A young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, has traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping that life abroad will salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. Soon after arriving in this elegant East European city, however, she helps an elderly couple into a taxi—and realizes too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov. Raising the hinged lid, she discovers that she is holding an urn filled with human ashes. As Alexandra sets out to find the family and return this precious item, she will first have to uncover the secrets of a talented musician whose life was shattered by oppression.  And she will discover all too quickly that this knowledge is fraught with its own danger.

A superbly illustrated companion to bestselling US author Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian (2005) and The Shadow Land (2017), this book guides the reader through most of the locations in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe where the action takes place. Some of them exist only in the imagination of the author. However, others have been carefully compiled from snippets of real life in what remains Europe's least known corner. A fascinating journey into Communist Bulgaria, Dracula's Romania, the lesser known corners of Slovenia and Croatia, subterranean Istanbul and much more, this book is essential to understanding both Elizabeth Kostova's novels and Eastern Europe itself. It also provides practical information for prospective travellers in the region.

With an afterword by Elizabeth Kostova.

Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to "My dear and unfortunate successor". Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of – a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history.

Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism.