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review 2013-10-25 00:08
I can't get over how much i LOVE this series...
The Summer Garden - Paullina Simons

5++++ "UNFORGETTABLE, BEAUTIFUL,PAINFUL, EMOTIONAL, RAW, HEARTBREAKING, ENDEARING, ALL-CONSUMING,REAL AND TIMELESS STARS" 

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I'm still at a loss of words to describe this series, to describe Tatiana and Alexander! I said it before but I'll say it again, there are love story and then there is Tania and Shura's story!
Each and single book of this series moved me, enthralled me and made me live every single thing with them...and each book is so different in it's own way, each one is unique!

Summer Garden starts where most of the romance novels ends...it starts after the Tatia's and Shura reunion. They're now starting their life together with their little boy Ant. The possibilities seems endless now...they're free to live their life the way they want.
But the thing is they're not really free, they're away from Russia, from Germany but they aren't free of the horrors they suffered...especially Alexander, he have scars on the inside and on the outside that don't let him ever forget.

"Does it hurt when I touch them?" He has to lie. Every kiss she plants on his wounds stirs a sense memory of how he got them. He wanted her to touch him, and this is what he gets. But if he tells her the truth, she will stop.So he lies. No,he says. 

It's hard to meet this "new" Shura, this damaged Shura. He suffers from severe PTSD but he can't talk about it. He tries to move on the best he can, without soiling his wife and son.

Then.Now. Eventually, he sees so much that he becomes dead to everything. He has inured himself, hardened himself so that there's nothing that arouses a flicker of feeling inside Alexander. 

The other side is Tania, trying to figure it out how to reach him...how to take his demons and shadows away. She did the unthinkable and saved from the Gulac but is he really out from there?

So through this first years,they're traveling state to state, trying to find a home for themselves...but still hiding for each other all of what they're feeling.

We will be with them through all the hardships, struggles and victories. Sad, heartbreaking and emotional moments...

“Alexander, you broke my heart. But for carrying me on your back, for pulling my dying sled, for giving me your last bread, for the body you destroyed for me, for the son you have given me, for the twenty-nine days we lived like Red Birds of Paradise, for all our Naples sands and Napa wines, for all the days you have been my first and last breath, for Orbeli- I will forgive you. ” 


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...but also passionate and loving moments.

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“I love you. I'm blind for you, wild for you. Sick with you. I told you that our first night together when I asked you to marry me, I am telling you now. Everything that's happened to us, everything, is because I crossed the street for you. I worship you. You know that through and through...” 

Like I said,this for me the harder book to read of the 3 of them (and that's saying a lot)but I can't separate the books from each other. Reading this series for the first time (I'm sure I'll re-read them several times), was an experience of it's own. It was like reading their memories...not only the memories of several events that change history but the memories of people who lived them. To me they felt real and this story touched my soul. I can't even explain it properly! It's like they're now part of me, if that's make sense.

Now, I read several reviews that didn't liked this book...that Shura and Tania are barely recognizable and so on. And I agree with several of the points made, there were several times that I felt infuriated, sad, disappointed and even disgusted (view spoiler)with some scenes...but i never felt that the "pain" was gratuitous. It was real, it was two young people that lived unbearable and impossible things, trying the best they could to get through it together. To grow together. They make mistakes. They have flaws. They're real.

Many parts seems the negativity prevails in it but it's because a major part of the book is focused in those earlier years. Like it zoomed in the pivotal moments...but also the happy moments, Antman growing up and his brothers and sister.

And in the end it's all worthy...every bump in the road made them stronger. And this kind of one of a lifetime love it's all we can aim for. When two souls recognize each other, and from that moment on, they know their fate is irrevocably changed.

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“Do you see the Field of Mars, where I walked next to my bride in her white wedding dress, with red sandals in her hands, when we were kids?”

“I see it well.”

“We spent all our days afraid it was too good to be true, Tatiana,” said Alexander. “We were always afraid all we had was a borrowed five minutes from now.”

Her hands went on his face. “That’s all any of us ever has, my love,” she said. “And it all flies by.”

“Yes,” he said, looking at her, at the desert, covered coral and yellow with golden eye and globe mallow. “But what a five minutes it’s been.” 



True,and reading it" what five minutes it's been"...:)

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review 2013-10-15 14:57
There is no love story like Tatia's and Shura Love Story ♥
Tatiana and Alexander (Tatiana and Alexander, #2) - Paullina Simons

*** 5++++ INFINITE, HEARTBREAKING, UNFORGETTABLE AND ALL CONSUMING STARS *** 


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I just can't get over how much IN LOVE I am with these books...with this EPIC and TIMELESS story...with Tatiana and Alexander...
It truly is the most consuming and beautiful love story I ever read! Full of devotion, ache, longing, angst, despair and above all hope. If they were lucky to find each other, they will always find away towards each other. They can conceive a world without the other in it!

