Bone of My Bone by Johanna Van Veen
Poisoned Pen Press (May 26, 2026)
Reviewed by Haley Newlin 
One saint. One sinner. One skull.
Horror readers, rejoice. Bram Stoker Award-nominee and USA Today bestseller Johanna Van Veen is back with another haunting, sapphic, and terrifically terrifying tale of wickedry in Bone of My Bone. For fans of Robert Eggers’ The Witch and Cassandra Khaw’s The Salt Grows Heavy, Bone of My Bone unveils the brutality of the Thirty Years’ War and the demented depravity of man. Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a headstrong and scrappy farmhand, form an alliance and move through the Bavarian forest in hopes of appeasing the spirit of a saint contained within a fragile holy relic they carry—a skull. A dying man tells the women of its secret: reunite the skull with the saint’s body, and a wish will be granted.
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