Paullina Simons

When an attractive man half her age approaches Larissa Stark in the local supermarket, it sets into motion a series of events that will permanently alter her secure, affluent, wholesome family life in the suburbs. This is one of those books that are at once supremely well-written and a complete train wreck. The reader will marvel at the protagonist and her colossally poor life choices, but will also be unable to stop turning pages.

After reading this book I can't help but ask "Can anyone truly survive war?" When that army seargant comes home to his beautiful wife, the one he envisioned every night on the battlefield as he crept along the cold forest floor, closer and closer to his enemy, does he just wrap his arms around her and forget? When he nestles his face into her long locks and smells her floral shampoo, does he just forget the whistling of the grenades and the blasts of the bombs? When he lays his hands upon show more her and feels her arch towards him, does he just forget the feel of his rifle and the cold steel of his blade? When he sees his dark-haired son for the first time since his birth, does that army seargant just forget the piercing eyes of his enemy and the smell of the dead? How can he? How could anyone?

Although the war is over, Alexander and Tatiana are still fighting. However, the battle is no longer with the Germans or Russians. It is with life....the reality of daily living. Both of them are tormented by the ravages of war, memories of pain, suffering and loss that engulf them when they look at each other, touch each other, whisper to each other. They already know how to love.....now they have to learn how to live.

I devoured this book. Being the final installment in the trilogy, I desperately wanted to know what happened to this amazing couple. The connection between Tatiana and Alexander remains undeniably awe-inspiring. She tries desperately to heal his scars, both physical and mental. There is nothing that soothes him more than Tatiana....his wife, his only true love, "his cradle and his grave". The whispers he shares with her are like footprints across my own heart. Only Jamie Fraser from Outlander has the power to caress me with words like Alexander does. Even as they grow older, Alexander remains the strong, striking and stubborn man he was in his twenties when he crossed the street for a young Russian girl named Tatiana. Fate tries to snatch their happiness away by luring their oldest son into the throes of the Vietnam war, a son who has grown up to be just like his dad, only taller, stronger and more beautiful.

I did not want this story to end. I have journeyed with these characters from the beginning of their tragically sweet love affair and I have run the gauntlet of emotions with them. For me, Paullina Simons has proven that love is stronger than the evils of war and hatred. She has made me believe that happiness can be found after devastating sorrow. She has shown that even the strongest of men need the loving whispers of another. She has made me believe that love will keep us young forever. Thank goodness....... I am forever young. show less

I loved "The Bronze Horseman" and "Tatiana and Alexander". Sure, there were some truly quaint turns of phrasing that I might not have tolerated in another book, but in these two books they did not take away from my enjoyment. They had heart and hope and love and I enjoyed them hugely.

The Summer Garden is not a worthy successor to those two grand adventures. In this third book, Tatiana and Alexander are in America, living their post-war life with their son and it seems as if coming to America show more changed the two of them - and not for the good. They don’t talk to one another. Alexander broods and Tatiana hides things from him. There was little sign of love between them. There is plenty of physical love – endless bunny-rabbit sex that gets old after not very long and interminable quarreling between the two of them over their future, Tatiana’s career as a nurse, his job, his unhappiness over the hours she works, the kind of house they will live in – everything. By the 490 page mark there was so much anger and unpleasantness that I could hardly recognize Alexander any more and Tatiana was just way too ‘good’ to be bearable any longer. I can only think that Simons got a three-book deal from her publisher and wrote this mess to fulfill that contract. She should have stopped at two.

I’ve always thought that in works of Historical Fiction it is especially important not to have things that are out of time or place. For me they stick out like two heads on a chicken. Simons is guilty of several instances of not getting parts of her time period right. The first one happened almost immediately when she has the Barringtons tooling around in an RV. Really? It’s 1946. The Winnebago does not come into being until the 1960s. When they finally settle down in their ‘double-wide mobile home’ while the Korean War is raging (another thing that I kind of thought was out of place and time) the Barringtons have air-conditioning and a hot tub. And there are lots and lots of other things that were just very bothersome to me.

But most especially, I think that the biggest problem with this book is that is missing a very important major character – World War Two – and without the war this book has no backbone and no reason for being. It’s just a big sexy bore.

It was a huge disappointment and I could not finish it. I will do my best to forget every word I read so that I can go on re-reading the first two books in the series. show less

Alexander and Tatiana fall in love at first sight as Leningrad and Russia prepare for war. Unfortunately, Alexander is going out with Tatiana's older sister. Instead of doing the right thing and breaking it off with the sister, Alexander and Tatiana lead her entire family on a merry ruse in which Alexander lies to and generally fucks up the sister. I don't even know why. Luckily for Alexander and Tatiana, the family is dropping like flies, so when everyone is dead they can be united at last. show more
This is one of the few books in which the horrible deaths due to bombing, fire, starvation, and cold of a beloved grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, brother, sister, AND cousin are all treated as a good thing, because now Alexander and Tatiana can have sex whenever they want.
Wow.
But hey, it's a fun read. show less