Is the Underground Academy offering a second chance…or are more sinister forces at play? Fifteen-year-old Tristan Fairholm has always liked fixing things. It makes up for everything in his life he can’t mend—his parents’ divorce, his father’s alcoholism, and his little brother’s weak heart. But when he kills his brother in a car accident, he destroys the only thing he truly cared for.He has … truly cared for.
He has nearly given up when a mysterious woman appears and offers him a place at her school. Along with 14 other juvenile delinquents, Tristan is given a chance to escape penitentiary while he studies magic in the wild mountains of Canada.
As he learns to extract and shape elemental magic, Tristan finds unexpected friendship in his fellow students, from lovable Rusty Lennox to mysterious, fey Amber Ashton.
But the more he learns, the more the mysteries pile up.
Why are only criminals welcome at the Underground Academy?
Why are the students harvesting mountains of raw magic, if they rarely get a chance to use it?
And who is sabotaging their school?
Dive into a world of magic and mystery—scroll up and buy The Natural Order today.
* * *
“It’s like characters from my favorite series had been gathered into a book.”
“This book gave so many Harry Potter feels.”
“The Natural Order has a raw, suspenseful energy running through it from beginning to end.”
more
I greatly enjoyed the mix of characters as they are thrown together for reasons not fully disclosed. Engaging story on its own, it also has you wanting to follow the characters and their hidden purpose onward into the next books.
The Natural Order, book one in R.J. Vicker’s series The Underground Academy of Magic, grabbed me from the start and never let go! I thought this would just be another magic academy book, but I was definitely mistaken. Tristrin is a young teen that, when faced with a series of catastophic events, makes some choices that will alter his life forever. Stuck in juvie as a result of that fateful night, Tristan is given a choice– serve out the remainder of his term, or attend a mysterious academy that only accepts juvenile criminals. Hating juvie, Tristin decides to take a chance. The Underground Academy of Magic not only opens him up to a world where magic is real, but also teachs him the true value of friendship.
The storyline is fast-paced and unique, filled with magic, mayhem, danger and intrigue. The characters are vast, but well-developed and easy to follow. Book one was truly a pleasue to read. I can’t wait to see what adventures book two will bring!
Ms Vickers has a great ability to create likable characters and surround them with worlds so brilliantly devised you share a visceral, sensory experience along with them. I LOVED the way Tristan’s true nature shone through his dreadful start in life, and although I would have liked to know more about the incident that put him in this magical prison-school (now available in a prequel), there was so much other stuff to keep me occupied, I’m looking forward to finding out more in subsequent stories. it was anything but a one-man show with a supporting cast of well-developed, multi-faceted characters and lots of secrets which led to a very satisfying ending to each of the inter-twining threads. I’m every bit as hooked as I was on Harry Potter and hope this one runs and runs.
The R.J. Vickers series of The Natural Order of School of Magic is a very interesting series. It’s taking children from mostly broken homes and are trying to see how much magic they can generate. They teach that all people have some magic in them. Just that some have more magic than others and they try to direct the magic into useful situations. I think a child of 10 to 12 could read this book with no problems.
This first book is just ok, the rest of the series is thought provoking and definitely worth reading, despite the slow start in this first book. This is not Hogwarts.
Magic books all seem to be the same premise, this is not one of those. Instead it’s a new view on magic and may take you a bit to get use too. The beginning is slower but as long as you can stick with it you will enjoy where it goes. You will become hooked on the story and find yourself wanting to read the next one!
Its a fun read on my lunch beak
I loved the series until the very end..which seemed to be anticlimactic .
I enjoyed this book. Will probably read the next one. It held my interest.
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Natural Order’ and have ordered the next books in the series. The first book does standalone, so it is not one of those cheap ploys to get you to buy the next book. The characters were real, not perfect. The story line was something different. Good start to a new series.
A blend of Hogwarts and Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters this is an imaginative and surprisingly addictive story. I had an absolute blast reading it and am looking forward to many more books from R. J. Vickers! I definitely recommend this book!
Normally, even if I’m not enjoying a book I will force myself to finish it. I couldn’t get through the first three chapters of this book. And literally for the first time in about 10 years, I deleted it off my kindle and gave up. It was just NOT my cup of tea. I don’t like to be disparaging, but the lead in and building of the story was abysmal, it just jumped into it and threw in information all willy nilly rather than actually building the story. It was completely unbelievable, which is saying a LOT considering it’s a fantasy novel. I just couldn’t force it on myself. Sorry for the bad review, but it was literally horrible.
This book was so poorly written. It didn’t even make sense- the things the characters fought and screamed about were ludicrous. It was a Harry Potter wannabe.
Derivative of Harry Potter
This is a magical adventure story in the vein of Harry Potter. I can easily see it becoming a movie. The story narrative is well told, but sometimes the character’s dialog seems a bit “off”. There’s a couple things about the story that bothers me. (1) Where does the Magic School get all that fabulous food? I suppose it could be produced by magic like at Hogwarts, but it never magically appears on the dining tables. It’s always brought out of the very busy kitchen. It’s never explained. (2) These are 15 healthy teenagers residing at the school, both boys and girls, yet over the course of a year none of them are the least bit interested in sex.