Description:
“Determined
to uncover the secret behind her eccentric aunt's mysterious death,
Sadie Strange, a quirky substitute teacher with a Master’s degree
in comic book superheroes, takes a job at isolated private school
Strange Academy. Her biggest obstacle? Haughty hottie Lorde Gray, the
chemistry teacher who looks down his Roman nose at her as he tries to
get her fired.”
Author:
By day,
Teresa Wilde is a mild-mannered technical writer, but by night (and
lunch hours, and weekends) she's a digital Sheherezade, weaving tales
of strange and wondrous places and people. Strange
Academy is her third first
novel. She is currently working on a Regency Urban Fantasy, plus the
sequel to Confessions of a
Teenage Demon Magnet and the
next book in the Strange
Academy cycle. Check out her blog. Ms. Wilde also publishes erotic romances under the pen name
Teresa Morgan.
Appraisal:
This book
caught me a little off guard; I assumed by the cover it would be a
light-hearted funny read. And it was that, but it was also so much
more. Ms. Wilde did a wonderful job building her characters and
exploring their backgrounds so we understood why each one was the way
they were. Knowing the psychological makeup gave her characters depth
and a more human quality making it easier to identify with them.
Sadie has
denied who she really is her whole life because she wanted to fit in
and be normal, unlike her strange Aunt Pippa, her witch mother, and
her psychic older sister. She also has no idea why Aunt Pippa has
recommended that she take over Pippa's classes at Strange Academy
after her death. However she is determined to find out how and why
Aunt Pippa died so unexpectedly. The whole campus is on alert to keep
anything magical from Sadie as long as she is there and she seems
more than willing to turn a blind eye or find logical, mundane
reasons for anything she cannot readily explain. She is smart,
logical to a fault, strong-willed, and witty. Sadie has also built
walls around her heart after falling for the wrong type of man one
too many times. So when she meets Lorde Gray at Strange Academy she
instantly dislikes him because he is exactly the type she is known to
fall for.
Lorde Gray
was a character that was hard to like at first. He was egocentric,
overbearing, and controlling. The perfect alpha male type. But as the
story develops and we get to know more about his history he becomes
quite swoon-worthy. However he has a lot of pride and Sadie becomes
quite adept at challenging his pride which was fun to watch.
Most of
this story deals with the teachers and administrators of Strange
Academy instead of the students, so the theme is more adult oriented.
Although two of the students in Sadie's class have a larger role than
most. Sterling, Lorde's eleven year-old nephew, and Carmina, a Non (a
human without a talent/power) who may never have talents, develop an
interesting friendship that challenges the House of Gray. Sadie and
Carmina also develop a relationship being the only two Non-talented
humans at Strange Academy.
Woven
through this story of challenging relationships is the mystery of
Aunt Pippa's death which twists and turns with every clue that Sadie
follows. It is an important element of the story and impacts Lorde
Gray and Sadie's relationship in ways that will surprise you. Their
dialogue is entertaining and believable. I loved taking this journey
of self-discovery with them and found the book hard to put down until
the wee hours of the morning.
FYI:
The story
contains adult language and sexual situations that some may find
offensive. I found the sexual situations tastefully written and
enjoyed them.
Added
for Reprise Review: Strange
Academy was a nominee in the
Paranormal Romance category for B&P 2014 Readers' Choice Awards.
Original review ran November 28, 2013
Rating:
***** Five Stars
Reviewed
by: ?wazithinkin
Approximate
word count: 95-100,000 words
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