Tatiana and Alexander

Tatiana and Alexander - Paullina Simons Originally read in March 2010, 4 starsReread July 2012, 5 starsIn front of me I hold my black bag, and in this bag, he lives. His beige cap, his black-and-white photo with his white teeth and caramel eyes. Some books stay with you. Some books almost haunt your daily life and some books dig deep inside your heart and take root. The Bronze Horseman Series is that for me. What’s happened to her? Tatiana wanted that girl back, the girl before June 22, 1941, the girl who sat on the bench in her French-made, Polish-bought white dress with red roses and ate ice cream on the day war started for Russia. The girl who swam with her brother, Pasha, who read away her summer days, the girl with everything in front of her. In Tatiana and Alexander the second book in The Bronze Horseman Trilogy we find Tatiana in America haunted by her past and unable to move forward. She's 20 years old, her beloved husband is gone and she's a new mother. As she nursed her boy, Tatiana’s salty tears fell on his face that she didn’t bother to wipe, and in her tears and in her milk and in her heart only one word struck the clock of her soul on the stroke of every minute: Alexander. In the first part of Tatiana and Alexander it's a series for flashbacks between personal moments between Tania and Shura and also we are introduced to the reasons that Harold and Jane Barrignton decided to leave the United States and make Communist Soviet Union their home. In this part of the book we have flashbacks of Alexander coming to terms with his parents decision and again the inside view into what living in Communist Moscow during the 1930's. More importantly we get Alexanders view on his first glimpse of Tatiana eating ice cream, wearing her white dress and humming a song that fateful day on June 22, 1041. A day that changed many lives...Alexander looked across the street and saw a girl on a bench. The first thing he noticed was a mass of light, long blonde hair covering the girl’s face and the second thing he noticed was her white dress with red roses. Covered by a leafy canopy of forest-green trees, she sat on a bench like a white flurry, her golden hair, her white dress, her blood-red roses. She was eating ice cream and softly singing to herself in between the licks of the cone. The second part of Tatiana and Alexander is non stop action, you're heart will race. You cannot imagine what is to come because this epic love story is to emotionally jaring. You cannot help but feel each ache that Alexander and Tatiana feel for the lose of each other. In this part of the book, this is where we see Tatiana become the women she was meant to be. She's confident, strong and fearless. But she wasn’t done. She was never done. Her capacity to heal him, to harvest her love in him was endless. Tobacco was a different story. He thirsted for tobacco. His mouth, his throat craved the burn, the smoke; his lungs craved the nicotine. But he forbade himself tobacco. His desire for nicotine slightly dulled his thirst for Tatiana; slightly numbed the aching emptiness in his body left by her absence. Ellis Island is portrayed beautifully in this novel. It's a crutch that Tatia uses to not move forward. To be stuck in the past. Those halls, her rounds, her healing hands. Anthony himself taking in those wounded and allowing them to just love him and mourn for those they left behind. Simon does this perfectly, you can almost see Tatiana smiling face going where no nurse wanted to go. New York City, another landmark heavily used in Tatiana and Alexander it's war time description and being seen through the eyes of Tatiana, the food, the sights, the people, and the idea that you can get all those things right here. But every morning, Tatiana took the ferry to Ellis, and as the boat broke the water of the harbor, she saw Alexander’s eyes, showing her what she had meant to him. Every day of forgetting, of wanting life, was another day of his eyes telling her what she had meant to him. Clearly i'm a fan of this series. If I could i'd fill this review with quote after beautiful quote. To those who haven't read the first book, The Bronze Horseman please read it, you will not be disappointed.“Remember Orbeli.”