The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons- 656 pages

Book Blurb:

A magnificent epic of love, war and Russia from the international bestselling author of TULLY and ROAD TO PARADISE Leningrad 1941: the white nights of summer illuminate a city of fallen grandeur whose palaces and 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. The routine of their hard impoverished life is shattered on 22 June 1941 when Hitler invades Russia. For the Metanova family, for Leningrad and particularly for Tatiana, life will never be the same again. On that fateful day, Tatiana meets a brash young man named Alexander. The family suffers 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 inexorably to each other, but theirs is a love that could tear Tatiana’s family apart, and at its heart lies a secret that could mean death to anyone who hears it. Confronted on the one hand by Hitler’s vast 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.

My Review: 5 stars

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The Bronze Horseman is the perfect blend of romance, history and excellent storytelling! I can’t say enough about this book. I read it back in 2001 when it was scarcely published in the US and I found it on the bargain table of a Crown Books (anybody remember those?) that was closing. Little did I know I’d be swept into one of the most beautiful romances in the midst of a raging war. This author does a beautiful balance of mixing historical detail with with love, devotion, deceit, starvation, sadness, longing and beauty. The recent popularity of this book felt like a special secret of mine being spread to the world, but I’m so happy it did because everyone should spend at least a week with Alexander and Tatiana.

Quotes I liked:

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.”

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

-“They had no past. They had no future. They just were.”