Summary: Engaging story about a young woman going to Bulgaria to teach English who ends up searching the country with a taxi driver for the owner of a deceased citizen's urn of ashes, They uncover important pieces of Bulgarian history that has been largely not spoken of for fear of repercussions.
Opinion: loved it! The writing allowed me to envision the Bulgarian countryside, the Bulgarian people, the mind of an accomplished violinist, and the horrors of the communist prison camps.

I loved this book. The writing is luscious. I've never been to Bulgaria, but I could see it through Elizabeth Kostova's descriptions. I grew to care about the characters. The history was one I was not familiar with and the story of the labor camps was horrifying. The story line kept me reading right to the very last line.

I was thrilled to get an ARC of The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova. Like many other readers, The Historian is one of my favorite books.

The Shadow Land is similar to The Historian only with it's eastern European setting in Bulgaria.

Alexandra has traveled to Bulgaria to teach English. Her choice of this country arose from a game she played with her brother, each choosing countries they would like to visit. Brother Jack wanted to go to Bulgaria. Jack died as a teen, so this dream never materialized. Alexandra felt guilty in regards to her brother's death and this trip to Bulgaria becomes a sort of penance pilgrimage for her.

Shortly after arriving in Sophia, Alexandra has a chance encounter with a mysterious, young man and his elderly companions. An urn of ashes belonging to the family is mixed in with her bags mistakenly. When she realizes the great loss this represents to the family, she sets off on a road trip across Bulgaria with her taxi driver, Bobby, hoping to restore the urn to its rightful owners. In her quest, her life becomes entwined with the story of this family both past and present as she meets and befriends family members while attempting to return the urn.

Kostova brings the history of Bulgaria during the communist era sharply into focus as we come to understand the life of the man in the urn, Stoyan Lazarov. As she connects the threads of the past to the present, we come to realize the tremendous impact history has on a present day country and its people. We see how interconnected we are with one another.

And to make the story better, there is a dog!

I was initially disappointed that some mythical, Bulgarian entity did not appear. But I feel it's unfair to compare this work with the previous one. This story stands on its own and deserves to be read. Kostova's writing about events in the communist era evoked a visceral, emotional response from me. As hard as that is, we cannot forget the horror inflicted on innocents at that time that is, unfortunately, still occurring today.

I looked forward to The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova but have an ambiguous opinion after finishing.

More than one story takes place in this long novel, but for me, only one story felt genuine--that of Stoyan Lazarov.

Two narratives involve Alexandra, a young American woman who comes to Bulgaria to teach English. One narrative involves her childhood in the Appalachians and the disappearance of her brother Jack on a family hike. This story, told through occasional flashbacks, involves Alexandra's guilt at her last words to Jack. The contemporary narrative follows Alexandria in Bulgaria.

In 2008, Alexandra arrives in Sofia. She helps three people into a taxi and inadvertently keeps one of their bags. After they've left, Alexandra gets into another taxi and discovers her mistake. She is dismayed to realize that she has an urn with the ashes of someone called Stoyan Lazarov. Her attempts to return the remains will have her and her intrepid taxi driver traveling from one site to another throughout the book. She doesn't speak Bulgarian, but remarkably, her driver Bobby is willing to take her from village to village despite increasing danger. Yep, that sounds reasonable.

Obviously, Elizabeth Kostova loves Bulgaria, but the amount of detail that does not advance the story becomes an encumbrance and the journey itself becomes repetitive--this village, that village, into the mountains, back down again. Most of this week long adventure would have been spent in travel.

But about half-way through the book, we begin to get the story of Stoyan Lazarov, a gifted musician. Communist occupation forces took over Bulgaria after the war, and postwar Bulgaria was a dangerous place. Stoyan happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and became a political prisoner without trial. Sent to a labor camp with hundreds of others who often did not even know what they had done wrong, Stoyan endures the horrific conditions by retreating into his mind and his music.

Stoyan's story is the important part of The Shadow Land. The plotting on the journey portions made the book slow going, the back story about Jack did not contribute to the plot.

