10 stars

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10++ bright shining stars 

This is the most intense and epic love story EVER told!!

Its exquisitely written, achingly heart wrenching, deeply heart warming and utterly and completely beautiful, unforgettable and incomparable in every way!!!

The author has a truly uncanny gift for really making you FEEL everything that her characters are going through. I FELT Tania and Alexander fall in love, I FELT their longing, I FELT their desire, FELT their heartache,FELT their joy, FELT their hunger, FELT their pain, FELT their happiness, FELT their loss, FELT their desperation, but more than anything FELT their LOVE .

Love that was all consuming, world-shattering, achingly deep, and EPIC !!!

Honestly, I was an absolute wreck throughout my reading of it. I literally stayed up reading till the sun came up and got up 4 hours later to finish it. Throughout the entire book, I felt as though I was being constantly injected with little bouts of adrenaline. It kept me riveted the entire time. This book ripped my heart out and put it back together over and over and over again. I cried a few times throughout the book… and then there was a part about 3/4 of the way though where I literally sobbed for about 12-15 straight pages. And then I held out until the second last page and the waterworks started again. You want SO BADLY for things to work out for them!

The story basically follows Tatiana, a 17 year old Russian girl from Lenningrad, who on the day that WW2 started in their area, meets Alexander, a 22 year old soldier in the Red Army with a secret past that could be very dangerous for him and anyone around him if it got out. Tania’s sister has recently also found a soldier who she is absolutely smitten with and, of course, Tania then finds out that Alexander is indeed that soldier that Dasha has fallen for. Tatiana’s is the ultimate selfless giver – she puts everyone else before her no matter the personal costs and even though she and Alexander are clearly crazy for each other, she cannot bear the thought of breaking her sister’s heart and begs him to pretend to stay with her sister. This leads to a lot of tension, obviously, and many stolen glances, and gestures, looks, fleeting touches, private names for each other and secret meetings. Over the months they fall deeper and deeper in secret love. But eventually the war comes right to Lenningrad and they are forced to all fight for survival. When Tatiana and Alexander eventually get married, they have a beautiful month long hot hot hot 70+ page honeymoon (this IS a romance story after all despite the tragic setting) … I won’t say more but the ending leaves you hanging and desperate for the next book.

This is book 1 of a trilogy. I have it on good authority that the last one ends with a HEA but its a long and bumpy road until then. It’s not your classic romance where everything just “works out”, it’s a heart wrenching journey of finding love and having the faith to hold on to it no matter what.

Alexander… *sigh* how to describe him. He is one of those male character that just sears themself into your mind. The way he LOVES Tania and the way she LOVES him is just so POWERFUL and BEAUTIFUL!! I really can’t do it justice with my own words. They sacrifice SO much, EVERYTHING for each other. I loved how Tatiana grew from a quiet young girl to a very strong woman throughout the book.I just want to pluck the two of them out of this story, put them on a desert island with everything they could every want to live out their lives in perfect happiness. They literally have all possible odds stacked against them and yet still the push through. This is truly a story about survival…

… About how love can give you the will and the courage to survive anything.

The book is long. My print copy was 810 pages but I promise you, it does not feel long at all. I read every single word (often as slowly as I could). I didn’t skim a single syllable. The author’s writing style is beautiful and flows very smoothly. The story never dragged for me.

If you want an EPIC love story with wonderful characters and heart achingly beautiful writing, this is the book for you.

***EDIT + QUICK NOTE REGARDING THE “HISTORICAL” ASPECT OF THESE BOOKS:
A question I get asked A LOT is: “How historical are these book?” so I’m going to answer that here: NOT AT ALL!!! Ok, well maybe a tiny bit considering it takes place during WW2, but the point is that it doesn’t FEEL like a historical book at all. I personally am not a fan of historical romances mainly because I don’t like the language. In this book, the characters speak in MODERN language. They sound pretty much like you or I would. Also, the book does NOT go into any lengthy detail on historical events. This is first and formost a LOVE STORY. The focus is on the characters, NOT the events. The only events that are highlighted are the ones that DIRECTLY affect the main couple. The rest of the war, etc is pretty much glossed right over. You do learn some facts because obviously they live through the war, but its the background. The story follows ALEXANDER and TATIANA, their life and their love. Trust me, you will NOT regret reading it! 😀

Bottom line: THE BRONZE HORSEMAN IS THE BEST, MOST INTENSE, MOST INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL AND HEART WRENCHING YET HEART WARMING LOVE STORY EVER TOLD.

A MUST READ!!! Trust me,. You’ll never forget this story.

10 ++ stars and a place high on my favorites shelf.

