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Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal
Siblings Maya and Joey are forced to embark on a perilous journey when they are shipwrecked off the coast of Maradonia. After encountering fierce warrior mermaids, the siblings find out that their only way home is through a teleportation portal . . . which doesn't work!
If they want to get home, the siblings realize they must join the mermaids and find a way to revitalize the portal before it falls into the wrong hands. Just when all seems to go smoothly, a United States military expedition arrives on the shores of Maradonia and begins their own search for the portal. To make matters even worse, the Dark Realm declares war on the mermaids. Fighting one enemy is bad enough, but contending with two invasive opponents may prove too much for the mermaids. In Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal, Maya and Joey are in for more trouble than they ever imagined: the ultimate battle for control of the universe.
If they want to get home, the siblings realize they must join the mermaids and find a way to revitalize the portal before it falls into the wrong hands. Just when all seems to go smoothly, a United States military expedition arrives on the shores of Maradonia and begins their own search for the portal. To make matters even worse, the Dark Realm declares war on the mermaids. Fighting one enemy is bad enough, but contending with two invasive opponents may prove too much for the mermaids. In Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal, Maya and Joey are in for more trouble than they ever imagined: the ultimate battle for control of the universe.
360 pages, Paperback
Published August 6, 2024
2 people are currently reading
1162 people want to read
About the author
Sofia Nova
2 books91 followers"I have always felt a duty to motivate and inspire others to be confident and follow their dreams.
I will not waste any time into a project I am not passionate about. I love waking up in the morning with a goal that needs to be conquered... and if there isn’t one, I will create it!"
I will not waste any time into a project I am not passionate about. I love waking up in the morning with a goal that needs to be conquered... and if there isn’t one, I will create it!"
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 6, 2024
My collection is complete!
Was Maradonia redeemed? . . . Yes!
What, you haven't heard of Maradonia?
A) Why are you so lucky?
B) My review of the first book explains it all, with helpful links: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This new book is a 100% worthy reimagining of the Maradonia saga. It retains all of the quintessential elements with a wholly original storyline.
Back are Maya (age 16) and Joey (age 15) from Florida, Oraculus the sage, mermaid Queen Aquamarisha, the principalities of evil, Libertine, crows, titans, dragons, and most importantly: dinophants!
The characters' essential personalities are unchanged, but they are put to much better use. The writing craft has naturally improved. The use of aphorisms about leadership returns, but here they actually fit the situation. I thought the pacing was excellent, particularly through the major battle scenes.
There are problems too, but I don't think it could properly still be called "Maradonia" otherwise. There's plenty to nitpick if one were so inclined (PLENTY). I'll just mention the lack of clarity about the geography and structure of Maradonia, the "world between the worlds". It's made up of seven kingdoms, at least one of which is ruled by an emperor, but there are also the "principalities of evil" which are collectively ruled by a King (Palazar, name changed from Apollyon). The evil forces only have direct access by land or sea to one kingdom, that of the mermaids. The other kingdoms that make up Maradonia are "spread across the earth. All are hidden. Some use illusion to keep their existence a secret from humans, others are in alternate dimensions," so are they even on earth? The titular portal allows travel to the other kingdoms, but there seem to be other portals involved in this story: access to Maradonia starts with an island that is wonky to locate. On that island, Maya and Joey went into a cave with a mermaid statue and climbed out a tunnel to enter Maradonia. The army forces tracking them also went through that tunnel eventually, but before that they just flew a helicopter over part of the mermaid kingdom, so why was that tunnel even necessary? And ships from the normal world end up sunken in the mermaid kingdom all the time, so is there a whole portal in the ocean to get into Maradonia or what? It can be rather confusing if you try to make it make sense, but history with the original Maradonia books allows the charitable reader to handwave this kind of stuff as just part of the authentic experience.
Even with some story issues like those, I found it refreshingly entertaining and enjoyable, and I am genuinely looking forward to the sequels. The plot in this book and the way it leads into events for future books is wonderfully crafted, including some interesting side character arcs that I'm excited to see play out.
I'm still impressed with the guts it took to rewrite Maradonia. The result is a worthy reclamation of a challenging legacy.
Here is my copy on vacation in Maradonia's state of origin:
****************
(This was my pre-release placeholder review.)
MARADONIA: A CHANCE FOR REDEMPTION
Holy forking shirtballs! It's a new Maradonia book!
