Tatiana and Alexander
Paullina Simons
Avon, Jun 29 2010, $15.99
ISBN: 9780061987465
In 1941 eighteen year old Tatiana Metanova and Red Army Officer Alexander Belov met and fell in love (see The Bronze Horseman). She becomes pregnant while he goes off to fight Hitler’s army. Tatiana believes her beloved died so as a single mom widow manages to get to Ellis Island via Scandinavia and the across the Atlantic. Tatiana changes her name to Jane Barrington and gets a position as a nurse on Ellis Island while also raising her son Anthony, but misses her beloved Alexander
Meanwhile Stalin’s Secret Police arrests Alexander who is accused of being a traitor. He is sentenced to die. He looks back ironically to when his father, a communist believer, left a nice middle class existence in America to relocate the family in Stalin’s impoverished Russia. However, those thoughts add to his pain. Only remembering his beloved Tatiana keeps him going through the torture and the expectation of death.
The sequel to The Bronze Horseman changes perspective from Tatiana’s vivid descriptions of the horrors of war especially the Battle of Leningrad with her one light being Alexander; to his bleak tale of all’s deadly on the German front especially his only stay of execution being the lead of a suicide mission with his one light being Tatiana. The terrific story line uses the atrocities of war as the backdrop to the human spirit when love can overcome so much. Tatiana and Alexander is a love story that tugs at the heartstrings.
Harriet Klausner
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