The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons

This is the third and final book in the trilogy of Tatiana and Alexander as they finally find their life in America, but there is still much more drama to come. To be honest, once I got about a third of the way through this book, I was completely sick of the series, sick of the characters who had no depth and sick of the endless unrealistic twists where the family still seemed to be constantly at risk. While I think the first or the second book of this series would have served in the place of all three, this may have been a circumstance where a publisher was demanding a trilogy. To me, the characters and plot lines were entirely dried up by this book and the author seemed to be clutching at straws.

That said, I am not doing the writing talents of this author justice. I am told, Tully which I have yet to read is absolutely amazing so I will hold off on that. I think I would have enjoyed this book far more, had it been written about characters or plots that I found more believable. The author did display interesting characters in Anthony and Vikki and also displayed an interesting twist for the reader near the end of the book. It did seem like the relationship, complex as it was between Tatiana and Alexander took up the bulk of the book and this resulted in too many characters being introduced too late in the book to end with a naive sense of sentimentality and a random discussion about a defence strategy that seemed to have no place with the rest of the book.

I did enjoy the flashbacks to Tania's childhood which provided a welcome relief from the constant drivel about the relationship. A love it seems that had to survive through rape, abuse and pure nastiness. A look back into Tania's childhood did answer some more questions about her character and I believe a more detailed look into her character and perhaps more of a building up of it would have done the book more justice.

Of the trilogy, I enjoyed The Bridge to Holy Cross the most as it provided the wartime memories which the first book was about as well as having a believable love story and a good ending.