Published by Book Guild Publishing

Date 29th September 2016

Synopsis

Join Josh Mantra and his ever-faithful digital companion Tate as they travel throughout time and space battling foes, and saving innocents from impending disaster. From the old Wild West, to black holes in space a galaxy away, you won’t want to miss a beat! Josh Mantra is a typical 12-year-old kid, living a typical 12-year-old kid’s life – with school, friends, family and video games. On his birthday, he receives a very special gift from his dad, something that is to change his life forever. An Actual Reality crystal, capable of projecting his life force ANYWHERE, and ANYTIME. But this isn’t just for fun. He has been chosen by the Inter Dimensional Federation (IDF) as the ONLY being capable of succeeding his dad on life-saving and life-changing missions throughout the multiverse. He has to go through rigorous testing to make sure he is up to the job, and not long after that, his first mission begins, battling a reptilian on a far away world the size and with the appetite of a Tyrannosaurus Rex! A few missions in, Josh discovers that it’s not just about saving people in distress. There are some bad guys out there… The Inter Dimensional Empire (IDE) has a VERY different agenda to the federation: Divide and Conquer. The IDE have the same capabilities as the IDF. They are are two incredibly technologically advanced organisations, but only one can emerge victorious…

My thoughts

I was asked to review this book by the Book Guild and after reading the publication information I jumped at the chance.

This is a great debut Children’s novel from Cat Mantra, a middle grade story written for his son, it is suitable for any age, if being read to but I would say 8 and over if reading it themselves.

This is the sort of book that I would have loved to be able to read when I was about 8, what child doesn’t want to be a hero? And through Josh and his adventures they can be!

He is human, he gets scared and nervous but when the chips are down he comes up trumps.

I was concerned at first that Mantra would cop out at the end and have all of Josh’s adventures be part of a video game, but I was so glad to find that he did not, meaning that there will be further adventures for Josh in the future.

The adventures are simple and majority only require Josh to use his common sense, meaning that any child could if face with these challenges solve them, giving them a real way to relate to the character.

I hope that as Mantra writes new stories that they will become a bit more complex and in depth as some of them are quite short and I would love to learn more about the bad guys including Kasabian.

All in all I couldn’t wait to find out what Josh’s next adventure would be and I will certainly be picking up a another volume of these adventures when Mantra publishes them.

I loved it

I gave this 5 out of 5 stars