Associated Press
A loving tribute to her husband...beautifully told.
USA Today
My Sergei turns a sad beginning into a joy-filled memoir.
LA Times
Poignant and revelatory.
Newsweek
A sweet reminiscence of their lives and love that has climbed to the top of the bestseller lists.
Denver Post
This is a widow's moving account of their life together and of dealing with death and loss.
Publishers Weekly
In the former Soviet Union, the sports establishment, charged with producing winners for the greater glory of the empire, had almost unlimited power over the athletically gifted. Children as young as five or six were identified, sent to special schools and given rigorous training in the sports in which they were expected to excel. Two such youngsters were Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, paired as skaters by their teachers when they were 11 and 14, respectively. Throughout their training and into the start of their competitive careers, each thought of the other only as an athletic partner, partly because the four-year difference in their ages meant they had few friends in common. But as time passed and their joint career led to international championships, they fell in love and married. Their success culminated in Olympic gold medals in 1990 and 1994. And then, suddenly, Grinkov died of a heart attack in 1995 at age 28. The story of their love and their happiness together is deeply moving, and the final chapters are heartrending, while the many photos heighten the tale. First serial to People and Redbook; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates; author tour. (Nov.)
Library Journal
Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov were one of the finest ice skating pairs in the world. Born in Russia, they won European championships, world championships, and gold medals at two Olympics. They married in 1991 and continued to perform after the birth of their daughter. Sergei died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 28 while rehearsing with his wife. Gordeeva here describes their skating and personal life in Russia and the United States in poignant, caring detail. Equally captivating are her descriptions of her childhood, her family, and her life as a champion and professional skater. Unlike recent tell-alls about figure skating (e.g., the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding spectacle), this biography is not sensational. It simply tells the story of two hard-working, competitive young people who fell in love and whose love ended too soon. For all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/96.]-J. Sara Paulk, Coastal Plain Regional Lib., Tifton, Ga.
Kirkus Reviews
The jacket of this memoir seems to promise a fairy tale, as does the simple title. But, as everyone knows, there is no "happily ever after" in this story. Gordeeva and her husband, Sergei Grinkov, were two-time Olympic gold medalists in pairs skating who captured the world's heart with their fluid, flawless artistry and with the love that had developed between them (the two had started skating together when Gordeeva was only 11 and Grinkov 15). They married, had a daughter—and then, on Nov. 20, 1995, during a practice session, Grinkov collapsed on the ice and died soon after of a heart attack. Here the 25-year-old widow tells their story with a naive simplicity and innocence, lacking the womanly grace that embodied her love when she was on the ice with her husband.
