Tatiana and Alexander (Paperback)

In Tatiana and Alexander, Tatiana is 18 years old and pregnant with Alexander's child. Believing herself to be a widow she has escaped to America and is working as a nurse on Ellis Island. Her life is good, her baby son is beautiful, and her new friends entertaining, but her heart calls out for Alexander. Alexander, meanwhile, has been arrested by Stalin's secret police and is awaiting death, accused of being a spy and a traitor. In a series of flashbacks his childhood is revealed. His father, a committed communist, removed his family from a comfortable life in America "to live what we believe" in poverty stricken Russia. Alexander, an American, has been serving in the Russian Red Army in attempt to protect himself. Wounded, beaten, betrayed, the memory of Tatiana is the only thing that stops him from despairing--"you were my only life force".

Tatiana and Alexander powerfully describes the triumph of the human spirit in a world of sadness and loss. As Tatiana says: "We walk alone through this world, but if we are lucky, we have a moment of belonging to something, to someone, that sustains us through a lifetime of loneliness". --Eithne Farry

Review
'Pulling off the passionate love story embedded in a truly epic narrative is a difficult thing to do. Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind remains the blueprint for the genre, while Tolstoy's War and Peace carries off the literary honours ... it's quickly apparent that the Russian-born author Paullina Simons has the measure of this kind of epic romantic saga. The power of her descriptive writing, the vividness of the historical detail and, most of all, the strength of her central characters mark out her novel as a considerable achievement ... she is able to make some powerful statements about the durability of the human spirit, but never at the expense of descriptive passages refulgent with power and beauty' Barry Forshaw on The Bronze Horseman, amazon

Beginning with the misguided defection of an American family to pre-war Soviet Russia, this powerful and moving story follows the lives of Tatiana and Alexander, who meet and fall in love at the outset of the appalling siege of Leningrad. He is a major in the Red Army, she a young and beautiful girl. Circumstances force them apart shortly after their marriage, and the pregnant Tatiana flees to America, leaving Alexander to the grim and sometimes bewildering brutalities of Stalinist Russia. But the faith and love they have in each other carry them through the years and the Second World War, despite the penuries, violence and betrayal that follow Alexander as he fights for a country that seems determined to punish him for his loyalty and courage. Paullina Simons paints a vivid and painful account of the Russian war with Hitler, and fills her narrative with examples of the absurdity and corruption of communist Russia. It is impossible to read this often heartbreaking novel without becoming deeply engaged with the characters and sharing their hardships. The rare moments of ecstatic joy snatched by this indefatigable couple are so intense that they leave the reader feeling almost voyeuristic, although totally involved in this dramatic piece of writing, whose length and breadth will satisfy all devotees of this author and introduce many more to her talents. This is a skilful and intelligently written book that rewards us with a belief in goodness and love, as we emerge with Tatiana and Alexander from the ashes of war-torn Europe, breathless but triumphant. (Kirkus UK)

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• Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Simons, Paullina
• Books > Fiction > By Period
• Books > Fiction > World > Russian

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