I’m going straight ahead into book 2, appropriately titled: Tatiana and Alexander 🙂

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Favourite quotes:

“I love you breathlessly, my amazing man.” 

“Ask yourself these three questions, Tatiana Metanova, and yiu will know who you are. Ask: what do you believe in? What do you hope for? But most important – ask: what do you love?
… I know who I am, she thought, taking his hand and turning to the altar. I am Tatiana. And I believe in, and hope for, and love Alexander for life.”

“Tatiana: I found my true love on Ulita Saltykov-Schedrin, while I sat on a bench eating ice cream. 
Alexander: You didn’t find me. You weren’t even looking for me. I found you. 
Long pause. 
Tatiana: Alexander, we’re you …. looking for me ?
Alexander: All my life.” 

“Tatiana: “Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this?”
Alexander: “That wasn’t fighting, Tatiana. That was foreplay.” 

“Alexander tilted his head and kissed her deeply on the lips. He let go of her hands, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself against him. They kissed as if in a fever… they kissed as if the breath were leaving their bodies.” 

“There are some battles, no matter how much you don’t want to fight them, that you just have to fight. That are worth giving your life for.” 

“Love is,” she repeated slowly, looking only at Dasha, “when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry” 

 

 

**SERIES READING ORDER **

Book #1: THE BRONZE HORSEMAN

My Review | Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback

Book #2: TATIANA & ALEXANDER

My Review | Buy for Kindle  | Buy in Paperback

BOOK #3: THE SUMMER GARDEN

My Review | Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback

  

♥

Happy reading everyone  ♥

• Buy TATIANA & ALEXANDER for Kindle
• Buy TATIANA & ALEXANDER in Paperback

10++ big beautiful stars and then some

WOW!!!! 

This second installment of The Bronze Horseman trilogy was BEYOND BEAUTIFUL!!!!! This is truly the most EPIC LOVE story EVER told bar none. I am writing this review through the tears left over from reading this book.

This book was the PERFECT sequel to The Bronze Horseman. In many ways, it not so much followed it as it did complete it. While things are still very open for book 3, I felt like this book was the second half of TBH. It was utterly BREATHTAKING!!!!!!

*** If you want to go in completely blind, it might be best not to read this review ***

When we left Tatiana and Alexander in TBH, Alexander had arranged for a pregnant Tatiana to get passage to America by having her think he was dead (he was sure they were going to execute him) but as fate would have it, he wasn’t and was made to serve in the penal battalions at the front of the war. Tatiana meanwhile in America is forced to try and live on with their infant son believing that he is dead.

I don’t have words to describe and BEAUTIFULLY and SEAMLESSLY the author wove together Alexander’s story with Tatiana’s as well as flashbacks and memories. We learn a lot about Alexander in this book. While the books are not written in first person, a lot of what we saw in The Bronze Horseman was through Tatiana’s eyes and in this book, we are taken back to events seen in TBH and also some events that we didn’t see (that happened in between) and are shown them through Alexander’s eyes. It explains so much leaving no question unanswered…. We also see Alexander’s childhood through intermingled flashbacks that help the reader understand how he became the man he is.

The HEARTACHE and LONGING in this book almost killed me. I was openly crying or sobbing every 10 pages or so. You’ll just be reading normally and your emotional state will be relatively stable (well, still full of aching for them missing each other but bearably so) in a ‘current’ scene but then a memory will be inserted and just throw you right over the emotional edge.

The happy memories of each other are inserted throughout the entire book at times when Tatiana and Alexander are despairing beyond all hope, and the memories of each other serve as a means to get them through. To get up one more time. To put one foot in front of the other. Not to give up…. In this same way, they help the reader get through their separation by constantly giving hope.

And their reunion!!!!! Wow. Wow. Wow.

Alexander and Tatiana are both SUCH strong characters – some of the strongest I’ve ever read about.

I don’t think I have ever sobbed through a book so much – but in a completely good way. This is such a story of survival and love. The author’s ability to make you FEEL every single thing that Tatiana and Alexander are going through is just incredible.

No piece of music, book, story, movie, show, anything has EVER made meFEEL as strongly as this book did.

If I were going to be stuck on a desert island for the rest of my life and could only bring one series of books, it would be these.

The LOVE that Tatiana and Alexander share is beyond words. You just have to experience it for yourself. I don’t think anyone but the author can do it justice.

Again, this book is long, not as long as the first one though but my print copy is 559 pages. But it did not drag even once. I read every. single. word. every syllable even as slowly as I could. I didn’t want it to end…. And there is absolutely zero fluff. Absolutely everything mentioned is a vital part of the story.

