The book, Waterfall by Lisa Bergren, is a salient story about the Bettarini sisters.
Waterfall
River of Time Series
by Lisa Bergren
David C. Cook
February 2011
Gabriella and Evangelia Bettarini have been spending their summers Italy following their Etrusian Archelogist parents for years. After the girls’ father dies (before the book starts) their mother finds the site that she has been spending her whole life searching for, meaning the girl are going to be stuck in the middle of no where all summer again. Shortly upon arrival, the girls discover handprints inside one of the tombs that fit their hands and are transported to 16th century Toscana. Gabi wakes up to find that she and Lia have been separated, and that a gruesome battle is taking place outside the tomb. Upon the end of the battle, Gabi exists the tomb and, mascerading as “Lady Bettarini of Normandy” is taken into the care of Marcello Forelli, the future lord of a nearby castle. Will she be able to locate her younger sister, Lia and escape this crazy place of corsets and war, or will she be stuck here forever? Read this book to find out.
Waterfall is an intriguing tale that has every element I typically look for in a book. With its nonstop spunky feel, the reader is lead through 16th century Italy in the middle of the great wars between Siena and Florence through the eyes of a quirky 17-year-old girl from the 21st century. The book is humourous. An example is Gabi’s thoughts as she exits the tomb and spies Marcello for the first time, “He was certainly the first man I'd seen holding a real sword and in full-on knight gear-tunic, tights, breastplate, the whole enchilada. Somehow he made the look work." The book does have some grotesque scenes in it, they are in a war after all, but not to the extreme were it would interfere with the story. I would recommend this book to high-school boys or girls still because of those few scenes and higher level vocabulary used by Bergren. This book states the idea that something that at first seems horrible or strange may come to be one of your favorite things, or places, of all.