Stoyan's story, however, has a vitality and coherence that the rest of the book lacks. The Shadow Land looks behind the Iron Curtain in the years after the conclusion of WWII and provides a reminder of the kinds of abuse society can inflict on its citizens.

It takes half the book to get to Stoyan's story, and many will abandon the book for they get there, but Stoyan made the experience worth it for me.

From a Kirkus Review: "Kostova’s passion and tragic sense of history, along with jewellike character studies, almost make up for the overplotting and repetitiveness as she drums her points home."

Read in January; blog review scheduled for March 27.

NetGalley/Random House/Ballentine

Literary fiction. April 11, 2017. Print length: 496 pages.

This extraordinary novel begins innocently enough: an inconvenience for Alexandra Boyd turns into a mystery of epic proportions. Mixed-up luggage leaves her with a satchel that is not hers. She rushes into the hotel to inquire about the owners, but in vain. The satchel contains an urn with cremated remains. A name is on the urn - the only link to the identity of the owners.

She then hires a taxi to find them to return their property. She and the taxi driver Aspurah Iliev, whom she calls Bobby, crisscross the country following one clue after the other.

The beauty of this novel, however, is not in this simple plot, but the exquisite writing, the unanticipated twists and turns, the background story of her brother's death, the horror of life under Communism, and underneath it all, the exquisite violin music of Vivaldi.

I read this EARC courtesy of Random House,Net Galley and Edelweiss. pub date 06/11/17

I am a huge Kostova fan and so I was super excited to read this. She has such a beautiful way with language and she knows how to paint breathtaking, and sometimes harrowing scenes with utter clarity. I could picture this book like a movie when I was reading it. I loved the characters, I was fascinated by the history and found myself thinking a lot about this novel when I had to put it down to get some sleep. Some of the pacing was meandering, but I thought that about The Historian as well. It just means you have a bit more to savor.

Once I started The Shadow Land Elizabeth Kostova, I couldn't put it down. I requested the book because I have read other works of Kostova. I burned through this book in record time, finishing it in less than a day. I feel like writing my post will take longer than reading it did!

I am apparently on a theme of reading books about areas in which I know little. Bulgaria is a country I knew of, but had minimal knowledge of. After reading The Shadow Land, I want to know more. I've added it to my (long) list of places to visit. Bulgaria was just another country that fell under the Eastern European umbrella, now I have to learn more.

Kostova's writing captured me and drew me in right off the bat. I have a few lingering questions after finishing the novel, but this doesn't take away from the book. If anything, it makes the characters more real because their questions aren't all wrapped up in a little bow. They're allowed to be human and struggle with knowing they may never be able to have the answer they think they want.

I may spend some time re-reading The Shadow Land this weekend. It enraptured me so much, I sped right through it. There's so much detail and emotion written in to this novel that I need a second read through or even maybe a third to make sure that I didn't miss anything. The storyline was so well told, I absolutely had to get through it first before appreciating all the fine details that Kostova included. I loved this novel and highly recommend this and Kostova's other works.

I received this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A little slow at the beginning but vivid descriptions of Bulgaria along with compelling story of Communist atrocities make this an interesting read.

A realistic view of post collapse of Communist Russia. Very depressing, not my type of book. My husband and I were there to bring down the wall Reagan insisted on! It worked through Nuclear detachment threats.Only, then, the American people understood how important it was to get those people free. They knew nothing of the Nuclear threats, as it should be. However, the soldiers received no credit for 130 hour work weeks! So, yes on the other side of the wall you have this depressing story. It is important for history. I recommend for schools, and teachers! Thanks!

Alexandra Boyd is a young woman who feels responsible for her older brother’s accidental death years earlier. Almost as a penance, she journeys to Bulgaria, a country he had always wanted to visit, to teach English. Within hours of arriving in the town of Sofia, she offers her assistance to three people outside of a hotel who are hailing a taxi ahead of her. She doesn’t realize until she is in her own taxi that she has one of their bags. She searches the bag for identifying information and discovers that it contains an urn with human cremains. Alexandra is appalled to have inadvertently taken something so personal. With the assistance of her taxi driver, she sets out on a journey to return the bag and urn to the family.

