Waterfall
(River of Time #1)
By: Lisa T. Bergren
Publisher: David C. Cook
Published: Feb 1, 2011
Genre: YA
Rating:
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.
When Gabi accidentally finds herself in Italy… in the 1300’s, she initially thinks that she has stumbled across a reenactment. She comes out of a tomb to see Crimson and Gold knights fighting each other and it isn’t until she notices that people are actually dying and that one of the guys is coming after her that she realizes that she is in trouble.
Gabi is a very strong character and keeps her wits about her when she realizes what has happened. Even though she cannot seem to wrap her mind around the time warp, she is quick enough to adapt the terminology of the times to pass as one of them regardless of the fact that the knights found her in a tomb wearing skinny jeans and a tank top. What she doesn’t know is that she stumbled across a brewing feud between the two lands and is inadvertently placed in the center of it.
I did have one complaint about this book. There were a TON of grammar issues as well as formatting issues. Now maybe my copy just got screwed up in the downloading process but when there are 1’s for I’s, misspelled words and jumbled sentences, it really distracted from the storyline.
However, I did find the story to be quite entertaining. I love the romance between Gabi and Marcello. They are attracted to each other but Marcello is betrothed to another to help build alliances. Regardless of his circumstance, Marcello sneaks time for Gabi and is always quick to protect her but is very mindful of how close he is to her and backs off when he is about to step over the line. I also enjoyed the grittiness of this book as well. There is killing, mention of rape and a couple of close calls for Gabi. It wasn’t your typical fluff YA piece.
“She glanced left and right, all wide-eyed and innocent. Innocent as a streetwalker.”
