The Bridge to Holy Cross Book

Tatiana and Alexander continues Paullina Simons' truly epic tale. The previous instalment, The Bronze Horseman, introduced the charismatic characters of Tatiana Metanova, a strong willed, idiosyncratic teenager and Alexander, a young officer in the Red army. Set against the background of war torn Leningrad, the novel described their dangerously passionate love affair, while cataloguing the horrors of Hitler's invasion of Russia in June 1941. In Tatiana and Alexander, Tatiana is 18 years old and pregnant with Alexander's child. Believing herself to be a widow she has escaped to America and is working as a nurse on Ellis Island. Her life is good, her baby son is beautiful, and her new friends entertaining, but her heart calls out for Alexander. Alexander, meanwhile, has been arrested by Stalin's secret police and is awaiting death, accused of being a spy and a traitor. In a series of flashbacks his childhood is revealed. His father, a committed communist, removed his family from a comfortable life in America "to live what we believe" in poverty stricken Russia. Alexander, an American, has been serving in the Russian Red Army in attempt to protect himself. Wounded, beaten, betrayed, the memory of Tatiana is the only thing that stops him from despairing--"you were my only life force". Tatiana and Alexander powerfully describes the triumph of the human spirit in a world of sadness and loss. As Tatiana says: "We walk alone through this world, but if we are lucky, we have a moment of belonging to something, to someone, that sustains us through a lifetime of loneliness". --Eithne FarryRead More