Helpful Score: 1
Wow! What an incredible war story and love story! You really get a first-hand look at what the siege of Leningrad was like during WWII.
Helpful Score: 1
A must read. I totally enjoyed my time spent with this book. It's characters became like best friends that you couldn't put the book down wanting to know what will happen next. Definately a heart warming book once again showing the true meaning of love for another person and our families.
Helpful Score: 1
A great book! I fell in love with this love story beteen Alexander and Tatiana. Some parts of it were grueling to get through like the hard winter in Leningrad, but it's such a great book - you keep with it. Can't wait to read the next in the series!
My favorite, favorite book!
This is one of my favorite all time books. It is very detailed and the characters are so vivid you feel like you know them. It is a tender, tragic and triumphant epic novel. There are two follow-up books: "The Bridge to Holy Cross" and "The Summer Garden" you must read them to find out what happens after the tragic ending of this book. All of Paullina Simons books are good-but this is hands down the best!!
I loved this book, it made me cry, laugh, and feel like I was right there with the characters. I couldn't put it down and I stayed up late several nights in a row to finish it. It's now one of my all-time favorites!
This is an amazing book. The pages fly by when you read it. I have it and the 2 sequels in my "keeper" pile!
The war in Europe seems far away in this city of fallen grandeur, where two sisters, Tatiana and Dasha Metanova, share a cramped apartment with their brother and parents. And while life under Stalin has been harsh, deprivation unlike anything they have imagined is yet to come, for Hitler's armies are about to invade their beloved homeland.
But amid the terror and hardship lie beauty and hope when Tatiana meets Alexander, a young Red Army officer. Confident and daring, he is also a man with a mysterious past and a terrifying secret.
As the relentless winter and the German army's blockade grip the city, Tatiana and Alexander are drawn to each other in an impossible love that could tear her family apart and reveal his dangerous secret -- a secret as destructive as the war itself. Caught between two deadly forces, the lovers are swept up in a tide of history that will change them -- and the world -- forever...
But amid the terror and hardship lie beauty and hope when Tatiana meets Alexander, a young Red Army officer. Confident and daring, he is also a man with a mysterious past and a terrifying secret.
As the relentless winter and the German army's blockade grip the city, Tatiana and Alexander are drawn to each other in an impossible love that could tear her family apart and reveal his dangerous secret -- a secret as destructive as the war itself. Caught between two deadly forces, the lovers are swept up in a tide of history that will change them -- and the world -- forever...
loved it
This is the first book in the Bronze Horseman trilogy. This is a historical fiction novel set in the 1940's in Russia during Hitler's invasion of Russia. This book was long and drawn out and plagued by characters that I found frustrating to read about.
I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was well done. I would definitely recommend reading on audiobook if you like audiobooks. The narrator did an amazing job.
If I had one to use one word to describe this book it would be...long. This is a long book and it feels long. Although the wartime setting is intriguing, I struggled to stay interested in our two main characters who constantly sabotage their own lives to make things much much more difficult than they need to be.
Tatiana thinks she is self-sacrificing by begging Alexander to continue to pretend to be in love with her sister, Pasha, when Alexander actually loves Tatiana. She thinks she will help her sister by protecting her sister's feelings. All she does is make everyone's life miserable. Both Tatiana and Alexander make one poor decision after another; some they are driven to by their situation but others they make because...well...I am not sure why.
In the end I found both lead characters frustrating to read about. I was especially frustrated by the middle of the book which contained (I listened to this on audiobook) over three hours of a whole summer of Tatania and Alexander having sex. Seriously...I get it...they really really like each other...a lot. This whole book was an exercise in excess and frustration and really should have been edited better.
In the end I am just happy to be done with it. I will not be reading more of the series. I can take no more of Tatania's passive aggressive behavior and can't stand anymore of Alexander's controlling and over-protective attitude. After 31 hours of listening to this I am soooo happy to be moving on to something else. The history was interesting but the rest was just so boring.
I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was well done. I would definitely recommend reading on audiobook if you like audiobooks. The narrator did an amazing job.
If I had one to use one word to describe this book it would be...long. This is a long book and it feels long. Although the wartime setting is intriguing, I struggled to stay interested in our two main characters who constantly sabotage their own lives to make things much much more difficult than they need to be.
Tatiana thinks she is self-sacrificing by begging Alexander to continue to pretend to be in love with her sister, Pasha, when Alexander actually loves Tatiana. She thinks she will help her sister by protecting her sister's feelings. All she does is make everyone's life miserable. Both Tatiana and Alexander make one poor decision after another; some they are driven to by their situation but others they make because...well...I am not sure why.
In the end I found both lead characters frustrating to read about. I was especially frustrated by the middle of the book which contained (I listened to this on audiobook) over three hours of a whole summer of Tatania and Alexander having sex. Seriously...I get it...they really really like each other...a lot. This whole book was an exercise in excess and frustration and really should have been edited better.
In the end I am just happy to be done with it. I will not be reading more of the series. I can take no more of Tatania's passive aggressive behavior and can't stand anymore of Alexander's controlling and over-protective attitude. After 31 hours of listening to this I am soooo happy to be moving on to something else. The history was interesting but the rest was just so boring.
Laurie M. (reading-galore) -
Although the book was just under 900 pages long, I really hated for it to come to an end. Luckily there is a second book which I hope to read soon. The story takes place in the Soviet Union during World War II and presents the reader with the terrible realities of civilian life during the war. The characters are well written and a love story develops between the two main characters, Alexander and Tatiana. About halfway through, the book changes from being a historical novel to more of a romance novel with explicit sexual content. It then reverts back to the original style. I didn't enjoy having to switch gears midstream but thought it was the only detriment to the book. This is an addictive, late night page turner.
