I will admit that I felt an immediate connection to this book, as well as the characters and the city itself.  So much so that I found myself crying, sobbing into my pillow, as if I had actually lived it myself, or at least witnessed part of it.  Alexander and Tatiana are fated, star-crossed lovers that will rank right up there with Rhett and Scarlett or Romeo and Juliet.

THE BRONZE HORSEMAN gets its title from a statue that sits in Leningrad (St. Petersburg today), built by Catherine the Great in tribute to the founder of the city, Peter the Great.  The 19th century legend maintains that no enemy forces will ever take the city so long as The Bronze Horseman stands.  During World War II, the statue was covered with sandbags and a wooden shelter and remained virtually unhurt during the siege, which lasted 900 days.  Pushkin also wrote a famous poem with the same title, inspired by the statue, and is recited in parts throughout the book by Alexander and Tatiana.

The story begins on the day Germany invades the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941.  Young Tatiana is just shy of seventeen and is full of daydreams and innocence.  Life in Leningrad for her family, the Metanovas, is typical of most Russian families of that time.  She, along with her father, mother, sister, twin brother, grandfather and grandmother, lives cramped together in a communal apartment.  When word comes that the Germans have invaded, Tatiana's father hurriedly packs up his only son, Pasha, and sends him out of Leningrad, to where he thinks he will be safe.  He tells Tania to go to the store and buy food.  Tania, being the daydreamer, doesn't see the need to hurry, so she sets out reading short stories as her brother is sent away.  Deciding later that she should finally go, she heads into the city to buy food.  She realizes then, too late, that everyone else has already bought food.  The stores are sold out.  What stores are left have long lines.  Discouraged, Tania buys herself a treat - an ice cream cone - and sits on the bench in the warm summer sunshine, in her white dress with red roses, eating ice cream like there is no care in the world.  This is how Alexander, a soldier in the Red Army, first sees her.

Alexander Belov, a man with his own dreams, but also a secret that could destroy him, cannot stop himself from following the young, beautiful girl onto a bus across town.  Their attraction to each other is instant, so much so, that Alexander helps her find food for her family.  Upon returning to her home, they each come to the terrible realization that Alexander is the soldier that her beloved sister Dasha has been seeing and has proclaimed she loves.  Yet, even as Alexander cannot stay away from Tania anymore than she can stay away from him, the war slowly infiltrates their lives and their city.  They keep their attraction and meetings secret, but the strength of their newfound love bonds them together and gives them courage to endure what is to come.

Winter's icy hand grips the city as the bombings on Leningrad start.  Alexander helps her family with food, using his officer privileges to get them as much as he can.  Yet the Germans, surrounding the city, slowly squeeze the lifeline in two.  Food grows short, the supplies dwindle, and soon nothing but bread, a little oatmeal or other meager rations are hungrily devoured by family members.  Eventually the trams stop running.  Pipes begin to freeze and there is no more water until the spring thaw.  Sickness comes in the form of scurvy, from lack of Vitamin C, and other horrors of the war surround Tania.  Through the midst of it all, only her love for Alexander and her family keep Tania going.  Once thought of as a cast off child, Tania becomes the strength, the backbone and the lifeline for others. 

Slowly, Tania's family begins to die off.  Soon, even Tania doesn't feel the burn of hunger anymore.  There is no heat because there is no fire.  Huddled together, Tania and Dasha cling to each other, and only Tania's love, her secrets, and her promises keep her alive and helping to keep Dasha alive.  Alexander puts on his indifferent face around Dasha to protect her from his secret love for Tania.  His friend, Dimitri, knows Alexander's other secret and is like a parasite living off of Alexander to further his own dreams.  Alexander continues with the pretense of not feeling anything for Tania in the hopes that Dimitri will not see this and use this knowledge against them.  Soon, the limits of Alexander's friendship will be tested and it could mean his very life.  Can Alexander and Tania ever find a way to love each other in the open, without the lies, the hurt and the secrets?  The worst Tania could imagine is happening in those dark, cold endless days (the opposite of "White Nights" in Leningrad - the winter's days are endlessly dark with just a hint of dawn between ten a.m. and two p.m.), but even as bad as it is, it isn't as bad as what is to come.  Tania will have to give everything she has, everything she is made of, for a future she envisions.

There is so much I am leaving out because I feel that it will give away most of the book's ending.  Although, it really isn't an ending.  A sequel is in the works that will continue this epic saga of Alexander and Tatiana's love.  This is good news considering where this book leaves off.  There is a reference at the end that gives a glimmer of hope for these two.  I cling to it like a lifeline and hope.

This is not a book for the faint of heart, or the casual light reader.  It is intense, emotional, heartbreaking and graphic.  Yet, tightly woven in the midst of it all is a bright and shining love.  The feel of the book is realistic in Simon's portrayal of Russian daily life, the horrors of war and famine, and the historical events that surround it.  Having been to Leningrad, I could picture exactly where Tania was as she walked along Nevsky Prospekt, or when she looked at the Neva River or St. Isaac's Cathedral.  Russians have a dark humor, a direct way of speaking, that rings clear in the dialogue and the characters’ personalities.  As well it should, as Ms. Simons was born in Leningrad.  Based on a lot of her grandparent's stories, Simons meshes together some real life with fiction to create a well-written and beautiful love story that has just begun.  I was sobbing, literally, in the midst of reading this book, but I couldn't put it down.  I feel I know Alexander and Tatiana now, as they are firmly implanted in my mind's eye.  Simons has touched me with THE BRONZE HORSEMAN and I for one cannot wait until their story is resolved.