40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful sequel to The Bronze Horseman!, March 7, 2006
To me, The Bronze Horseman was an acquired taste -- I wasn't crazy about it in the beginning, but it won me over in more ways than one by the time the book came to end. I was dying to read the sequel, but said sequel isn't available yet here in the US, so I had to order a copy on the UK site. Tatiana and Alexander is not only a brilliant sequel, it is by far better than the first installment. This novel captured me in so many ways it is unbelievable. So, this one picks up where TBH left off. The World War II Leningrad is in progress, and it has torn Tatiana and Alexander apart. Tatiana, bearing Alex's unborn child, flees to America where she finds work, makes friends and begins a life that more or less makes sense. But her terrible grief plagues her. She thinks Alexander is dead, and she finds this knowledge difficult to cope. Alexander isn't dead, but he might as well be. He is to be executed for treason and espionage. And the fact that he's an American passing off as a Russian citizen may not help his case. Will these two star-crossed lovers be together again, or will the war come between them indefinitely? There are various twists throughout the novel.
This novel captured me in such a way that it was almost impossible to put down from the moment I started reading it. The protagonists are so much more well rounded and better developed this time around. The further development is essential, for I felt that the author focused too much on the aspect of the Leningrad Siege than in the characters in TBH. Well, the main characters were well developed -- it was the secondary characters that felt underdeveloped to me -- but knowing more about them is great. The way the story is written leaves you with a feeling that you want to read more. And, boy, do I wish there were another sequel out! This novel enthralled me and made me cry in various occasions and my heart went out for Tatiana and Alexander. Theirs is a love that has gone through all kinds of trials and struggles and yet fails to die. The historical aspects are wonderful and accurate. You can tell that the author used a lot of attention to detail in the writing process. This saga has gotten all the better and I've begun to like it more than Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I hope the author will come out with more because I am dying to know what will happen next. Paullina Simons is a must-read author and I can't wait to read the next installment of this enlightening historical saga.
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55 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
TATIANA and ALEXANDER, August 8, 2005
I needed more Tatiana and Alexander, so the book was a real treat. However, I am not writing to review the book, rather to alert people that "TATIANA and ALEXANDER" is the same book as "THE BRIDGE TO HOLY CROSS" by Paullina Simons. It has a different title and cover picture, but the ONLY OTHER difference is the size of the print. I did receive a better price on "TATIANA and ALEXANDER" and the print was larger.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a very good historical epic in the traditional style, October 20, 2008
In this melodramatic, epic sequel to "The Bronze Horseman", Paullina Simons follows Tatiana and Alexander after their parting when Alexander is presumed dead, and pregnant Tatiana escapes to America via Finland and Sweden. Love and war are the two main motifs here and the story focuses more on Alexander, than on Tatiana (who was the central character in "The Bronze Horseman"), although the action goes back and forth between these two protagonists. Additionally, the time and space constraints do not apply (as opposed to "The Bronze Horseman" where the rules of chronology applied, here the narration is non-linear) - the action jumps freely between the past, when Alexander is a boy and a teenager, and present, when he struggles during the war as a prisoner and soldier, and between Alexander's journey from Russia to Germany, and Tatiana's life in the New York City with their baby son, Anthony.
The novel begins in Boston, in the 1930s, when Alexander's parents, the Barringtons, make the crucial decision to emigrate to the Soviet Union and renounce the American citizenship. This was already mentioned in "The Bronze Horseman", but here Alexander's family life and childhood in the Soviet Union are described in grisly detail. The disappointment with Communism and subsequent deterioration of the family shape Alexander into the tough, secretive man, living only for himself, desperate to survive, running away into the steppe and finally to Leningrad, where he becomes an officer in the Red Army - until he meets Tatiana and the love for her turns his life upside down. Alexander survives Soviet prison and interrogations, the work with the prisoners' battalion, the escape with the soldiers under his command through ruined Poland, running away from the ruthless, deathly Stalinist system, and the prisoners' camp in Germany, although he is starving, wounded and physically at the end of his capability. On his way, he meets Tatiana's long lost twin brother, only to lose him again, and tests the friendship and the military fidelity and discipline.
Tatiana in America holds to the strange, unexplainable belief, that in Europe torn apart by the war she can find her husband, although everyone believes him dead. All her efforts are directed only towards this goal, To reunite with Alexander, she overcomes unbelievable obstacles and, of course, they are finally reunited and move to Arizona (I hope this is not a spoiler, since it is the ending to be expected in such novel, isn't it?)... So that their story can be continued in the last part of the trilogy, "The Summer Garden", which I cannot wait to read.
Surely, the ending in Arizona is a little absurd (although, who knows, maybe it was possible then), as well as all the coincidences that bring Tatiana and Alexander together. When the novel is read as a romance, it is pretty old-fashioned (rare nowadays in the tradition of "Gone With the Wind", "Doctor Zhivago" or "The Blue Bicycle"), and no doubt, delivers its promise and is a material for a great movie. For me, the highest value of "Tatiana and Alexander" is in the fabularized background and descriptions of the reality of the Soviet life in the hardest period of the 1930s, the spies and moles, the interrogation methods. Paullina Simons was born in Leningrad, in the dissident family. Her parents and grandparents, heavily stricken by the Communist regime and the war, escaped to the US in 1973, when Paullina was 10, so probably she has some first-hand information about the times, which she faithfully portrayed in her novels.
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