What I enjoyed about this book is its unusual setting. Previously, I knew relatively little about Bulgaria. Kostova has done a nice job interspersing the politics, culture and geography of this southeastern European nation throughout the novel. She has also incorporated eye-opening historical information about Bulgarian forced labor camps, the atrocities that occurred within their confines, and the lingering effects imprisonment had not just on the survivors but also on their families.

What I did not enjoy about this book was that the narrative seemed to drag on. Far too many times, I questioned the need for the detail provided and felt that many sections could have been abridged without negatively impacting the story line. I also found it a stretch to assume someone would go to such extreme lengths to track down unknown people in a foreign country when the simpler alternative would have been to return the bag to the hotel or leave it with the police.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. This is one of those occasions where an incremental rating system would be nice, as I would prefer to give the book a 3.5.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a complimentary digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An intriguing tale of Bulgaria both right after World War II and in the recent past. Alexandra, a young American planning to teach English in Sofia, finds herself caught up in the mysteries and dangers of a family with whom she's barely shaken hands. Intriguing characters, engaging details and impactful scene-painting to help those new to the eras being described gain insights into what those involved might have experienced, and a good dose of suspense. I couldn't put it down.

Thanks, NetGalley, for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Beautifully complex, detailed, and descriptive. I was so excited when I saw that Elizabeth Kostova wrote a new book. I read The Historian years ago and loved it. I was not disappointed with her newest offering. On her first day in Bulgaria, American visitor Alexandra mistakenly ends up with an urn of ashes of a beloved husband and father to a family she does not even know. She tries desperately to make it right and meets a taxi driver willing to help her on her mission. Together they try to unravel the mystery of who these ashes belong to and how to track down the family. As their adventure unfolds, they meet interesting people along the way and the story of this dead man and his family slowly unfolds in alternating timelines. To tell his story, Kostova delves into the not-too-distant troubling past after WWII when Bulgaria was part of the communist Soviet Bloc. Part historical fiction, part suspense, this book explores family relationships and friendships while showing us parts of Bulgaria from the mountains to the sea towns.

I loved The Historian. I never would have picked up this book if I had knows that it had a lengthy multi-chapter explicit concentration camp narrative in the middle of it. The story is otherwise interesting though nowhere near as compelling as The Historian. Kostova reveals in the afterword that this book is more autobiographical which may have something to do with why there are many parts of it that would be interesting-if-true but also make bad fiction. I felt assaulted by the lengthy descriptions of what amounted to torture in the prison camps. I am aware this is true to life and do not want to diminish the suffering of people who were there, but those sort of witness stories are a very specific sort of narrative that I usually avoid.

I found myself frequently frustrated reading this book with both the excessive "What I saw when I looked around the town square" sorts of things, the anxious and not-super-compelling main character and the sequence of events that only becomes plausible when you realize how the story ends (an ending that was surprisingly predictable). I don't mean to be a weird internet person about this, I really like most books but this one was a frustrating read though i did finish it. Not for people who want to avoid torture narratives.

Thank you Net Galley for the free ARC.

A girl travels to Sofia, Bulgaria for a year long teaching job and accidentally picks up a stranger' s bag with and urn and ashes in it. She then tries to return the ashes, but it is not easy to find the family. As her journey continues, she finds out more and more about the person who the ashes belong to and gets a history lesson in Bulgarian Stalinism and the collapse of the eastern bloc.
I did not really identify with some of the characters, and the American backstory was lost on me.

I immediately fell in love with the pace and lush descriptions in this book. The main character, Alexandra, came to Bulgaria under the guise of teaching English. She was really there as an act of penance. From the moment she is dropped off by the taxi at the wrong hotel, her story becomes tied to the strange family she attempts to help. Add a poet taxi driver, a powerful politician, and a stray dog to the mix, and you get an unforgettable narrative that pulls you in and keeps you in.

