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From Publishers Weekly:
Set in her native St. Petersburg, Russia, Simons's latest thick novel (after Tully, etc.) focuses on a WWII love affair. As the story opens, Tatiana, the youngest member of the Metanova family, is just 17; she still shares a bed with her older sister, Dasha. Not long after the country goes to war with Germany, Tatiana meets Alexander, a soldier, and sparks fly. It turns out, however, that Alexander is the same soldier Dasha has been crowing about. Possessed of a strong sense of family loyalty, and living under conditions that permit no privacy, Tatiana refuses to interfere with her sister's happiness, but the attraction between Tatiana and Alexander proves too powerful. Complicating matters, another soldier, Dimitri, has information that could destroy Alexander, and Dimitri likes Tatiana, too. In order to protect both Dasha's feelings and Alexander's life, the star-crossed lovers become part of a deceptive quadrangle as war intensifies around them. Taking her title from a tragic poem by Alexander Pushkin, Simons skillfully highlights the ironies of the socialist utopia...
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From
School Library Journal:
...A heart-stopping
love story by the author of Tully (St. Martin's, 1995). Teens
will
also be gripped by descriptions of battles
of World War II Europe on the eastern front, when Hitler abrogated
the nonaggression pact with Stalin and invaded Russia. The events
are told
in explicit detail, from battle scenes to the horror of life in Leningrad
under siege to passionate lovemaking...
Molly Connally, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From
Booklist:
The Soviet Union suffered immensely at
the hands of Germany during World War II, and no Russian city
suffered more than Leningrad.
The Germans
laid siege to Leningrad in 1941, and the resulting horror and chaos
gave rise to many dramatic tales of deprivation and heroism.
Simons tells
one of them here. Tatiana Metanov's life is typical of the way most
people lived in Leningrad in the late 1930s and early 1940s:
her family is crammed
into a small living space, and their days consist of endlessly waiting
in various lines for supplies. On the day Germany invades the Soviet
Union, Tatiana meets Alexander Belov, a lieutenant in the Red Army...
Copyright © American Library Association. All
rights reserved
From
Bibliofemme - http://www.bibliofemme.com/others/bronze.shtml:
'The Bronze Horseman' is the story of two young people in love trying
to survive Hitler's vast war machine and a country that could crush their
spirits. It is a tale of an impossible love. Where the question is 'how
much are we prepared to lose to gain the whole world?'
Russian born author Paullina Simons based the novel on the experiences of her grandmother who survived in Leningrad through the German blockade. Simons also experienced first hand the difficulties of growing up in communist Russia.
To all intents and purposes this is a love story, but it also carries
a certain ring of truth and is one of the best historical fictions
I have read.
© 2004 Paullina Simons
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