I knew it was coming. In a now-deleted video, Sofia Nova read the first couple pages of a draft, and the text included (bold emphasis mine):
Look, the Maradonia saga did not come from a healthy place. Written by a child who was pulled out of school for this purpose, raised by narcissists and scammers, pushed into promoting material that had no reason to be of even adequate quality by people who should have been guiding and protecting her, what could one expect? Tesch was then the recipient of widespread internet mockery and abuse, her family's life openly dissected and speculated upon endlessly, she had no foundation from which to build healthy social functioning during her formative years. Even as an adult, all of that remains to this day. She never had a fair shot.
I'm giving the new Maradonia book a fair shot.
Publishing this took guts. Reclaiming Maradonia, owning the legacy, remaking it into what you think it should have been—I respect that. Five pre-publication stars for that.
I am going to pre-order the shit out of this book. I am going to read it on day one. I will do so with an open heart and an open mind.
Finally, can I tell you how much I enjoy Goodreads' 'Book Statistics' feature?
Be kind, people. I'm not always kind; I've definitely not been kind about Maradonia; I can do better too. Be kind.
Was Maradonia redeemed? . . . Yes!
What, you haven't heard of Maradonia?
A) Why are you so lucky?
B) My review of the first book explains it all, with helpful links: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
This new book is a 100% worthy reimagining of the Maradonia saga. It retains all of the quintessential elements with a wholly original storyline.
Back are Maya (age 16) and Joey (age 15) from Florida, Oraculus the sage, mermaid Queen Aquamarisha, the principalities of evil, Libertine, crows, titans, dragons, and most importantly: dinophants!
The characters' essential personalities are unchanged, but they are put to much better use. The writing craft has naturally improved. The use of aphorisms about leadership returns, but here they actually fit the situation. I thought the pacing was excellent, particularly through the major battle scenes.
There are problems too, but I don't think it could properly still be called "Maradonia" otherwise. There's plenty to nitpick if one were so inclined (PLENTY). I'll just mention the lack of clarity about the geography and structure of Maradonia, the "world between the worlds". It's made up of seven kingdoms, at least one of which is ruled by an emperor, but there are also the "principalities of evil" which are collectively ruled by a King (Palazar, name changed from Apollyon). The evil forces only have direct access by land or sea to one kingdom, that of the mermaids. The other kingdoms that make up Maradonia are "spread across the earth. All are hidden. Some use illusion to keep their existence a secret from humans, others are in alternate dimensions," so are they even on earth? The titular portal allows travel to the other kingdoms, but there seem to be other portals involved in this story: access to Maradonia starts with an island that is wonky to locate. On that island, Maya and Joey went into a cave with a mermaid statue and climbed out a tunnel to enter Maradonia. The army forces tracking them also went through that tunnel eventually, but before that they just flew a helicopter over part of the mermaid kingdom, so why was that tunnel even necessary? And ships from the normal world end up sunken in the mermaid kingdom all the time, so is there a whole portal in the ocean to get into Maradonia or what? It can be rather confusing if you try to make it make sense, but history with the original Maradonia books allows the charitable reader to handwave this kind of stuff as just part of the authentic experience.
Even with some story issues like those, I found it refreshingly entertaining and enjoyable, and I am genuinely looking forward to the sequels. The plot in this book and the way it leads into events for future books is wonderfully crafted, including some interesting side character arcs that I'm excited to see play out.
I'm still impressed with the guts it took to rewrite Maradonia. The result is a worthy reclamation of a challenging legacy.
Here is my copy on vacation in Maradonia's state of origin:
****************
(This was my pre-release placeholder review.)
MARADONIA: A CHANCE FOR REDEMPTION
Holy forking shirtballs! It's a new Maradonia book!
I knew it was coming. In a now-deleted video, Sofia Nova read the first couple pages of a draft, and the text included (bold emphasis mine):
In our greatest time of need, two will come. To unite. To redeem. To encourage! They will face seven challenges ..."and there's a mermaid, and this is all straight out of Maradonia and the Seven Bridges, in which siblings Maya and Joey, "the Encouragers," are prophesied to face seven challenges—but I never thought it would just straight up be called Maradonia!
