School for Physics by K. C. Archer

School for Physics by K. C. Archer is an explosive new urban fantasy series with a good dash of crime thriller on the side. It reads like a Harry Potter story for adults. I was on the edge of my seat almost the entire time and second guessing myself right to the very end.

Theodora Cannon, aka Teddy, lives in Las Vegas above the garage of her adopted parents’ house. After a series of very bad decisions she currently owes over a quarter of a million to a Russian loan shark. You are probably wondering how someone ends up in such a situation at so young an age. Simple, you like to gamble. Teddy has even gone so far as to “borrow” money from her parents’ retirement account.

Teddy does have one thing going for her, she thinks, the ability to know beyond a shadow of a doubt when someone is bluffing at the card table. This ability is the reason she has been banned from all the Las Vegas casinos. The casinos could never prove she was cheating so they have banned her. Yet she desperately needs to gamble and win enough to pay back the loan shark. Disguising herself, Teddy starts to win big at the Bellagio. Until misfortune once again befalls her and she loses it all.

Fortunately, a mysterious man, named Clint, comes to her aid and offers her a deal she can’t refuse. He explains that she is a physic and wants to recruit her to attend a school (Whitfield Institute for Law Enforcement Training and Development) for physics. He even promises to take care of her debt to the loan shark. At the school she will learn to use and control her gift while she trains for a future position in the government where she will use her ability to keep America safe.

Teddy is out of options and she accepts this as her one and only chance to make things right in her life. Once at Whitfield, Teddy settles into life as a student, going to class, studying and making friends. Then mysterious things start to happen, some blood samples are stolen from the campus lab and a short time later a couple of students go missing. Teddy learns that one of the samples is hers and the other samples are from the missing students. Will she be next? She becomes obsessed with finding out the truth at all costs, even if it means she will be expelled from another school.

My favorite thing about the book was the cast of characters. Loved them and they fit so well with the plot. Of course, Teddy was my favorite. How can you not like a character who is good at heart yet so misguided. Teddy is a typical young adult that still has not figured herself out and she is so self-involved that  she does not realize that her actions can have profound consequences not just for herself but for those around her. The plot was fast paced with lots of twists that were unexpected. I was never entirely sure who was on the good team and who was on the bad until the very end. Loved that!

The only down side is, I have to wait for the next installment!

I highly recommend School for Physics, for those adult kids, like myself, that loved the Harry Potter series.

I received a free copy from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest opinion.