#BookSpotlight for #TheWriteReads | A wicked new Middle Grade novel: “Terra Electrica” (The Guardians of the North, Book One) by Antonia Maxwell

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

I apologise I am a bit behind with my blog this week – as I had a wreck of a week in some respects as exhaustion took over before the mid-point. I also didn’t have my usual schedule of hours and as I was filling in for different people on some of my shifts and extending my shifts on multiple days, you could say the week got the better of me and my blog suffered a bit as a result as I fell off my schedule for sharing posts – both for The Write Reads and for Spooktastic Reads.

I was hoping my copy of “Terra Electrica” was going to arrive by Post, as I was expecting a review copy by mail – however, it never arrived and thereby, I fetched the ebook copy which was given to members of the blog tour as I wanted to sample the story in order to write a spotlight on its behalf. What really drew me into wanting to read this novel was the fact it was written for the Middle Grade audience, focuses on the Environment and has a very convicting premise which I felt was a good starting point for IRL discussions with children about the state of our Environmental issues and the concerns we all have for the health of the planet and what we can actively do to help even as everyday citizens.

I’ve been interested in the ecological health of our environs since I was a young girl. The biggest impact on me as a child was the film “Medicine Man”. And, a visiting Environmentalist in the fifth grade who first opened my eyes to the global impact of the environment and how globally we’re all in this together. This was long before they started calling it Climate Change and the effects of humans on the interworking environments around the world and how our choices in energy and consumption of energy is costing a heavy price on our air and the quality of life. And, of course it is much more complicated than that, too, and involves a lot more than just energy – but I didn’t want to get into everything all at once and decided to just focus on mentioning energy which is one of the top issues we have right now.

Except to say, for the polar ice caps on the brink of melting has been a mainstay of concern since I was growing up, too. The sea levels rising as a result of a major melt has been a huge concern especially for certain states which sit below sea level right now as it were and how that impact of erasure would have on the United States as a whole as there would be missing parts of our country once the sea rises to the point where parts of the land would outright disappear beneath the new levels of the sea. It gives you pause to think about the wider issues rises in sea levels would have on a global scale as much as what would happen if all the ice melts? What other imbalances and changes would that cause globally as well? 

Thereby whenever I can find an Environmental focused story – especially in MG or YA literature, I am definitely the reader who is excited about that kind of story. Therefore, someday I do hope to have a copy of this novel to read but until then, I am happily spotlighting it to help promote the book and maybe encourage others to seek it out too!

Terra Electrica
Subtitle: The Guardians of the North : Book One
by Antonia Maxwell
Source: Publisher via The Write Reads

This is the first novel in an action-packed dystopian adventure series set in the near-future post-melt Arctic.

The last ice cap has melted, and the world is on the brink of collapse. A deadly force—Terra Electrica—has been unleashed. It feeds on electricity. It is infecting civilization.

In this chaotic, rapidly changing reality, 12-year-old Mani has lost her family and community to the Terra Electrica. Armed only with some ancestral wisdom and a powerful, ancient wooden mask she was never meant to inherit so soon, she suddenly finds herself responsible for the fate of the world.

Can Mani piece everything together and harness her newfound powers in time to save humanity?

Genres: Children's Literature, Middle Grade

Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 978-1915584113

Published by Neem Tree Publishing

on 4th July, 2024

Format: epub | PDF editon

Published by: Neem Tree Press | Follow via Insta (@neemtreepress)
an imprint of Unbound Publishing

Available Formats: Paperback and Ebook

Converse via: #MGLit, #MiddleGrade
as well as #TheWriteReads & #TerraElectrica

NOTE: I read a sampler length of text via the ebook The Write Reads provided for tour members on this blog tour in lieu of the fact my review copy of the book in print didn’t arrive in time for me to read for my tour stop.

We begin finding Mani alone in a cave awaiting her father’s return – as he has gone to get goods and food for them as their village fell under attack by a disease which took the lives of too many. Sadly, it appears that only Mani and her father were the sole survivors of that disease and with that, the realisation that those who didn’t intend to do harm by their presence, did. And, that remembered me of the memories of the settlers who inflicted harm by their presence to the Native Americans who were not accustomed to all the different diseases the settlers brought to our shores and thereby killed so many as well. Disease has a way of spreading far faster than people realise and when a community or group of people are not immune or exposed to those diseases, the horror of that effect on them is disheartening.

Mani longs for things to be normal again – you can tell that by the way she holds onto the memories of her mother and the memories of life before she was in the cave. She’s a smart girl and she is a girl who is too aware of the dangers that lurk just out of reach of the cave. She was given a mask by her mother but with the assertion that she couldn’t use it until she was old enough. And, that felt like a tipping point to me in the story – that there was something special about her and about the culture of her people. Masks have a long history of being of special interest in different cultures and they all mean something different, too.

I didn’t get too much further into the story as I cannot read ebooks due to my chronic migraines – I only wanted to read enough of a sampler to better understand how the story is set and how it begins – and wait for a print copy to read the story in full. My interest was definitely sparked because of the fortitude of spirit in Mani and of the curiosities of childhood. Mani I felt was destined for something quite special and I believe the story is going to open hidden layers within this world, too, as I was curious if the mask might serve as a portal. Sometimes they can and sometimes there is far more to the world you’re reading than where it first presents itself, too.

Goodness. Now I’m on pins awaiting to find out more and discover the path Mani is on – I especially am curious if her father ever returns and/or if Mani chooses to act whilst he’s still away. It is an interesting start to the story, and I cannot wait to see what comes next and how the first novel leads into the second as it is only the first of a series. I am also wicked happy to have found a Cli-Fi novel that has held my interest, too, as this is one part of literature I haven’t had the chance to properly explore as much as others I know in the book blogosphere. I generally cannot get behind some of the Cli-Fi novels out there as their writ in a method I am not the right fit for as a reader – and so, discovering “Terra Electrica” is wicked awesome as it definitely is a book I want to devour.

This blog tour is courtesy of:

Be sure to follow all the lovely tags socially (ie. #bookstagram, BlueSky, etc) to seek out more exciting content on this blog tour celebrating the book + the author!!

{SOURCES: A complimentary ebook copy of the novel was available to participants on the @thewritereads blog tour; of which I read a sampler amount of content and shared my enthused reaction of for the blog tour. Book cover for “Terra Electica”, book synopsis, author biography, author photograph of Antonia Maxwell, the tour banner and book tour banner were all provided by The Write Reads and are used with permission. Post dividers and My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Book Spotlight banner and the Comment Box Banner.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2024.

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