This is a beautifully crafted novel. Those familiar with Kostova’s writing will be delighted to know that her beautiful, descriptive prose has yet again created a masterful novel that will hold you entranced throughout as you immerse yourself into this gripping tale. In the spring of 2008, Alexandra Boyd, weary from travel and haunted by years of grief, arrives in the city of Sophia in Bulgaria. A chance encounter leaves her with a piece of lost property that turns out to be an urn of human ashes; the remains of some poor soul, now separated from his family in the hands of a stranger. Distressed and exhausted Alexander embarks on a quest to return the ashes to their family. Alone in a unknown city she soon finds herself accepting help from a young taxi driver who soon becomes as strange and mysterious as the quest she has suddenly found herself on. This is a deeply compelling story that moves from a seemingly simple search to return some lost property to a more profound and moving look into Bulgarian history and the effects of grief. Simply spellbinding. ~ Shelley Fallows
Exactly at that moment she noticed the tall man’s satchel resting on the seat beside her. The sight of it went through her like a whisper of voltage–plain black canvas, the upper side closed with a black zipper. She touched it. No, it was not one of hers. It was similar to her smaller bag: but it was his, theirs, and they had disappeared into the city.
Alexandra Boyd has travelled to Bulgaria hoping to salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. But a luggage mix-up soon after she arrives finds her holding an urn filled with human ashes. Soon she will realise that this object is tied to the very darkest moments in the nation’s history, and that the stakes behind seeing it safely returned are higher than she could ever have imagined. This new novel from the author of The Historian and The Swan Thieves is a tale of immense scope that delves into the horrors of a century. Suspenseful and beautifully written, The Shadow Land explores the power of stories and the hope and meaning that can sometimes be found in the aftermath of loss.
Elizabeth Kostova is the New York Times bestselling author of The Historian, which sold over three million copies, and The Swan Thieves. She graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress. Kostova won the 2006 Book Sense Award for Best Adult Fiction and the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Author of the Year for The Historian.
Kostova’s fascination with Bulgaria began when, traveling to the country for research just after college, the Berlin Wall fell the week she arrived. She fell in love with the man who would become her husband, but also fell in love with this “beautiful, battered, and haunted country.” After more than twenty visits, her passion for the place and its history is tangible on every page of her novel.
