Sophia is an ordinary American student at home with her parents, until the gorgeous Liam comes to take her to live at the Orenda Academy of Magical Creatures. That’s where Sophia finds that there’s a whole other world out there she didn’t know anything about.
This book has commonalities with other young adult fantasy series – elements of the Harry Potter, Divergent, Hunger Games and His Dark Materials worlds. There are quests, prophecies, bad guys and a plucky band of misfits facing huge challenges.
I would say these books are part romance, part fantasy and part life lessons for older teens.
I thought it was Young Adult to begin with but as the books progress it’s definitely not for children! Recognising that I’m not the target audience for the books, I found the relationship between Sophia and Liam and some of the teenage angst annoying at times. However, there are brilliant, strong, platonic friendships and family relationships. And I do like flawed characters as they are more interesting than people who are perfect all the time.
The world building is brilliant! As this series progresses, the fantasy plot and story line is first class. Love how Native American culture inspires and is woven through the fantasy. I don’t know much about that culture or belief system but it worked really well.
I love how the book explores health, mental health, leadership and inclusion. And that the character with the leadership role has to intentionally manage his health. This aspect was done well. I like both the character and narrator of Liam, but Sophia less so, not sure why. I’m more of an Imogen fan.
5 star fantasy plus a bit too in-your-face life lessons for teens in some parts makes an overall score of 4.
Will it change the world?
Fantasy is a great place to dream of better and these authors do just that. There is magical tribalism in this book but characteristics that are discriminated against in real life are all accepted and not treated any differently. I like how this challenges perspectives. The books explore how and why our rights and freedoms matter.
And I hope that the teens reading the book learn the lessons intended. And behave appropriately in libraries!
Get the book!
So far, I’ve read these books in the Academy of Magical Creatures series:
1 The Fire Prophecy
2 The Water Legacy
3 The Earth Legend
4 The Air Omen
5 The Elemental War
These books are long – 448 pages/15 hours for book 1. When I started out I thought it would be 4 books (one for each element) but no! There are 6. I have one left which I will get to when I have 26 hours to spare:
6 The Soul Sacrifice
These are all self-published so you can buy directly from the author’s website.
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