The Summer Garden

May 23, 2011
In this, the worthy final volume of a trilogy that began with The Bronze Horsemanâthe hugely popular novel about Tatiana and Alexander, young lovers who survive the siege of Leningrad and worseâTatiana and Alexander have escaped the Soviet Union to take up life as postwar American citizens; with their young son they roam from state to state until they settle, finally, in Arizona. While there is a great deal of compelling material, Simons is clearly hard-pressed to build a story without the structure provided by WWII; instead, less tangible issues (post-traumatic stress, trust, fidelity, the role of women in the workplace) as well as lengthy flashbacks fill the gap until the Vietnam War provides a framework and closure. While some will find Simons's style overly sentimental and operatic, the story is easy to fall in to, and Tatiana and Alexander remain compelling to the end.

July 1, 2011
Simons concludes her Tatiana and Alexander trilogy in appropriately grand and sweeping style. After surviving the privations and dangers of war-torn Leningrad and a long separation, during which Alexander was imprisoned, and Tatiana believed her lover and the father of her child was dead, the star-crossed lovers are reunited in America. Trading the old world for the new, they face new challenges but continue to be haunted by the horrors of WWII and its aftermath. Beginning over, they attempt to reconnect and resurrect a passion essentially born out of and nurtured by conflict. As they face the more mundane struggle of building a strong family unit while getting to know each other again, their past and the grim specter of war continue to haunt them. Although readers of The Bronze Horseman (2001) and Tatiana and Alexander (2005) will probably miss the dramatic wartime setting, Simons does a nice job of wrapping up the story and propelling her beloved characters into a plausible though ever tenuous future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)