Bellagrand
Bellagrand book cover

Bellagrand

Paperback – March 6, 2014

Price
$12.59
Format
Paperback
Pages
560
Publisher
MorrowPb
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-0062098139
Dimensions
5.31 x 0.9 x 8 inches
Weight
14.6 ounces

Description

From Booklist The white Floridian mansion seems like a dream to Gina after years of struggling to scrape by. Her relief is palpable at the ease and luxury of life at Bellagrand, given to her husband by his mother, but equally evident is her feeling that this respite cannot last. Set before Simons’ The Bronze Horseman, the book dissects Gina’s fraught marriage at great length. An immigrant from Sicily, Gina finds that her goal of a better life clashes with the consequences of her husband’s communist ideals through the strikes, war, and disease of the early twentieth century. Although the simultaneous rise of the Soviet Union and crackdown on seditious comment in the U.S. are central to the story, other historical references at times seem shoehorned in. The plot, despite some eloquent moments, largely plods through more marital squabbles than one would care to count. The central characters are richly developed, and one gets to know them well over such an expanse of time. Whether that time is well spent will depend on the reader’s investment in the story. --Bridget Thoreson From internationally bestselling author Paullina Simons comes another compelling saga of heartbreak and redemption, and the devastating love story that led to The Bronze Horseman Love was just the beginning of their journey Gina and Harry gave up everything to be together. But they both want different things—from their marriage, from life, from each other . . . and from the shifting world around them. Gina, independent, compassionate, and strong, desperately wants a family. Harry, idealistic and fiercely political, wants to create a better world, a better country. At a crossroads and at cross-purposes, they pursue their opposing dreams at great cost to themselves and those near to them. Through years of passion and turmoil they rail, rage, and break each other's hearts, only to come face-to-face with a stark final choice that will forever determine their destiny. Their journey takes them through four decades and two continents, from extreme poverty to great wealth, from the wooden planks of the troubled immigrant town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, to the marble halls and secret doors of a mystical place called . . . Bellagrand . Paullina Simons is the author of Tully and The Bronze Horseman, as well as ten other beloved novels, a memoir, a cookbook, and two children’s books. Born in Leningrad, Russia, Paullina immigrated to the United States when she was ten, and now lives in New York with her husband and an alarming number of her once-independent children. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • A William Morrow Paperback Original
  • The sequel to Paullina Simons’ thrilling
  • Children of Liberty, Bellagrand
  • delves into Harry and Gina’s lives prior to the opening of Simons's
  • The Bronze Horseman
  • As
  • Children of Liberty
  • concludes with a stunning ending—the story is just beginning.
  • Bellagrand
  • follows Harry and Gina after the Happily Ever After.
  • After their whirlwind romance, Gina and Harry must learn what it really takes to mesh their families and their cultures. Readers will be delighted to see exactly how these characters fit into the
  • Bronze Horseman
  • legacy.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(143)
★★★★
25%
(120)
★★★
15%
(72)
★★
7%
(33)
23%
(110)

Most Helpful Reviews

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One of my favorite authors

Paullina simons is an amazing author. I’ll read anything she writes. This wasn’t my favorite book from her but i still recommend it 100%
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it's part of the story

When I read the reviews for this book and the other books that tie into The Bronze Horseman I am surprised. Those readers that do not feel it is necessary to read the books that make up the Prequel are missing a part of who Paullina Simons has created in past history. I love that she has given the readers a chance to go back and see what kind of life the parents and grandparents play in the total story of The Bronze Horseman. I have read them all and will do it again. Yes The Bronze Horseman can be a complete story but you are missing so much by not going back to see the beginning.
✓ Verified Purchase

Five Stars

good book
✓ Verified Purchase

Struggled getting into it but pushed on and is good. She is one of my favorite authors

Reading now. Struggled getting into it but pushed on and is good. She is one of my favorite authors.
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Bellagrand is a grand read.

Bellagrand is a follow up story to The Children of Liberty. To get the most out of this book you must read The Children of Liberty first. The ending wasn't quite what I suspected to happen.
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Second in "The Bronze Horseman" series

I had no idea when I took this book out of the library that it was a prequel to "The Bronze Horseman" which is one of my all time favorite books. If you are going to read "The Bronze Horseman", it is better to read "Bellagrand" first. In "Bellagrand" the reader learns about Alexander as a child and his family background. He is the Russian soldier in "The Bronze Horseman" which is the next in this series.

"Bellagrand" is about his parents, Gina and Harry. Gina is an immigrant from Italy whose father brought his family to the United States for a better life. Harry is from an elite aristocratic Boston family. Their courtship is dealt with in the first book in this series, "Children of Liberty".

As the book begins, Harry has been disowned from his family for marrying Gina. Gina is the sole breadwinner for their family because Harry, an anarchist and Communist, has lost his teaching job at Harvard. Gina begs her husband to find work but he does not want to work after losing his job at Harvard. Nothing suits him. Gina and Harry's life together will be filled with sturm und drang because of Harry.

At times I wanted to just shake Gina and tell her to get out of the marriage with Harry. They have one time in their forty year marriage that is peaceful and that is when they go to live at Bellagrand, a home left to Harry by his mother. Once they have established themselves and lived at Bellagrand for three years, Harry wants to leave. He thrives on chaos and constantly stirs up trouble for himself and his family with his Communist beliefs.

There are several times in this saga where Gina could leave Harry and I wanted to see her go but she constantly comes back to Harry because she has such a great love for him and each time Harry by his actions, shows that he cares only for himself and the Communist party. However, Gina will follow him anywhere; she has absolutely no power to control her life and her son's life when it comes to Harry.

I found Harry to be one of the most villainous and selfish characters that I have read about. He is only happy when he is stirring up trouble and hurting his family. Gina needed to get a backbone. She can't seem to let Harry go and it ends up destroying her life and her son's life. She makes decisions as a mother that are not at all in the best interest of a seven year old child.

Just as "The Bronze Horseman"kept me up all hours of the night reading, so did Bellagrand. Overflowing with passion, lust, love, deceit and betrayal, this book should be on your reading list. Don't miss it.
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great second book

Loved it! A must read if you already read The bronze horseman trilogy and children of liberty. I didn't want the story to end. Paullina does such an making job of bringing the story to life, from the characters to the time period. Her stories are not cliche romance , but real, sad and heartbreaking brutally honest.
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Five Stars

I love how Paullina Simons writes. Great book