Cascade by Lisa T. Bergren

I’m still not completely sure about this book series. I enjoyed reading it and plan on finishing out the trilogy but there’s just something about it that rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because all of the characters continue to be perfect or that even though the girls are stuck in a medieval world where dangers are all around you don’t worry for their safety because the healing portal is always there to save them. I’m not sure what it is but I just can’t admit to loving the series like I’ve admitted with others.

In “Cascade” Gabi and Lia from the first book are joined in Medieval Italy by their mother. While I like that the three women in the family are finally together (I can only imagine how their mother would have taken it had they stayed without letting her know where they were and what they were up to) it was a little jarring.

In the first book, although Gabi and Lia were so young, they felt much older. In this book, now that their mother is along, they immediately feel as though their maturity has disappeared. I think it’s because their mom doesn’t want to admit to herself that she her daughters are growing up but it shouldn’t be difficult for her to have learned what they went through earlier on.

What I still don’t understand about this series is that Lia and their mother question Gabi’s love of Marcello but not enough for it to make sense. Yes she feels this crazy connection with him but by the end of this book she is still dead set on wanting to live in Medieval Italy to be with him even though she’s only known him for a total of a few weeks and most of those weeks she’s been injured or captured. If the author would have spent a bit more time with the characters getting to experience peace and quiet then I would have found Gabi’s decisions more logical.

And another gripe I had and this one is a *spoiler*. We have a whole section devoted to everyone being fearful of the plague, and Luca even contracts it and yet nothing happens. People get really sick and then a battle happens and by the end of the book everyone that involves is still alive. It doesn’t make any sense at all!

So I am going to finish the series, basically so I can figure out exactly how Gabi is going to convince her family to stay in Medieval times (because we’ve all known since the first book that it was going to happen). But I probably won’t enjoy reading it as much as I would other books.