Very glad I simply relaxed into the book and read it patiently. Definitely worth the time to read and enjoy the style of writing, descriptive passages and history. Delighted I read this book! ( )

Set in Bulgaria. ( )

I will start off by saying how surprised I was by this book. I read the Historian and really liked it, with the exception of some of Kostova's tensing. The Swan Thieves I thought was a convoluted mess. But I think she hit her stride with The Shadow Land.
Kostova appears to write what she is close to...and as a writer this is somewhat important. Readers can usually pick up on contrived material. This book is an emotional love letter to Bulgaria and Eastern Europe in General. I have been lucky enough to visit some of the Eastern countries and what they have endured in the last century alone is heartbreaking. The people, the culture, the mixing pot of East, West and Middle Eastern is a beautiful garden of ideas and culture. The author puts us in the footprint of Communism (before and after the fall) and how it affects a family for many years. The love of a man and woman in the midst of such uncertainty. The desire to die from oppression's ever present iron fist, but the will and need to live. It is hard to review much of the story without giving out spoilers but she hit the nail on the head with this book. If anything was lacking it was the woodenness of The American character, Alexandra. Maybe it was done on purpose. She comes across as fish out of water in a strange place, but her desire and willingness to be a part of a society she could have only imagined works very well. Her hesitancy and awkwardness rimmed with curiosity and empathy is a brilliant touch. She made sure to keep the reader strung along by others and in the end I felt that did Alexandra justice. The last page of the book and Alexandra's thoughts draw a stark contrast to her own tragedy and delivers some closure. Smart, and well done this is a rather slow, but gripping story. What happens to Alexandra's brother? Well, in some stories the fate of a character is not for us to know because even though we are an existential viewer of the tale we do not deserve to know the truth. ( )

Beautifully written, but very slow. ( )

3.5*

Years back I had read Kostova's famous first novel - the Dracula spin-off [b:The Historian|10692|The Historian|Elizabeth Kostova|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1338298031s/10692.jpg|3061272]. I had greatly enjoyed it, even though, compared to the OTT breathtaking storytelling of the original, it moved at a leisurely pace. Indeed, what has remained with me through this time are not details of plot but, rather, impressions of poetic descriptions, lovingly evocative of the mysteries of the Eastern European setting.

This characteristic resurfaces in Kostova's latest offering, "The Shadow Land". The novel starts with a young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, arriving in Bulgaria, ostensibly to take up a teaching post. In reality, she has a personal reason for settling in this country - she wishes to fulfil the childhood wish of her brother, who had gone missing on a mountain trip and never returned. Through a series of coincidences, Alexandra ends up carrying an urn containing the ashes of one Stoyan Lazarov and spends the rest of the novel trying to give it back to his family, teaming up with a taxi-driver who turns out to be a poet and political activist. Eventually we learn that Lazarov was a gifted violinist and an unlikely dissident under Communist rule. And that his harrowing story could have echoes in the present...

Devoid of the Gothic and supernatural aspects which had given "The Historian" its particular twist, this novel gets off to a slow start, and (at least for me), it never really became a page-turner, even though it is a political thriller of sorts. At first I also felt that it was rather over-written - we get a description of the clothes of every new character and facts about Bulgaria are given to us in a style which is redolent of a tourist guide. It is, however, a novel which grows on you and I liked it much better as it progressed and the different narrative strands started to interweave. I felt that it was at its best in the "historical" chapters containing Lazarov's back-story. As a musician myself, I particularly appreciated the way musical works were described - it's never easy to convey the effects music has on its performers and listeners but Kostova manages to express its wonder and healing power. This alone is enough to make the novel worth reading.

I obtained an electronic copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )