Review - Waterfall (River of Time #1) by Lisa Tawn Bergren

Title: Waterfall

Author: Lisa Bergren

Series: 1st

Pages: 369

Published: February 1st 2011 by Cook, David C. 

ISBN: 9781434764331

Source: Arranged tour 

 

Description: What do you do when your knight in shining armor lives, literally, in a different world? Most American teenagers want a vacation in Italy, but the Betarrini sisters have spent every summer of their lives among the romantic hills with their archaelogist parents. Stuck among the rubble of the medieval castles in rural Tuscany, on yet another hot, dusty archaeological site, Gabi and Lia are bored out of their minds...until Gabi places her hand atop a handprint in an ancient tomb and finds herself in fourteenth-century Italy. And worse yet, in the middle of a fierce battle between knights of two opposing forces.Suddenly Gabi's summer in Italy is much, much more interesting. 

I Give This ...

 

I kept seeing this series pop up around the blogs.  It sounded interesting, but for some reason it never really grabbed my attention enough to add it to my to read list.  Then this one came up as a free read for Kindle, and I picked it up quickly.   But, it the book never got opened...until I signed up for a tour to promote the entire series.  Man I wish I had read this sooner!

If you've read my blog for awhile, you know that I'm a big fan of the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  This is a lot like that, only less detail, less time consuming, a little bit more fun, and geared towards a younger audience!  I loved that Gabi was familiar enough with ancient times that she didn't freak out the moment she realized that she might be in a different time period.  And while I did think she managed to adjust a little too quickly, in never felt really farfetched.  I loved that she didn't adjust her personality either.  She's use to be a go getting female in the 21st century, and she doesn't back down from that.  I absolutely loved how everyone was in awe of her and all she was doing was displaying a little bit of common knowledge in today's world.

I thought the romance in the story was very well crafted.  In this time period, people of station rarely married for loved.  Marcello is no exception, and he has long ago accepted what he has to do to better his family and his kingdom.  But, when Gabi walks into his life things get disrupted to the extreme.  I thought the fact that they both try so hard to fight it shows that the both know there place in life (and in history).  I thought Gabi did a great job of trying to distance herself from him.  But, sometimes you can't fight love, and I think that this is one of those stories.  I'm curious how it plays out in the next book.

I don't know much about history in this place or time period.  So, I'm not sure how accurate things are.  But, it seems like Gabi knew one thing from her time period, and it's possible that she may have changed the timeline.  Although, when you start discussing that it always makes me wonder if Gabi was always there effecting thing exactly this way, even though "technically" she hadn't even been born yet.

An awesome start to a series that I can't wait to continue.  I'm glad I have the other two book already to go on my kindle!