The Bronze Horseman By Paullina Simons

***Purchased through Barnes and Noble

Synopsis

Leningrad 1941: the white nights of summer illuminate a city of fallen grandeur whose beautiful palaces and stately avenues speak of a different age, when Leningrad was known as St Petersburg. Two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha, share the same bed, living in one room with their brother and parents. It is a hard, impoverished life, yet the Metanovs know many who are not as fortunate as they. The family routine is shattered on 22 June 1941 when Hitler invades Russia. For the Metanovs, for Leningrad and for Tatiana, life will never be the same again. On the fateful day, Tatiana meets a brash young officer named Alexander. Tatiana and her family suffer as Hitler’s army advances on Leningrad, and the Russian winter closes in. With bombs falling and the city under siege, Tatiana and Alexander are drawn to each other in an impossible love. It is a love that could tear Tatiana’s family apart, a love that carries a secret that could mean death for anyone who hears it. Confronted on the one hand by Hitler’s unstoppable war machine, and on the other by a Soviet system determined to crush the human spirit, Tatiana and Alexander are pitted against the very tide of history, at a turning point in the century that made the modern world. Mesmerizing from the very first page to the final, breathtaking end, The Bronze Horseman brings alive the story of two indomitable, heroic spirits and their great love that triumphs over the devastation of a country at war.

My Review Comments:

This is the first book of a series from this Author about an amazing love story in the middle of a terrible war. I have read all three in the entire trilogy and by far this one is my favorite since, this is the one that started it all. The other two to follow titles are, “Tatiana and Alexander” & “The Summer Garden” which are now available in the USA to purchase. I would recommend reading all of them since, it follows the power of the human spirit that endures through the greatest gift of love between two amazing people. There are so many unexpected twists and turns that highlight the horrors of what happens to a country and its people while in time of war. Tatiana and Alexander’s love story transforms each of them into the people that they were meant to become. The way it describes Leningrad during the war will pull at your heart strings. It was so detailed regarding the pain, hunger, death, and the difficulties that are caused and effects it takes on a country in WWII, and how a country has to overcome and recover from it with all the aftermath that happens. It is truly an amazing book and you will not be disappointed nor will you be able to put it down once you start reading it.