Blending the modern Bulgarian story with a tale from post World War Two highlights the changes that have happened in that country in a relatively short amount of time. Jumping back and forth between Alexandra and the mysterious musician from the past, Kostova does a peerless job of pulling together a deliberately paced, almost Gothic story. I know that everyone will be comparing this to The Historian, but this novel is quite different. The Shadow Land has its own style, its own sense of urgency, its own unique story. One of the best I've read in quite some time.

I'm going to start off by saying I give this book a 3.5 stars. The writing style is something I'm not used to reading. It reminds me of poetry where the sentences are short but still quite detailed. Now, what made me give the book a 3.5 was because it was exceedingly and unnecessarily long. The descriptions of the places and people are well written and very engaging, but sometimes too much descriptions can well, just be too much. Although I did feel a sense of mystery with the way the writer was slowly leading up to the main purpose of the heroine's journey, there was just too much narrative in between. I did read the entire book though but many times felt I had to quick-read it just to get to the juicy parts.
I think this is a good book if you're on a vacation and just relaxing around with a lot of time on your hands. The writing flows well and the ending is nice, but overall just cut down on a majority of the lengthy descriptions and I think the book would be a lot easier to read .

Very slow, boring. While I enjoyed the imagery of Bulgaria, this book did not pay on its promise of suspense and intrigue.

I LOVED Kostova's The Historian [The Swan Thieves, not so much] so was very excited to read this book prepub.

SO DISAPPOINTED. I just could not get into it and slogged through. Nothing captured my attention. Neither the present nor the back story. Bulgaria and history--didnt work. In fact, IMHO, nothing did. I tried. This is a long book [nearly 500 pages] and I kept thinking--at some point the plot would turn and I would be engaged.

The premise was very interesting: Alexandra Boyd, a young American woman, still bereaved years later [filled with guilt] at the loss of her brother, travels to Sofia, Bulgaria to teach English--hoping for a new lease on life. [When they played geography games, Bulgaria was his favorite]. Shortly after her arrival in Sofia [at the beginning of the novel], she helps an elderly couple--and their son [?] into a taxi and realizes too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. She finds an ornately carved wooden box holding an urn filled with human ashes, and engraved with the name: Stoyan Lazarov. Thus we begin.

And move VERY, VERY SLOWLY so much so that I neither saw the suspense [?really, other readers?] nor cared. There is culture, politics, and human interactions across generations but ultimately SO FLAT. I think the readers who loved it just had a totally different experience.

So maybe someone else should persevere and be rewarded with a great read. Just didnt happen to me.

Do not read Kostova’s Shadow Land thinking it is in the same vein as The Historian or you will be disappointed. Instead know going in you will not find any suspenseful thrillers, mystical elements from the Historian, movie style action sequences or soap opera drama; what you will find is a poignant and beautiful story about a woman needing atonement for a perceived wrong doing. It is a slow buildup rather than a fast pace attention grabber and when the conclusion comes it does so with a whisper rather than a bang. In fact if you begin to speed read or gloss over sentences, paragraphs or even whole chapters you will miss vitally important story elements because they often happened so quickly I had to reread sections to find what I missed.

This is a story about suffering that accompanies loss and the repentance that follows. It is a story about a woman’s journey to find acceptance with herself and the importance of family. It is a story about a country, its politics, its wars and most importantly its beauty.

Shadow Land is that painting that grabs you as you’re strolling through the museum which you would’ve passed because it’s not as flashy as the other pieces. As you stand there staring at it you feel it speaking to your soul, pulling at you so that it can allow its story to unfold.

Let Shadow Land pull you into its beauty with Kostova’s poetic and descriptive writing style, its lyrical dialogue and long reaching story arch.

This book is gorgeous and so incredibly moving. I found myself lost in Bulgaria and it was incredible. This story is haunting and beautiful.