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melbsreads 's review for:

The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova
4.0

Trigger warnings: death of a parent, death of a sibling, torture, violence, death of an animal, descriptions of life in forced labour camps.

I was sold on this book pretty much as soon as I read the blurb. I read and loved The Historian when it first came out, and this is similar in a lot of ways, albeit minus the vampires.

It's the story of a young woman who goes to Bulgaria to teach English and accidentally ends up with a box of human ashes. As she searches all over Bulgaria for the family of the deceased, she finds herself being followed by some shady people and embroiled in a story about forced labour camps during the Communist era.

It's a compelling story full of fabulous characters and while I do feel like it could have been slightly shorter than it was, I ended up really really enjoying this.