And as with the first one, the writing is also broken up really interestingly. It is in chapters, but within those chapters are little sections, each one is a writing work of art. I really don’t know how to explain it, but each one is not just telling you what is happening, but it has a greater point … Its achingly beautifully poetic… This writing style becomes more and more poignant as the series goes on because as you know more and more about the characters, the author is able to make the sections more and more emotional until every single one of your heart strings is raw.

The ending is perfect and this being the romance love story that it is, everything does work out in the end, which believe me is what will keep you going throughout it.

I’m starting book 3 right away which follows Alexander and Tatiana in their new life in America with their son as they face life after the war together.

These are by FAR my FAVORITE books ever. There is nothing else in their league.. This story is one that i will reread over and over again and will stay with me forever.

And tell me that’s not the most beautiful book cover ???? 

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Favourite quotes:

“We walk alone through this world, but if we’re lucky, we have a moment of belonging to something, to someone, that sustains us through a lifetime of loneliness.” 

“Will you remember that? Anywhere you are, if you can look up and find Perseus in the sky, find that smile, and hear the galactic wind whisper your name, you’ll know that it’s me, calling for you… calling you back to Lazarevo. ” ~Alexander

“There is one moment, a moment in eternity. Before we find out the truth about one another. That simple moment is the one that propels us through life – what we felt at the very edge of our future, standing over the abyss, before we knew for sure we loved. Before we knew for sure we loved forever. …  Before all that, you and I walked through The Summer Garden, and once in a while my bare arm touched your arm, and once in a while you spoke and that gave me an excuse to look up into your face, into your laughing eyes, to catch a glimpse of your mouth and I, who had never been touched, tried to imagine what it might be like to have your mouth touch me. Falling in love with you in The Summer Garden in the white nights of Leningrad is the moment that propels me though life.” 

“If I can live through this, he thought, I can live through anything. If I can live through this, I WILL live through anything.” 

“In Alexander’s life there was one thread that could not be broken by death, by distance, by time, by war. Could not be broken. As long as I am in the world, she said with her breath and her body, as long as I am, you are permanent, soldier.” 

“I love you as much as it is possible for a man to love a woman.”

 

**SERIES READING ORDER **

Book #1: THE BRONZE HORSEMAN

My Review | Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback

Book #2: TATIANA & ALEXANDER

My Review | Buy for Kindle  | Buy in Paperback

BOOK #3: THE SUMMER GARDEN

My Review | Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback

  

♥

Happy reading everyone  ♥

• Buy THE SUMMER GARDEN for Kindle
• Buy THE SUMMER GARDEN in Paperback

10++ stars 

WOW!! Once again, I am writing this review through my tears (happy tears). What a beautiful book and wonderful conclusion to one of the greatest love stories ever told!!!!

The first part of this book is about healing. Healing from all the traumas WW2 has left on their bodies and souls. About finding a way to emotionally find their way back to the peace of Lazarevo. Their memories haunt them like scars – unforgettable souvenirs of a war neither of them wanted to fight as they struggle to build a new life in the States with their son.

I really viewed books 1 & 2 as one story. The first ended on a cliffhanger and the story bled right into the second which ended in a way that wrapped up that part of the story. That first story really defines LOVE . Falling in love, being in love, the extremes to which a person will fight for their love…. In book 1, Tania is 17 years old while Alexander is 22, and by the end of book 2, Tania is 22 and Alexander is 27.

But book 3 is different. By the end of it, Alexander is about 85 and Tania is 80. This book is about LIFE . Its about the realities of married life based on true, all consuming love. Tania and Alexander make good decisions and some bad decisions as they struggle to find balance in their lives and to heal from the war… but through it all, it always comes back to their endlessly deep LOVE for each other. It feels like a very realistic and true story – no fairy tale here. Its gritty and INTENSELY, EXHAUSTINGLY, DEEPLY emotional …. and it all comes back to that one day, in Lenningrad, where a young officer in the Red Army crossed the street for a beautiful blond girl sitting on the bench at the bus stop eating her ice cream <3

Especially after having read books 1&2, I felt SO deeply emotionally connected to the characters that when ever they would have memories or would mention the names of people/places that had memories attached to them, I found myself bursting into tears even without realizing it. This series really makes you FEEL more strongly than any other I have ever read.

The ending is beautiful and perfect. I sobbed through the last 10 pages. Their story comes full circle with no questions left unanswered. I read this book SO slowly, savoring every word, never wanting the story to end. Truely the very definition of happily ever after.

Paullina Simmons is a truly gifted author. She has a way with words that I won’t even try to do justice to with my own but I really think everyone should, at least once in their lives read this trilogy. I know I will definitely be rereading for the rest of my life.

