Victoria Wattiaux

media release: Victoria has worked in the Madison area for 35 years as a medical technologist, laboratory instructor and physician assistant. She has also worked as a volunteer in Guatemala and Mexico.

Victoria practices Tai chi and Taoism, tapping into the energy flow of nature, similar to the Ria in Terralena. She spends the summers in Madison with her husband, Michel, and her winters in Morelia, Michoacán, experiencing the magical realism of Mexico.

Terralena is her first novel.

About the book: 

When Lea’s family is murdered by Mertonan soldiers from the North, her misery is unleashed in a powerful force that causes the earth to quake. Unable to control her unusual gift, she wanders the woods, grieving for her lost people.

Elmond is a mystic aligned with the wind and is far from home when the Mertonans attack the southern towns of along the coast of the Helian Sea. A refugee family begs him to guide them to Halen through the dangerous Brenan Woods. In the forest, they are under constant threat from renegade soldiers but find strength in their own solidarity, a protective spirit wandering the woods, and the Ria, the life force that flow through all nature.

Only by aligning with the Ria can Lea recover from her past and follow her own destiny, and only through its power can she and the other mystics overcome the violent Mertonans to protect the creatures and forest of Terralena.