So there are love stories and then there are Tatia and Shura story...

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After being torn apart,Tania and Shura are trying to survive in a world consumed by way, trying to survive without each other.

The book goes back and forth with both POV's...showing her journey to her new life in NY, with their son Anthony.
And showing how Alex tale of survival, from the NKVD interrogations, to the penal battalion to POW camps. We also get several "flashbacks" of Shura's life before the war, since he was a little kid leaving America for Soviet Union to many key moments of his life, that molded him to the man we first met in the previous book!

Tatiana 

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She is most definitely one of my favorite heroines EVER! The most selfless, brave and resilient character! 
She never gives up and she will do everything for the love of her life!

How can she go on, if she left her soul behind?

“Live as if you have faith,” she said, “and faith shall be
given to you.” 


Alexander 

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*sigh

Shura, Shura, my precious Shura <3 
Could I love him more? I don't think so! What he went through in this book just broke my heart...constantly holding on in his memories of her,of his everything. At all costs he must survive and get back to her. No matter how impossible it seems, he will never give up.

The flashbacks gave a whole new take on his actions and all he went through. Even as a teen he truly was the wise one, and could see what his parents denied to see.
And then,we see how one moment changed the course of his life forever.

In the whole book, many of his chapters were the most heartbreaking I ever read and left me a sobbing mess...from the bittersweet memories of Lazarevo, where he felt everything he hoped for slipped through his fingers, to the last time he saw his father, or the "delusions" he had with Tatia and with his father...




"Don't worry, Dad. I'll make you proud. I'll be ungreedy and unselfish, unprideful and unvengeful. I'll be as hard a man as they come. Let's go. I'm ready."
"I don't want you to be a hard man, Alexander. I want you to be a good man."Harold paused. "A better man than me." 


You are Shura, you sure are!

Overall 

I'm starting to lack words to describe how I think this series is PERFECTION! 
It'll stay with my forever and ever!

Now, did you get how much I love this book? ;)






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review 2013-10-12 15:43
The moment when you read a book and you feel it changed you...
The Bronze Horseman - Paullina Simons


*** 5 INFINITE AND UNFORGETTABLE STARS ***

The Bronze Horseman is the beginning of a TIMELESS, EPIC and a truly AMAZING love story!

This is Tatiana and Alexander story...

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“Tatiana...you and I had only one moment..." said Alexander.
"A single moment in time, in your time and mine...one instant, when another life could have still been possible."
He kissed her lips. "Do you know what I'm talking about?"
When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street.
"I know that moment," whispered Tatiana.” 


June 22nd 1941...the Day that Germany invaded Russia ,the day that showed how close the war was, the day that changed irrevocably Tatiana's fate.
The moment when she met Alexander...

"It was like stumbling on a book you thought you had lost. Ah, yes, there it is.” 

A love that will be tested at every turn , a love that must be kept hidden or she will risk to torn her family apart...an unselfish and all consuming love, a glimpse of hope in a violent and changing world.

This book takes in their journey, showing the ugliness and the horrors of war, how people tried to survived in a siege city, grasping for each grump of bread, trying to live one more day.

Can love survive in a time, when everything you hold dear is taken from you?

***

I confess, this review is a mess, I want to talk so much about it and then I feel at loss of words to convey my feelings...this book is hands down, one of the best books I ever read.

Hell, the best love story I ever read. 

Alexander and Tatiana are just the most amazing hero/heroine EVER! They felt so real, flawed and perfect at the same time... they would do anything for each other. Anything to keep each other safe and alive. 
The way their actions could give away so many of their feelings *sigh

You could feel every once of their love, every single second of their longing for each other,their devotion and their passion...
GAH,their passion!!

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A truly riveting and unforgettable love story!

One(of the many)favorite scenes I have is when asked what Love is, Tatia said : 

“Love is,” she repeated slowly, looking only at Dasha, “when he is hungry and you feed him. Love is knowing when he is hungry” 

(...)
To which much later one in the story,this was said:

“Open your eyes, soldier,” Tatiana said fondly, caressing his face.“Are you hungry?” 
“I was hungry,” Alexander said. “But you fed me.” His body was shaking underneath his sheet.” 


Now see, why I say this book is PERFECT?
I still was just a middle of the book and I knew this one would be one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE books, it was really no way around it! Why?
a) I have to force myself to stop reading and get stuff done in real life.
b) I can't stop thinking about it
c) I felt every single thing, I cried,i felt infuriated, I smiled...completely emotional attached
d) When you have that amazing feeling that you aren't the same after reading it!

So, if you still haven't read it, just go and read it! You won't regret it and most probably, you'll feel like I did and want to punch yourself for not reading it sooner!

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*** Buddy read with my lovely bestie Ana Rita =)***

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