Meanwhile, in America, Tatiana hasn’t forgotten about Alexander even though she was assured by the Red Cross doctor that got her out of Russia that he was dead. A duel narrative split between him and Tatiana, Alexander’s jumps backwards and forwards in time. We also get Alexander’s point of view on scenes that happened in The Bronze Horseman as well as information on his childhood and things that happened to him before he met Tatiana. His ‘reward’ for this are more assignments, each one more difficult than the last and each one more likely to kill all of his men and him. Against all odds Alexander forces a German retreat and gets the railroad fixed. They’re charged with fixing the railway to Leningrad which the Germans keep bombing daily, killing soldiers and preventing the food trains from reaching the city. Eventually though they find a use for him other than killing him and he is sent to command a penal gang – basically a battalion of soldiers the higher ups don’t care about. Meanwhile Alexander is being grilled back in Russia about his real identity and although he keeps his nerve and refuses to break under their pressure, they come at him with everything.

She can’t imagine moving out to an apartment of her own. It suits her because she can have the baby with her and because she is used to being around people. When Tatiana has recovered, she begins to look after some of the patients in the hospital, first unofficially but soon she is actually working there, living in the hospital and working shifts, looking after immigrants/refugees and war casualties. Fortunately the TB was never passed along to the baby and he thrived. She was taken to Ellis Island suffering from tuberculosis again and spent a lengthy time in the hospital recovering.

She was barely on American soil (in fact I’m not sure she was at all, I think she was still on the boat) when she gave birth to their son, Anothony Alexander Barrington, giving him Alexander’s American name as the papers for her escape named her as Jane Barrington (Alex’s mother’s name, which she takes as her name in the US). Tatiana is now in the US after Alexander made it possible for her to escape without him at the end of The Bronze Horseman. So if you haven’t read that book (and want to) and don’t want to find out how it ends, definitely skip this review.** **Note: It is impossible to review this book without giving away huge SPOILERS for the end of The Bronze Horseman.

Tatiana the bronze horseman