Lone Star
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- €5.99
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- €5.99
Publisher Description
Lone Star is another unforgettable love story from the best-selling author of Tully and The Bronze Horseman.
Life isn’t about the destination, but the journey…
Chloe is eager to drink in the sights and sounds of the Old World as she embarks on a European adventure with her closest friends. Buried in the treasures of the fledgling post-Communist world, Chloe finds a charming American vagabond named Johnny, who carries a guitar, an easy smile – and a lifetime of secrets.
As she and her unlikely travelling companions traverse the continent, a train trip becomes a treacherous journey into Europe's and Johnny's darkest past – a journey that shatters Chloe's future plans and puts in jeopardy everything she thought she wanted.
From Treblinka to Trieste, from Carnikava to Krakow, the lovers and friends crack the facade that sustains their lifelong bonds to expose their truest, deepest desires and discover only one thing that's certain: whether or not they reach their destination, their lives will never be the same.
Reviews
Tully
‘Pick up this book and prepare to have your emotions wrung so completely you’ll be sobbing your heart out one minute and laughing through your tears the next… Read it and weep – literally’ Company
Tatiana and Alexander
'This has everything a romance glutton could wish for: a bold, talented and dashing hero, a heart-stopping love affair … It also has – thank goodness – a welcome sense of humour and discernible characters rather than ciphers.'
Victoria Moore, Daily Mail
About the author
Paullina Simons was born in Leningrad in 1963. As a child she emigrated to Queens, New York, and attended colleges in Long Island. Then she moved to England and attended Essex University, before returning to America. She lives in New York with her husband and children.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Veteran author Simons stumbles in this coming-of-age romance about four Maine teenagers and the European adventure that changes their lives. Chloe Divine has spent half her life dreaming of going to Barcelona with her best friend, Hannah. They finally make the attempt their summer before college, with boyfriends in tow, and tack on a detour to Eastern Europe. The story suffers from characters rife with all the irritating immaturity of their youth while burdened with an implausible middle-aged introspection. It collapses under the weight of overwrought prose: "Reading about Barcelona burst her heart into a flame." The foursome are insufferable by the time they reach Latvia, a quality that is exacerbated when Johnny Rainbow waltzes into their lives with a guitar on his back and a foreshadowing tremor in his hands. Fortunately, Johnny rescues the story, letting the focus expand to the history and beauty of their setting, where Simons's strength as a storyteller comes into play. Chloe's growing passion for Johnny and dread in the face of a clearly doomed romance turns a clunky, irritating slog into an engrossing epic with a too-tidy ending.
