KB's Fan Letter to an Author: Paullina Simons

If you have been following the Author Fan Letter Blog Crawl, then you have read some very wonderful fan letters to authors from a wide group of different book bloggers. I must thank Kassa so very much for coming up with this idea. What a lovely way to promote those authors and their books they have written that have had such a profound affect on readers. Yesterday Fiction Vixen posted her letter and today is my turn.

My fan author letter is written to the author who wrote one of my favorite books, including my all time favorite romance. She is Paullina Simons.

Dear Paullina Simons,

Thank you for writing such a powerful, epic historical romance with The Bronze Horseman and its sequel, The Bridge to the Holy Cross. No book before, during or after can compare to your poetic and luscious heartbreaking story of war, starvation, death, angst, romance, undying love and the belief that everyone has a soul mate. The Bronze Horseman has proved that love conquers all, and in this case, it is not only the love shared between a man and a woman, but one that a parent has for their children and the bond two sisters have for each other even beyond death.

I really can't remember how or why I decided to pick up The Bronze Horseman. The idea of reading a 660 page book about a young girl in St. Petersburg, Russia set during World War II had no interest for me. I really should have passed The Bronze Horseman by, but didn't, and because of that I was so very glad.

One Thursday night back nine years ago, I went to my local library and picked up this massive hardcover book not sure what to expect. I then went home and started reading and simply could not stop. I was close to calling out from work the next day because I couldn't stop reading. Not since Stephen King's It or The Stand has a book made me want to forget everything around me. You should be pleased to know that I did go into work, but as soon as Friday night came, I pushed all other things to the side and sat down to read The Bronze Horseman from beginning to end. The Bronze Horseman is the only book in my twenty years of hardcore reading where I sat from 7pm until 5am in the early morning hours, where I read straight through and saw the sun rise. After I finished, I could barely see, think or speak. You ruined me. For almost a month after, I didn't pick up another book because your words and stunning portrayal of an heart wrenching romance that occurs between Tatiana and Alexander could not compete with any other romance I've read up to that point.

From the minute seventeen-year old Tatiana wears her favorite dress with the red roses and sits down to eat an ice cream cone, before the horrors of the war hits her town and family, showcasing her soon to be loss of innocent, she sees a soldier across the street staring at her. He is Alexander and will change her life forever. He is her future, the one man who will be her soul purpose in living. The moment Tatiana and Alexander claimed one another for their own, I was invested in such a way where I needed to see their happily ever after, to know after all they have been through, they would walk off into the sunset together, holding hands and eating blueberry ice cream until they reached a very old age.

Those scenes where Tatiana can't have Alexander because he has been with her sister first, to the near starvation and death of Tatiana's entire family, the climax where she and Alexander are separated, only to be reunited and act on their passion in such a frenzy, beautiful, 150 pages of non-stop joy and love making, only to have them separated again where your ending, the end all and be all of book cliffhangers, nearly destroyed my very being. I had to wait 4 years for the sequel, where I paid the most ever for a book. I just had to have The Bridge to the Holy Cross shipped from Europe to the States because I simply couldn't wait to know what happens to this couple.

And then Tatiana and Alexander gave me the peace I had hoped for, where they danced together under the moonlight in each other's arms, where their souls were finally at peace. The epilogue in The Bridge to the Holy Cross is the complete opposite from The Bronze Horseman and made my heart jump into my throat. It is beyond perfect and every time I re-read it, tears come to my eyes. To this very day, Tatiana and Alexander are my all time favorite couple, where if I ever am lucky enough to give birth to a boy, I would name him Alexander.

Thank you… thank you for this:

He bent down and kissed her freckles. "You can't continue? My cart wheeling queen of Lake Ilmen?" Smiling, he shook his head. "You will find a way to live without me. You will find a way to live for both of us," Alexander said to Tatiana as the swelling Kama River flowed from the Ural Mountains through a pine village named Lazarevo, once when they were in love, and young.

Yours,

K. Garrabrant

Make sure to visit Kati at her blog at Katidom tomorrow for her author fan letter.