A few weeks ago Leiah reviewed Waterfall by Lisa T. Bergren and it inspired me to buy/read the entire trilogy. Time travel and romance with knights? What’s not to love?
Now that I am done I thought I’d do a review on the end of the trilogy (so far) and what I thought of the story as a whole.
Gabi and Lia Betarrini have learned to control their time travel, and they return from medieval Italy to save their father from his tragic death in modern times. But love calls across the centuries, and the girls are determined to return forever—even though they know the Black Plague is advancing across Europe, claiming the lives of one-third of the population. In the suspenseful conclusion of the River of Time series, every decision is about life … and death.
All three books of the trilogy are packed with action and romance and drama. There is never a dull moment, which I love! Sure, they aren’t the most realistic telling of what would happen if we traveled back in time seven hundred years or so. Or, well, they don’t feel like it, but who we to say? No one ever has traveled through time and written a memoir about it. Either way, I feel it is much more likely that any teenager turning up in jeans in the 1300s would be burned as heretic, not given the opportunity to be a hero.
But heroes is what Gabi and Lia become. Their forward thinking and courage saving the day again and again.
In Torrent, Gabi is kidnapped by the upper echelon of Firenze and whisked away to Roma for a political wedding, leaving Marcello, Lia, and Luca to come and rescue her in time…hopefully.
There was so much about this book that I loved. I love Gabi’s strength. I’m pretty sure she gets kidnapped, or at least falls into the enemies hands, in all three books but I still don’t think of her as a victim. She is always plotting or encouraging or acting. I love Marcello’s willingness to trust her and to give her room to be more than just a simpering lady in a fancy gown. Their partnership really holds the books together.
There was one thing that I didn’t particularly like in this book. There was a bit of a love triangle that really seemed to come out of nowhere to me. And for many chapters it didn’t look like it was ever going to be fully resolved, or spoken between Gabi and Marcello. And it just left me feeling ugh….until a certain favourite scene in a court yard, which made the whole thing better. I do think the point the author was trying to make during the kidnapping portion of the book could’ve been made without the love triangle, but the author probably doesn’t read as much YA as I do. I admit to being completely and utterly sick of love triangles and barely able to stand ones that make sense and don’t surprise me at the end of a trilogy.
Still, this love triangle isn’t much of one and it totally redeems itself.
The book ended in a happy place but definitely still open to more adventures. I know there is a planned fourth book plus novella in the works, that may or may not happen. And the series ends in such a way that I’d be chomping at the bit to read a fourth book but also am perfectly happy with it just being these three. And that’s really the perfect way to end a series.
OH! And, one last thing. This book is published by a Christian publisher and if I’d known that before I started reading them I probably wouldn’t have read them. I generally assume that things published by religious publishers are going to be preachy. I hate preachy.
This wasn’t preachy. There was much religion in it, but none of it felt forced or like it was trying to convert you. It all very much fit the characters and the world and felt like a part of the story. I liked this.