Johanna van Veen 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