Product Description

If you like sweeping historical romance,try this novel by PAULINNA SIMONS.
When Tatiana met amd fell in love with her red army officer Alexander in
1941 Leningrad,an unstoppable chain or events was sent into motion.
The Summer Garden combines elements of her Russian modern histories with a
tale of what made the contemporary United States the way they are today, in
an unforgettable novel of epic scope.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9378 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-02
• Binding: Paperback

Synopsis
A novel of the enduring power of love and commitment -- against the forces of war and the equally dangerous forces of keeping the peace From the bestselling author of The Girl in Times Square, comes the magnificent conclusion to the saga that was set in motion when Tatiana fell in love with her Red Army officer, Alexander Belov, in wartime Leningrad in 1941. Tatiana and Alexander have since suffered the worst the twentieth century had to offer. After years of separation, they are miraculously reunited in America, the land of their dreams. They have a beautiful son, Anthony. They have proved to each other that their love is greater than the vast evil of the world. But though they are only in their twenties, in their hearts they are old, and they are strangers. In the climate of fear and mistrust of the Cold War, dark forces are at work in the US that threaten their life and their family. Can they be happy? Or will the ghosts of yesterday reach out to blight even the destiny of their firstborn son? Epic in scope, masterfully told, The Summer Garden is a novel of unique and devastating emotional power that spans two thirds of the twentieth century, and three continents.

About the Author
Paullina Simons was born in Leningrad in 1963. As a child she emigrated to
Queens, New York, and attended colleges in Long Island. Then she moved to
England and attended Essex University, before returning to America. She
lives in New York with her husband and children.

Customer Reviews

A little drawn out
Like everyone else, I bought this book because I could not get enough of Tatia and Shuru. I wasn't disappointed with the writing style just the fact that the story of T & A went from a beautiful, heart wrenching start in Bronze Horseman to an ordinary, everyday finish here in Summer Garden. I couldn't have done without reading the 2nd book (Tatiana and Alexander) but I feel I could have given this one a miss.

My Favorite of the Three!
I'm absolutely enamored with this series!

In the first two novels in the Bronze Horseman trilogy by Paullina Simons, she throws our two protags, Alexander and Tatiana, into peril from the outset- starting with the siege of Leningrad during WWII on through their eventual escape to America in the late 1940's.

When the second book ended, I couldn't see how Simon's could squeeze any more gripping material out of Tatiana and Alexander's lives. But she wonderfully surprised me.

As the blurb for The Summer Garden states, their story was only beginning.

The Summer Garden starts where the story left off before the epilogue of Tatiana and Alexander(Or The Bridge to Holy Cross to you Brits and Ozzies!). Though Alexander has joined Tatiana and their son Anthony in the US, part of him is still in the gulag Tatiana rescued him from, unable to move forward and unable to allow himself to live after seeing, and causing, so much death and destruction.

But Tatiana is a fierce one and doesn't give up so easily. They travel all over the US trying to find a place they can call home, and along the way, bring him to a place of healing. I found this one to be much more sexual then the first two- almost erotic really- but that too had it's purpose, a metaphor if you will, for the spiritual melding their marriage so desperately needed after their time apart.

They travel all over the US trying to find a place to call home, and along the way, bring Alexander to a place of healing. They end up in Arizona, on a parcel of land Tatiana bought with the money Alexander's mother horded away after his father zealously gave up their US citizenship and hauled his family to the Soviet Union during the pre-war years.

You would think that after all they had been through- sieges, starvation and the total destruction of their families and homeland- that all the pain was behind them and that nothing could break them. But you would be wrong. They find that peaceful life can be way may more dangerous with it's insidious fingers plucking at them until they become something they never thought they would.

This is why I fell for this book in a much deeper way then even the first two. I have found in life that the big things, like death and pain, are far easier to survive then the little things that can eat you away before you even realize it. Like the slow dripping of water that erodes a massive stone, we are often unaware of the things that constantly hit us until all that we thought we were is almost totally gone. Although the big things define us and show us what we can be, it's the little things and how we deal with them, that show us what we are. And so it was for Tatiana and Alexander.

We follow them through the years, through bad decisions and successes, births and deaths, through children growing up and themselves growing apart ... and back together again, until the very end when we see them with their family, white haired but still in as much love as the day when Alexander crossed the street to meet a skinny blond hair girl innocently eating ice cream, waiting for her life to begin.

Alexander is the ultimate Alpha hero. Strong, brooding, flawed and intense. Despite outward appearances, Tatiana has a core of steel and an insight into human nature that matches him pound for pound. The little tidbits of Tatiana's former life that Simons throws into The Summer Garden, only reinforces that fact, and I for one loved that part of the story telling, though I can imagine some people would have found it extraneous.

Tatiana and Alexander's love was so deep, so intense, that it became their greatest strength as well as their greatest weakness and it became the strength of these novels as well.

Although I know these books are not for everyone- their huge, sweeping and daunting at times- they are so worth the time invested. My wish is for everyone to find a book that moves them as much as these have with me!

Bit of a mixed bag...
'The Bronze Horseman' and 'Tatiana and Alexander' were two parts of a story that I thoroughly enjoyed - PS's characterisation and plot were faultless and it was with trepidation and surprise that I picked up this, the third novel to the series - I felt 'Tatiana and Alexander'finished off this tale nicely.
As much as it pains me to say, I just didn't enjoy it as much as the first two (...but then I LOVED the first two...) and found myself speed reading the flashbacks to Tatiana's childhood and wondering where else we could possibly be taken in terms of storyline. Parts of it were engrossing and everything I have come to expect of a novel from PS, but other parts were dull and lacking in movement. It also 'felt' different from the first two - whereas their love for each other made me weep then, in this part, I just felt it was all a little overdone and, dare I say it, bordering on tedious...
I know I'll be upsetting other diehard PS fans, but I feel I need to ne honest, buy the other two definately but save this one for a rainy day...