Look, the Maradonia saga did not come from a healthy place. Written by a child who was pulled out of school for this purpose, raised by narcissists and scammers, pushed into promoting material that had no reason to be of even adequate quality by people who should have been guiding and protecting her, what could one expect? Tesch was then the recipient of widespread internet mockery and abuse, her family's life openly dissected and speculated upon endlessly, she had no foundation from which to build healthy social functioning during her formative years. Even as an adult, all of that remains to this day. She never had a fair shot.
I'm giving the new Maradonia book a fair shot.
Publishing this took guts. Reclaiming Maradonia, owning the legacy, remaking it into what you think it should have been—I respect that. Five pre-publication stars for that.
I am going to pre-order the shit out of this book. I am going to read it on day one. I will do so with an open heart and an open mind.
Finally, can I tell you how much I enjoy Goodreads' 'Book Statistics' feature?
Be kind, people. I'm not always kind; I've definitely not been kind about Maradonia; I can do better too. Be kind.
May 17, 2025
Maradonia and the Villainy of Amplify Publishing
On Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal:
It was better than the original but still has pitfalls and room left for improvement.
What I liked: No references to 9/11, and a lot less weird evangelical proselytizing. Getting rid of Alanna Terrance and the Goth Bullies was the right move. The story was more organized, some of the action scenes were downright good, and Joey was much less of a sociopath in this version. The mermaids were wonderfully capricious and written in a way that displayed the knowledge and passion that the author has for the mythology.
What still needs work: Hey, this book did a lot of body shaming and fatphobia, and that’s not cool.
Quite a few grammatical and syntax errors still exist (and most could easily have been fixed by any editor worth the money the author shouldn’t have been paying them).
While I think the choice to make the mermaid culture authoritarian and misandrist was fun and interesting, it was disappointing how the mermen being second-class citizens got handwaved away at the end instead of it being an actual conflict for the siblings, especially Joey, to solve. It seemed like it was set up to be Joey’s main conflict, and then it just didn’t happen.
The biggest shortcoming I felt this book had is one that carried over from the original Maradonia series; the author’s inability to connect the characters and the reader. The characters do things, think things, feel things… but it's all distant. The tone remains very passive and that makes it hard to feel like there are any stakes, even in the scenes with the most action and highest tension.
All in all, it reads like Sofia Nova would be great at D&D if she wasn’t pathologically allergic to any aspect of fantasy in culture other than mermaids.
But that’s not what this review is about. I know, seems wild that I’d make a review of a book that is only partially about the book, but Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal has a villain, and that villain is not King Palazar.
The villain of this story is Amplify Publishing and its subsidiary, Mascot.
The first red flag I noticed about Mascot Publishing is that looking into it is like diving down a rabbit hole without a flashlight; it’s suspiciously hard to get verifiable information, particularly about financials.
It is owned by Amplify Publishing, and they say that not all submissions are accepted for publication, but that’s kind of hard to believe when one of the services they offer is ghostwriting.
https://www.jjhebertonline.com/2025/0...
https://amplifypublishinggroup.com/bo...
According to a Washington Post article from 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...
“Let’s say you want to print 5,000 copies of your 250-page hardcover book. Mascot might charge you $5.50 per book. That’s around $28,000. That includes editing, layout, artwork and printing the physical and eBook versions. It also includes some marketing help, like organizing launch parties, introducing you to local bookstores and hooking you up with associations with similar interests.
The author gets to suggest a retail price. In this case, let’s pick $20. A retailer such as Amazon may keep as much as half, which would be around $10 of the $20. That leaves $10. Mascot takes 15 percent of that, or $1.50. The author keeps the balance, in this case around $8.50.”
This article was from 2016, so do what you will with inflation and the persistent reality of corporate greed. But even if we flat-matched inflation percentage, that still means that Nova paid around $36k to have Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal edited and published through Mascot. A book which includes, and I’m not kidding, 23 blank pages because the absolute hack they put in charge of layout couldn’t bear to have a chapter start on the left-hand side.
I know that, given her history of bold and bad format choices, it’s tempting to blame the author for this. But Mascot is a company that advertises competent professionals to do that portion of the process for you https://mascotbooks.com/design/
They took her money and handed her a product full of mistakes that competent professionals would not make.
Now, to look at her lifestyle, including a full tour of the mansion she calls home (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0lK6...), it’s easy to write this off as some rich girl who paid to play. And while that isn’t untrue, it also doesn’t mitigate the fact that she spent money she will never see returns on to a company that made promises it categorically did and could not deliver on. While it doesn’t really matter to the rest of us when it happens to rich girls whose banks are not broken by an investment of over thirty thousand or so dollars, that doesn’t excuse the exploitation and bad business practices of Mascot and Amplify.