Alexander and Tatiana’s story through all 3 books is by leaps and bounds my absolute favorite story I have ever read… Nothing else even touches it. I have NO idea how to move on from these books…

I don’t know what else to say, except if you haven’t read book 1, The Bronze Horseman, you should all really bump it to the very top of your to-read pile.

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• Buy in Paperback

Favorite quotes:

“I love you. I’m blind for you, wild for you. Sick with you. I told you that our first night together when I asked you to marry me, I am telling you now. Everything that’s happened to us, everything, is because I crossed the street for you. I worship you. You know that through and through…” 

“Alexander, you broke my heart. But for carrying me on your back, for pulling my dying sled, for giving me your last bread, for the body you destroyed for me, for the son you have given me, for the twenty-nine days we lived like Red Birds of Paradise, for all our Naples sands and Napa wines, for all the days you have been my first and last breath, for Orbeli- I will forgive you. ” 

“He is lying on dirty straw. He has been beaten so many times, his body is one bloodied bruise; he is filthy, he is hideous, he is a sinner and he is utterly unloved. At any moment, at any instant, he will be put on a train in his shackles and taken through Cerberus’s mouth to Hades for the rest of his wretched life. And it is at that precise moment that the light shines from the door of his dark cell #7, and in front of him Tatiana stands, tiny, determined, disbelieving, having returned for him. Having abandoned the infant boy who needs her most to go find the broken beast who needs her most. She stands mutely in front of him and doesn’t see the blood, doesn’t see the filth, sees only the man, and then he knows; he is not cast out. He is loved.” 

“All grimy and sweaty, Alexander drew her to him, his palms on her back, and bending to her and tilting his head, whispered into her mouth, “Tatiasha, I know you won’t believe this, but if I’m looking at the sheets when I’m making love to you, we’ve got a bigger problem than what damn color they are.” 

“Tatiana fretted over him before he left as if he were a five-year-old on his first day of school.
Shura, don’t forget to wear your helmet wherever you go, even if it’s just down the trail to the river.
Don’t forget to bring extra magazines. Look at this combat vest. You can fit more than five hundred rounds. It’s unbelievable. Load yourself up with ammo. Bring a few extra cartridges. You don’t want to run out. 
Don’t forget to clean your M-16 every day. You don’t want your rifle to jam.”
Tatia, this is the third generation of the M-16. It doesn’t jam anymore. The gunpowder doesn’t burn as much. The rifle is self-cleaning.”
When you attach the rocket bandolier, don’t tighten it too close to your belt, the friction from bending will chafe you, and then irritation follows, and then infection…
…Bring at least two warning flares for the helicopters. Maybe a smoke bomb, too?”
Gee, I hadn’t thought of that.”
Bring your Colt – that’s your lucky weapon – bring it, as well as the standard -issue Ruger. Oh, and I have personally organized your medical supplies: lots of bandages, four complete emergency kits, two QuickClots – no I decided three. They’re light. I got Helena at PMH to write a prescription for morphine, for penicillin, for -“
Alexander put his hand over her mouth. “Tania,” he said, “do you want to just go yourself?”
When he took the hand away, she said, “Yes.”
He kissed her.
She said, “Spam. Three cans. And keep your canteen always filled with water, in case you can’t get to the plasma. It’ll help.”
Yes, Tania”
And this cross, right around your neck. Do you remember the prayer of the heart?”
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Good. And the wedding band. Right around your finger. Do you remember the wedding prayer?”
Gloria in Excelsis, please just a little more.”
Very good. Never take off the steel helmet, ever. Promise?”
You said that already. But yes, Tania.”
Do you remember what the most important thing is?”
To always wear a condom.”
She smacked his chest.
To stop the bleeding,” he said, hugging her.
Yes. To stop the bleeding. Everything else they can fix.”
Yes, Tania.” 

“….and when Tatiana lifted her glistening eyes to him, Alexander was looking down at her with his I’ll-get-on-the-bus-for-you-anytime face.” 

“Everything comes at a price. Everthing in your life. The question you have to ask yourself is, what price are you willing to pay?” 

“This is days and days and months and years and all the minutes in between, just you me.” 

“This Zippo read, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.. for I’m the baddest motherfucker in the valley.” 

**SERIES READING ORDER **

Book #1: THE BRONZE HORSEMAN

My Review | Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback

Book #2: TATIANA & ALEXANDER

My Review | Buy for Kindle  | Buy in Paperback

BOOK #3: THE SUMMER GARDEN

My Review | Buy for Kindle | Buy in Paperback

  

♥

Happy reading everyone  ♥