Ten Tuesday list of sapphic covers that take the story seriously.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The prose, first and most consistently — “evocative” is the recurring word, with “visceral” and “poetic” close behind. Then the setting: readers praise the historical grounding, the German folklore and the unusual monsters, and one compares it favourably to Katherine Arden. The horror itself has fans who loved the gore and the necromancy, and a smaller group single out the treatment of faith and redemption as the book’s real achievement. Otto’s chapters have defenders, too: at least one reader says they build empathy without demanding forgiveness.

What readers argue about and complain about: The romance, above everything. At least six reviewers I read call it rushed, unconvincing, forced or out of nowhere, and the complaint shows up from readers who rated the book four stars as well as from the ones who did not. Pacing is the second theme — the opening and the final chapters are praised, the middle is not, and readers describe momentum draining away once the quest settles into a long walk through misery; one reader stopped at 47%. Third, the ending: several readers found the climax underwhelming or the resolution unfinished, though one long-time reader of the author says this book handles its ending better than her earlier ones. The splits: The faith themes read as nuanced to some and preachy to others. The gore is a feature for horror readers and too much for others. The multiple viewpoints add texture for some and dilute the central pair for others. And at least two readers say they liked van Veen’s earlier books more.

The standalone question worth asking first: Bone of My Bone is a standalone and requires nothing else. If it works for you, van Veen’s backlist is the obvious next step and it is rated slightly higher: My Darling Dreadful Thing sits at 3.94 on StoryGraph and Blood on Her Tongue at 3.89, both from more than 8,000 reviews. Her next adult novel, The Literary Remains of Cornelia Feyen, is listed for February 2027. For the historical side without the horror, try our books like The Safekeep list, where this book also appears, and our best sapphic books of 2026 page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Bone of My Bone a romance or a horror novel?

Horror. It is a historical folk-horror novel with a sapphic relationship at its centre, and readers who came for the romance are the most disappointed. Read it for the dread and the history, not for the love story.

How spicy is Bone of My Bone?

Romance.io rates it 4/5, open door, though only 16 people have rated it there, and Goodreads reviewers mention steamy scenes. Heat is not the point, though: the book’s intensity comes mostly from violence and horror.

Is Bone of My Bone part of a series?

No. It is a standalone published by Poisoned Pen Press, and you do not need to have read Johanna van Veen’s earlier novels first.

How graphic is it?

Quite graphic. Readers flag gore, body horror, war violence, plague and necromancy, and at least one reader stopped because it was too much. If gore is a hard limit, skip this one.

Is there an audiobook?

Yes. Amy Noble narrates the Tantor audiobook, which runs about 11 hours 8 minutes and was released on June 9, 2026.

If You Loved Bone of My Bone, Read These Next

The closest match on our shelves is The Mercies, which runs the same engine — a real seventeenth-century catastrophe, a church-shaped world and a quiet love between two women — with less gore and more heartbreak. For sapphic horror that puts the relationship at the centre, Feast While You Can trades the war for a haunted small town at a similar high-heat level. And Our Wives Under the Sea offers the same literary prose and the same devotion-as-dread, closed door.

For more in this register, browse our best sapphic gothic romance books or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

Bone of My Bone is an ambitious horror novel that takes a little-used period and makes it frightening. The prose is the best thing about it, the Thirty Years’ War setting is genuinely immersive, and the folk horror has real teeth. It is also a book whose romance does not convince a large share of its readers, whose middle loses momentum, and whose ending leaves several people wanting more. Whether that trade is worth it depends on what you came for — readers who want historical horror with a sapphic heart will get something unusual and well made, and readers who want a love story should calibrate before they start. Check Bone of My Bone on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, Bone of My Bone ranks as a well-crafted trade-published sapphic folk horror — beautifully written and genuinely unsettling, held back by an underpowered romance and a sagging middle, and best approached for the history and the dread rather than the love story.