Bone of My Bone by Johanna van Veen is a haunting folk horror novel about faith, fear, and the stories people choose to believe

War turns people into monsters long before anything supernatural enters the picture, and Bone of My Bone understands that better than most horror novels. Set during the devastation of the Thirty Years’ War, Johanna van Veen’s latest is brutal, atmospheric, and deeply philosophical, blending folk horror with theological questions about morality, sainthood, and the terrifying power of blind faith.

The novel follows Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the destruction of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant woman trying to survive a countryside ravaged by soldiers, starvation, and death. After escaping a violent attack, the two women come into possession of a skull believed to belong to a saint. Legend says reuniting the skull with the saint’s body will grant a wish, and the pair set off across the Bavarian wilderness hoping salvation might still exist somewhere in the ruins of the world.

What follows is both a horror story and a meditation on belief. A necromancer stalks the women across the countryside. The saint herself appears in dreams, whispering promises and demands. Yet the deeper the novel goes, the less certain its moral boundaries become.

Van Veen’s prose is lush and immersive throughout. The novel contrasts the horrific violence of war with the strange beauty of forests, rivers, and abandoned villages slowly being reclaimed by nature. Against that backdrop, the growing relationship between Ursula and Elsebeth becomes the emotional center of the story. Their connection develops gradually and naturally, giving the novel warmth and vulnerability even during its bleakest moments.

Fans of Our Share of Night and House of Monstrous Women will likely appreciate the novel’s oppressive atmosphere, religious horror, and morally tangled supernatural elements. Like those novels, Bone of My Bone is deeply interested in the ways faith, power, and fear can distort people’s understanding of good and evil.

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What makes the novel especially compelling is the uncertainty surrounding who actually deserves to be feared. Ursula and Elsebeth are taught immediately that the necromancer pursuing them is evil, yet much of the story encourages readers to question whether that assumption is justified at all. Despite his grisly work with corpses, the necromancer often demonstrates a stronger sense of morality than many supposedly righteous characters. He punishes cruel men, shows mercy toward the vulnerable, and even forces a dead mercenary under his control to confess his sins.

Meanwhile, the saint appearing to Ursula and Elsebeth is rude, demanding, and surprisingly self-centered. The contrast becomes fascinating. The novel repeatedly asks whether these characters are accepting religious narratives simply because they have been conditioned to do so their entire lives. They rarely stop to question whether the “saint” is actually holy or whether the necromancer truly serves evil. Faith has been beaten into them so thoroughly that they instinctively accept what they are told, even when their own experiences suggest otherwise.

That tension gives the novel much of its power. The book draws subtle parallels between Catholics and Protestants during the era, with each side convinced of the other’s corruption and wickedness. The horror comes not only from magic or death, but from the frightening ease with which people surrender critical thought in favor of dogma and certainty.

Some of the theological discussions running beneath the story are genuinely fascinating. One of the novel’s most interesting ideas is the suggestion that if God is truly all-powerful and all-knowing, then surely the Devil must also exist as part of His design. Questions like that haunt the novel from beginning to end, adding layers of philosophical unease beneath the folk horror surface.

There were a few moments where the emotional intensity drifted into melodrama, particularly when characters became overly consumed with fear for their souls and eternal damnation. At times, their anguish felt slightly overwrought. Still, given the historical setting and the novel’s focus on religious conditioning, those moments never fully undermined the story.

Ultimately, Bone of My Bone is an unsettling and beautifully written folk horror novel that refuses easy answers about morality, holiness, or evil. Johanna van Veen crafts a world where monsters are rarely as simple as they first appear, and where devotion itself can become something terrifying.

Have you read Bone of My Bone, or are you planning to pick it up? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

The novel releases May 26, 2026. An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Related Content

• Q&A: Johanna van Veen, author of Blood on Her Tongue (The Nerd Daily)
• My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen (Kat Loves Books)

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