River of Time Series

Waterfall is another book that I was introduced to over on Pixel of Ink. It looked like a fun story and so I got it, again, when it was free from Pixel of Ink, and devoured the story. I have never been one to enjoy learning history, and I certainly wouldn't have spent time looking into the history of Italy for any reason but a grade. In Waterfall, Bergren takes you into the world and makes you believe you are a part of it. Gabriella, is thrown into the fourteenth century, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, and walking out of a tomb into the middle of a battle field. Whether or not the history the story includes has any accuracy, it was fun to read about the area and the times. The book was great, and I actually want to read it again sometime. Jumpe over to Amazon and grab it, enjoy it and share your thoughts.

Here is the description that Amazon has:

Gabriella has never spent a summer in Italy like this one.

Remaining means giving up all she’s known and loved…

and leaving means forfeiting what she’s come to know…and love itself.

Most American teenagers want a vacation in Italy, but the Bentarrini sisters have spent every summer of their lives with their parents, famed Etruscan scholars, among the romantic hills. Stuck among the rubble of medieval castles in rural Tuscany on yet another hot, dusty archeological 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.

            And thus does she come to be rescued by the knight-prince Marcello Falassi, who takes her back to his father’s castle—a castle Gabi has seen in ruins in another life. Suddenly Gabi’s summer in Italy is much, much more interesting. But what do you do when your knight in shining armor lives, literally, in a different world?

Cascade is the sequel to Waterfall and was just as much fun to read. It challenges the space-time continuum, much like Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card did. What happens when a girl goes back 600 years into the past, changes the course of history and then returns to present day...You can really see that transition in this story.

 

In Cascade Gabi's story evolves to include her mother when she and Lia return to present day. It is a great story and really makes you think about choices you would make when faced with similar opportunities.

Here is Amazon's description of the book: 

'Mom touched my underdress—a gown made six hundred years before—and her eyes widened as she rubbed the raw silk between thumb and forefinger. She turned and touched Lia’s gown. “Where did you get these clothes?” '

            Gabi knows she’s left her heart in the fourteenth century and she persuades Lia to help her to return, even though they know doing so will risk their very lives. When they arrive, weeks have passed and all of Siena longs to celebrate the heroines who turned the tide in the battle against Florence—while the Florentines will go to great lengths to see them dead.

But Marcello patiently awaits, and Gabi must decide if she’s willing to leave her family behind for good in order to give her heart to him forever.


Lastly is the most recent addition to the series, Torrent. Sadly, i have been unable to read this one yet, as our budget is tight and I have to wait for it at the library, the waiting is brutal and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. While you wait for my review someday, you can enjoy reading the description of the book after the image below. But be careful, if you haven't already read the first two, this could give away a little bit. 

'“Hold tight,” I said. “No matter what happens, do not let us go.”

“We won’t,” my dad said.

“Never,” Mom added.

And with a look at Lia, we laid our hands upon the prints.'

Gabriella and Evangelia Betarrini are just two normal American teenagers. Normal except for the fact that they time travel to fourteenth-century Italy, where they’ve lived in castles they’ve seen as crumbling ruins, become swept up in historic battles, and fallen in love with handsome knights willing to do anything to keep them alive.

            They’ve returned to the present to save their father, just short of his tragic death, and now all four return to the place that holds the girls’ hearts, medieval Italy. But remaining there means facing great risk as the battle for territory wages on and the coming Black Plague looms. Can they convince their parents to stay and leave behind everything they’ve worked so hard to accomplish? And will the girls sacrifice their futures in an uncertain past? Or in facing death head-on, will they discover life as it was always meant to be lived?