With their opaque billing practices, the lack of transparency about revenue, and a stunning dearth of reviews from anyone who has used their services, Mascot makes it very easy for inexperienced authors to see their legitimate-looking website and get themselves scammed out of literal thousands.
But just because reviews are rare doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For example, this review from Trustpilot pretty much confirmed everything my research and instincts were screaming: https://www.trustpilot.com/users/6419...
And if all of that isn’t enough to convince you of Mascot’s unadulterated skeeziness, let’s talk cover art! You’d think for how much money this company is making off these authors, they’d be able to afford some original cover art, right? You’d think they’d do a shred of market research and realize that if there was one book that was going to prompt scrutiny, it was gonna be the one written by a woman with her own TV Tropes page (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...) and they wouldn’t make themselves look like absolute clowns, right?
Wrong!
(I'd love to put images here but Goodreads requires HTMLs for that, and I’m bad at computers, so I’m just going to list this part)
Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal shares the exact same mermaid tail image on its cover with:
A 2023 anthology from Wordfire Press called Merciless Mermaids: Tails from the Deep
A 2019 film called Mermaid Down
A 2020 Anthology from United Faedom Publishing called Merrow
They’re all the same public use image from Getty! Say what you want about Marina Terkulova’s art (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MpLO...) but at least it was original.
The fact that this multi-million dollar company took her money and gave her a product riddled with spelling and grammar errors, bad formatting choices, and reused cover art…
Galling. Absolutely galling.
I hope Sofia Nova severs ties with this company, reforms her craft, and gives it another shot. There are good bones in this story and an obvious passion for at least one aspect of the fantasy genre.
However, this should also be a stark reminder that there are no shortcuts and trying to find one might lead you to pay extortionate rates you’ll never see returns on for a product that looks like a pile of shortcuts in a silicone mermaid tail.
On Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal:
It was better than the original but still has pitfalls and room left for improvement.
What I liked: No references to 9/11, and a lot less weird evangelical proselytizing. Getting rid of Alanna Terrance and the Goth Bullies was the right move. The story was more organized, some of the action scenes were downright good, and Joey was much less of a sociopath in this version. The mermaids were wonderfully capricious and written in a way that displayed the knowledge and passion that the author has for the mythology.
What still needs work: Hey, this book did a lot of body shaming and fatphobia, and that’s not cool.
Quite a few grammatical and syntax errors still exist (and most could easily have been fixed by any editor worth the money the author shouldn’t have been paying them).
While I think the choice to make the mermaid culture authoritarian and misandrist was fun and interesting, it was disappointing how the mermen being second-class citizens got handwaved away at the end instead of it being an actual conflict for the siblings, especially Joey, to solve. It seemed like it was set up to be Joey’s main conflict, and then it just didn’t happen.
The biggest shortcoming I felt this book had is one that carried over from the original Maradonia series; the author’s inability to connect the characters and the reader. The characters do things, think things, feel things… but it's all distant. The tone remains very passive and that makes it hard to feel like there are any stakes, even in the scenes with the most action and highest tension.
All in all, it reads like Sofia Nova would be great at D&D if she wasn’t pathologically allergic to any aspect of fantasy in culture other than mermaids.
But that’s not what this review is about. I know, seems wild that I’d make a review of a book that is only partially about the book, but Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal has a villain, and that villain is not King Palazar.
The villain of this story is Amplify Publishing and its subsidiary, Mascot.
The first red flag I noticed about Mascot Publishing is that looking into it is like diving down a rabbit hole without a flashlight; it’s suspiciously hard to get verifiable information, particularly about financials.
It is owned by Amplify Publishing, and they say that not all submissions are accepted for publication, but that’s kind of hard to believe when one of the services they offer is ghostwriting.
https://www.jjhebertonline.com/2025/0...
https://amplifypublishinggroup.com/bo...
According to a Washington Post article from 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...
“Let’s say you want to print 5,000 copies of your 250-page hardcover book. Mascot might charge you $5.50 per book. That’s around $28,000. That includes editing, layout, artwork and printing the physical and eBook versions. It also includes some marketing help, like organizing launch parties, introducing you to local bookstores and hooking you up with associations with similar interests.
