From goodreads: The epic saga of love and war continues—the heart-stopping sequel to Paullina Simons’s beloved international bestsellerThe Bronze Horseman.
Tatiana is eighteen years old, pregnant, and widowed when she escapes war-torn Leningrad to find a new life in America. But the ghosts of her past do not rest easily. She becomes consumed by the belief that her husband, Red Army officer Alexander Belov, is still alive and needs her desperately.
Meanwhile, oceans and continents away in the Soviet Union, Alexander barely escapes execution, and is forced to lead a battalion of soldiers considered expendable by the Soviet high command. Yet Alexander is determined to take his men through the ruins of Europe in one last desperate bid to escape Stalin’s death machine and somehow find his way to Tatiana once again.
Tatiana and Alexander is the second book in The Bronze Horseman Trilogy and it’s equally as good as the first book but also very different. Simply said…I’ve been rendered speechless. As much as this story is about loss it’s also about a love so intense that it breeds hope during the most desperate of times.
“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.”
Tatiana and Alexander is mostly told in Alexander’s POV and I found it to be incredibly insightful. So many questions are answered due to the flashback sequences of when Alexander was a boy and the intense drama surrounding his parent’s involvement in the Communist Party movement (which was on the rise in the US). It was absolutely fascinating. There are also flashback sequences to when he first saw Tatiana Metanova and when he realized he fell in love with her, it was those very memories that would keep him alive during the war and/or torture him. While those flashback sequences of how he met Tatiana isn’t new information, it’s giving you his perspective on his thoughts and feelings which I very much appreciated.
“Memory – that fiend, that cruel enemy of comfort.”
What is projected throughout this book is the intense love that both Alexander and Tatiana have for one another, it never falters and it’s completely unyielding. The longing for each other is there and it’s magnified over time, even though they have been torn apart in the cruelest of ways. Both are doing their very best to survive without each other and sadly they become a shell of the people they once were but they are both fighters.
“Do I think she has forgotten me; found a new life? Assumed that I was dead, accepted that I was dead. Alexander shrugged. I think about it all the time. I live inside my heart. But what can I do? I have to move toward her.”
Alexander is filled with such despair that he broke my heart into a thousand pieces. He faced things as a soldier and as a POW that no one should ever have to experience but I suppose that’s the unfortunate, harsh reality of war. However, his mind and heart always circled back to Tatia.
“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.”
I feel completely gutted after reading this book and I cannot stop thinking about what Tatiana and Alexander had to endure; I’m emotionally exhausted and i wouldn’t have it any other way. This story is so heartbreaking and yet, incredibly moving and touching. The ending blew me away, it will leave you wanting more…so much more!!!
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