I almost didn’t pick up The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova because it’s almost 500 pages long and that seemed like too much of a commitment with all the books on my To-Be-Read list. And, while I’m glad I did overall, it was a bit of a slog. Alexandra Boyd moves to Bulgaria to teach English and, upon arriving, ends up with someone else’s luggage. She and her taxi driver endeavor to return the bag and travel all over the country, uncovering history and a mystery along the way. The book had an interesting premise and taught me about Bulgarian history, but was far-fetched and too long.