The author gets to suggest a retail price. In this case, let’s pick $20. A retailer such as Amazon may keep as much as half, which would be around $10 of the $20. That leaves $10. Mascot takes 15 percent of that, or $1.50. The author keeps the balance, in this case around $8.50.”
This article was from 2016, so do what you will with inflation and the persistent reality of corporate greed. But even if we flat-matched inflation percentage, that still means that Nova paid around $36k to have Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal edited and published through Mascot. A book which includes, and I’m not kidding, 23 blank pages because the absolute hack they put in charge of layout couldn’t bear to have a chapter start on the left-hand side.
I know that, given her history of bold and bad format choices, it’s tempting to blame the author for this. But Mascot is a company that advertises competent professionals to do that portion of the process for you https://mascotbooks.com/design/
They took her money and handed her a product full of mistakes that competent professionals would not make.
Now, to look at her lifestyle, including a full tour of the mansion she calls home (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0lK6...), it’s easy to write this off as some rich girl who paid to play. And while that isn’t untrue, it also doesn’t mitigate the fact that she spent money she will never see returns on to a company that made promises it categorically did and could not deliver on. While it doesn’t really matter to the rest of us when it happens to rich girls whose banks are not broken by an investment of over thirty thousand or so dollars, that doesn’t excuse the exploitation and bad business practices of Mascot and Amplify.
With their opaque billing practices, the lack of transparency about revenue, and a stunning dearth of reviews from anyone who has used their services, Mascot makes it very easy for inexperienced authors to see their legitimate-looking website and get themselves scammed out of literal thousands.
But just because reviews are rare doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For example, this review from Trustpilot pretty much confirmed everything my research and instincts were screaming: https://www.trustpilot.com/users/6419...
And if all of that isn’t enough to convince you of Mascot’s unadulterated skeeziness, let’s talk cover art! You’d think for how much money this company is making off these authors, they’d be able to afford some original cover art, right? You’d think they’d do a shred of market research and realize that if there was one book that was going to prompt scrutiny, it was gonna be the one written by a woman with her own TV Tropes page (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...) and they wouldn’t make themselves look like absolute clowns, right?
Wrong!
(I'd love to put images here but Goodreads requires HTMLs for that, and I’m bad at computers, so I’m just going to list this part)
Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal shares the exact same mermaid tail image on its cover with:
A 2023 anthology from Wordfire Press called Merciless Mermaids: Tails from the Deep
A 2019 film called Mermaid Down
A 2020 Anthology from United Faedom Publishing called Merrow
They’re all the same public use image from Getty! Say what you want about Marina Terkulova’s art (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MpLO...) but at least it was original.
The fact that this multi-million dollar company took her money and gave her a product riddled with spelling and grammar errors, bad formatting choices, and reused cover art…
Galling. Absolutely galling.
I hope Sofia Nova severs ties with this company, reforms her craft, and gives it another shot. There are good bones in this story and an obvious passion for at least one aspect of the fantasy genre.
However, this should also be a stark reminder that there are no shortcuts and trying to find one might lead you to pay extortionate rates you’ll never see returns on for a product that looks like a pile of shortcuts in a silicone mermaid tail.
September 15, 2025
Maradona and the Guardians of the Portal
A suspenseful story of two siblings trying to return home. Forced to abandon the ship, they try to stay together and stay alive. Along the way they make some interesting friends and enemies. Destined to fulfill a prophecy, they stand strong against all of their adversaries.
#GoodreadsGiveaways
A suspenseful story of two siblings trying to return home. Forced to abandon the ship, they try to stay together and stay alive. Along the way they make some interesting friends and enemies. Destined to fulfill a prophecy, they stand strong against all of their adversaries.
#GoodreadsGiveaways
January 27, 2025
Such a captivating tale with incredible world building! One of my favorite YA fantasy series.
January 28, 2025
Such a fun adventure book! Loved all the plot twists! 10/10
March 7, 2025
As a reader who actually liked Maradonia and the Guardians of the Portal, I'm just going to drop this new piece of the sleazefest right here. Internet, do what you will with this: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-acto... Using IMDb's deadnaming policy intended for trans, ace and NB actors to scrub her old name from film credits and replace it with "Sofia Nova (as Another Name)" is a new low for this lolcow, but somehow doesn't shock anymore.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews