Review for "Tully" by Paullina Simons

Tully Makker is a survivor. She survives her father's abandonment at the age of 7. She survives her uncle's "attentions" at the age of 12. She survives her mother's abusive hands throughout her childhood and adolescence. Her best friend's betrayal in her senior year of high school is the hardest for Tully to survive. She survives....but not without scars....scars on her wrists, scars that haunt her in her sleep, scars upon her heart. There are those who try to help Tully throughout her life. There's Robin, a good man who loves her unconditionally with all of her scars. A man who asks nothing of her, who endures her silence and betrayal, and still loves her with every ounce of his being. There's Julie, one of her best friends from childhood. Yet she too is trying to come to terms with her own life and her own mistakes and regrets. And there's Jack, the man who open's Tully's eyes and her heart, who makes her face her grief, a grief he too shares.

Undeniably, "Tully" is a story of survival and self-discovery. It's about a friendship so strong that it endures even beyond death. It is about a love so strong that it endures through months of absence and years of dreaming. What makes the character Tully so real is that she is far from perfect. She makes mistakes, big ones, mistakes that made me say "What the hell are you doing?" I disagreed with many of her choices, so much so that I wanted to shake some sense into her. But always throughout the story, I wanted Tully to take that step, to take off the armour, trust someone, let them in, let them help her unburden herself from all of the grief she carried around. I wanted her to see that her life was good....if she would only live it for herself.

Paullina Simons has fast become one of my favourite authors. She makes me adore her characters....fall in love with them...cheer for them...cry for them....mourn for them. She makes me find it within my heart to forgive them their sins...even when I wouldn't forgive myself the same sin. I cried a lot in this book, for the author has left the door open for me to examine my own life decisions, to ask the "what if" questions, to examine the skeletons in my closet. Sure, I have many regrets, and yes, my life could have been different. But like Tully.....I have survived.

Review for "The Summer Garden" by Paullina Simons

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 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.

Review for "Tatiana And Alexander" by Paullina Simons

The Soviets and Allied forces are battling against Hitler and Alexander is in the midst of it all, this hell that is war. He is constantly haunted by images of his beloved, his Tatiana, her face, her laugh, her smell, the feel of her under his strong hands and his searching lips. But she is gone, he sent her away, but his mind won't let him forget her. He doesn't know that Tatiana has made it to America, where she too is living her own kind of hell without her one and only love. She hears Alexander's voice everywhere, calling for her. She searches the face of every broad shouldered, dark haired man, hoping, praying, begging....but her Shura is dead, only living in her heart and soul and in the son they created.

I can't believe how quickly I finished this book. I devoured it in a week, desperately wanting for Tatiana and Alexander to be reunited. As I turned each page, I continued to be drowned in their sorrows. The torment that Alexander struggles through is unbearable, yet he moves onward, from battle to battle, always the strong and courageous soldier. "Stay alive for me, my Shura", Tatiana would always say to him. "Stay alive", I say as my heart pours forth its own strength for this heroic character. He tries desperately, but as his body, mind and spirit are beaten down, I find myself crying out for him to hold on. She's coming....she has to come...she will come....won't she?

I continue to be obsessed with these characters. Even when I place the book down, I find myself wondering, will they make it? How can fate be so unkind? I want to push Tatiana onto that ship and yell "Go find him, he needs you, don't move on without him, open your heart and listen..." Will there ever be a time when they can just live, without fear, without war, without separation? I am hoping to get answers in the third book of the trilogy, which I am so anxiously waiting to arrive. Yet I too have my fears, for once I get my answers, my journey will be over. I will try to read slowly.

Review for "The Bronze Horseman" by Paullina Simons

She sits there, enjoying an icecream, her favourite, creme brulee, wearing a white dress with red roses and ridiculously uncomfortable high heels. It is a glorious June day in Leningrad as she sits on the bench, playfully swinging her legs as she waits for the bus. She glances up and there he is, staring, unabashadly from across the street. From that moment on, Tatiana's life is over...yet it is only just beginning. On this June day, Hitler has invaded Russia and Tatiana has met her Alexander.

This book has taken me by surprise. I had no interest in Russia and didn't know much about its land or people. However, I became immediately drawn into the plot, caught up in the undeniable connection between Tatiana and Alexander. Perhaps it is the strong female character that keeps me reading, a strength of spirit that does not impede on her innocence. Perhaps it is the beautiful dark-haired soldier, Alexander, very tall, very strong and unyielding in his love for Tatiana. Perhaps it is the struggle and the strife that these two people endure in order to be together, the sickness, starvation, war, guilt, deception. I couldn't help but cry for them when they were together and weep for them when they were apart.

In my opinion, the sign of a great writer is the impact the characters leave upon the reader. I can honestly say that I am obsessed. I cannot let go. I want to be that young girl walking with that tall, dark-haired soldier through the Summer Garden. I want that summer month in Lazarevo where I finally feel my one and only true love, in every sense of the word. I want it all, St. Isaac's cathedral, Lake Lagoda, Luga, Leningrad, the Fields of Mars, and the Bronze Horseman. I want my Alexander.

The struggle continues for Tatiana and Alexander in the second book of the trilogy, which of coarse, I have quickly begun. These characters are imprinted upon my psyche and their love for each other burns within my own heart. Thank god their journey is not over, and thus, neither is mine......