The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova

American Alexandra Boyd travels to Bulgaria to teach English in the hope that her stay in this fascinating and historical country can help to salve the pain of her brothers disappearance. Bulgaria was somewhere he had planned to visit when he was older. Alexandra is only in the country five minutes when she finds herself in possession of a strangers ashes, driving around a strange country with a strange man, locked in a room, and at the receiving end of some nasty threats.

This book started off for me full of promise and while it did live up to some of my expectations it also became a bit of a let down on others. I loved the characters especially the main characters of Alexandra Boyd, and Bobby the taxi driver but they weren't enough to hold my interest for very long.

The writing and the story just appeared to drag in places, and it felt almost as though the author had run out of story but needed to fill out the book and so we were taken on a nonsensical journey around the Bulgarian countryside. I really don't know why Alexandra felt the need to take off in a strange country with a strange man, hauling an urn of ashes around the place for days, when she could have left the urn at the police station on day one. The whole things seemed absurd to me. I was much more interested in her brothers disappearance and the whole story behind that.

On the whole this book needs some severe pruning back and it could then be a much sharper, bouncier read.

Thank you to Lovereading.co.uk and the publisher for my printed arc of this book.

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

A teenage girl goes missing from a quiet country village in England. The whole village turns out to support the family of the missing girl and help to search for her, but as time goes by and she has yet to be found, life must go on. Cows must be milked, fields must be ploughed, and the villagers fall in and out of love with their surroundings and each other.

I really enjoyed reading this book, but it wasn't the story I was expecting. As a huge fan of thrillers and mysteries, I was expecting this to be the usual crime novel, where the young girl goes missing and the handsome copper rides into the village to get the perpetrator of this heinous crime. But this was not that type of book. This was a beautifully written account of what happened to the village and villagers in the aftermath of the girls disappearance and how it changed things forever.

I can't say too much about the book without giving the ending away so i'll just say that while this may not have been the book I was expecting, it was nonetheless a beautiful novel, that was such a pleasure to read, and reading it was like reading a fabulous and beautiful poem that will remain in your heart for forever.

Thank you to Lovereading.co.uk and the publisher for supplying me with a print arc of this book.