Were this a YA title I probably would have loved it. As it's an Adult title, I wasn't as impressed. I didn't like Teddy at all and felt she acted much younger than her age. While the powers were cool, it didn't change my opinion of the main character.

Harry Potter went to a special school for wizards where he learned to control his powers. Teddy Cannon is going to a school where she is learning to control and use her psychic abilities.

When the story begins, Teddy has been banned from every poker table in Las Vegas. She has disguised herself and is sneaking into one. A lot of money is needed, and it is needed fast.

Even though her winning streaks are almost unstoppable because she somehow knows the cards the other players are holding and knows what they are thinking, it never enters her mind that she could be a psychic. But a good-looking man is keeping his eye on her. Her nervousness messes things up, and she tries to flee. This man stops her, clues her into the fact that she is a psychic, and invites her to attend the Whitfield Institute, a school for psychics.

She is told that at this school she will learn to not only control her psychic abilities, but she will be taught how to better them and use them for the greater good.

She does learn at this school, but she also senses that something isn’t quite right. And that something puts her life and the life of those around her in danger. Something is crooked at the Whitfield Institute.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes. I enjoyed it immensely. Filled with mystery, romance, betrayal, and possible government secrets, this book with all its twists and turns keep you guessing what is going to happen next.

Did the book remind me of the Harry Potter series? Just a little. I guess a special school for psychics could be compared to a school for wizards. And something crooked is going on at Whitfield Institute just as something bad was going on at Harry Potter’s school.

The book is filled with mystery, romance, betrayal, and possible government secrets. If Teddy learns nothing else at this school, she learns what it is to be a true friend.

I was sent a copy of School for Psychics: Book One by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I’m looking forward to the release of the next book in this series.

or maybe 3.5 stars. A quick, fun, and easy read. Reminded me of X-Men: young adults going to a special school to learn how to use their unusual talents. The main plot was good--sufficiently complicated and largely plausible, for an urban fantasy, that is. The characters were interesting in that some started likeable and others unlikeable but by the end, my feelings on some of them had changed. I like that in a book! I didn't give it more stars because, while it's about young adults, it seemed pretty high-schooly in places. Also, the characters were often shallow and their motivations not developed very well. But, like I said, it was fun!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a free e-ARC of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Schuster for providing me with a free advanced copy of The School for Psychics in exchange for an honest review.

This is a paranormal book about Teddy Cannon, a Sanford drop out gambling addicted young woman who never knew her birth parents. A lot of this story walks side by side with Harry Potter and I found it difficult not to think of Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone several times throughout this book.

Both are raised by parents who are not theirs under the impression that their birth parents died in car accidents, both Harry and Teddy were collected to go to boarding school by someone in the field, whisked away to learn about their true powers. Neither Teddy nor Harry are particularly gifted an have to rely on friends to for backup.

Teddy is a lot less likable than Harry though and for several reasons. Firstly she's a grown adult that acts like a child. At least Harry had the fact that he was eleven keeping him from harsher judgments on his choice of actions.  She's careless and she squanders opportunities.  She's a shit to her friends.  The only thing redeeming about Teddy Cannon is that she makes the right decision in the end.  And Teddy is just the main characters, let alone mentioning all the other characters that were either one dimensional or unlikeable or both.

School for Psychics is a fast-paced government conspiracy theory book wasn't the worst fictional story I've ever read but it certainly wasn't the best, either. This is an okay introduction to what I believe will be a series of books in the Whitfield Institute universe but I will not be reading the next.

School for Psychics has a lot of promise. You can tell right away that it's being set up for a series as the author takes their time building the character of Teddy and her world. It make the book have a bit of a slow start, but once she gets to Angel Island and her new school the action starts to pick up. I also loved the relationship between Teddy and her misfits, as well as some of the other characters we meet through her at the school. The friendships built really are the core of the story. There is a good deal of scientific information about psychic ability and theory so the book does give you a bit more depth than the typical new adult novel. The ending felt a bit abrupt and I know the cliffhanger is setting up the next book, but there were a lot of things going on in the last 10 pages that felt thrown at the reader. It left me feeling dissatisfied and I would have liked a bit more information in the reveal to get me excited about the next novel. All in all, School for Psychics was a fun read and I would continue with the series. The characters K.C. Archer created are definitely ones I'd like to spend more time with and I hope the series builds on the character's friendships and chemistry.

Like all books of this genre, I'm always the most intrigued by the powers and abilities of the characters. While I did find most of the character's abilities cool, I did feel like they all had similar abilities. Except for Pyro, Jillian and obviously Teddy, I wish there was more diversity in the types of gifts the characters had. (Of course, this could all change in the sequels.)

Overall, this book had the normal "beginning of a series" feel. It introduced the characters, introduced the setting, and introduced the main conflict and mystery that is usual in first books. While there was nothing groundbreaking for me, it was still enjoyable and easy to read. And I will be looking out for the next book.

I opened this book thinking the title gave it away and it would be kind of silly and young, but I was so glad I was wrong! It turned into an exciting story about the normal world with a little twist of being psychic. There were secrets, romance, lies, more lies, and tons of danger. I loved the deception and story lines and could not put it down.

Good book with some weak points but overall good story and characterization. I'm not sure I want to read a sequel if there is one, but it was a fun read and great escapist fare.

This was such a fun book! I would have loved to had a bit more depth to it, but hopefully, that will come along with the continuation of the series. I loved the powers that the students possessed and it gave me major X-Men vibes! Loved it!

I struggled a bit with this one. I quite liked the concept, but the lengths the author goes to in order to keep full grown adults from knowing what's going on in the world around them felt contrived. Isolation on an island where they can sneak out is just ridiculous. Additionally, many of the characters seemed cardboard, more like a list of bullet points than a fleshed out person. By about 50% I was uninterested in finishing. I don't have an desire to read another by the author.

This was a difficult one for me. A twenty something woman discovers that she has special powers and trots off to a school for psychics where she can hone her gift. I was expecting some parallels with other fantasy stories where gifted individuals and magical schools are involved but I hoped this would be a bit more adult with some new ideas. I was a bit disappointed. Although there are some 'adult' situations in this book it still read like YA to me. It's not a bad story and it is a quick read. Not sure I will continue with the series though.

"Teddy Cannon is a really dumb name." That's my first note on K.C. Archer's School for Psychics. I know, it's not the wittiest or most astute observation, but it would prove to be the narrative thread of the next 368 pages. Of all the issues I had with this book, the most egregious isn't even Archer's fault--it's that of the blasphemer who had the audacity to refer to this as "Harry Potter, but for psychics" in the book description. Then again, that was enough to get me to invest hours of my life, so who's the real fool here?

School for Psychics centers on Teddy, a 24 year old millennial stereotype and orphan (√) with a penchant for "timely" references, geriatric idioms, and cringe worthy gambling metaphors. Teddy, who dropped out of Stanford and has trouble with authority (√√) is on the run from a Russian loan shark to whom she owes $270,000 of her adoptive parents' money. Just when she's made peace with her cement-boots fate, she is recruited to attend Whitfield Institute, a secret school that will hone her and others' psychic abilities to be used for homeland security upon graduation. And with that, we enroll in what's ostensibly grad school, but more like a high school.

There, Teddy meets a menagerie of caricatu--er, I mean characters, like her roomie, gregarious Jillian, who can commune with animals, Molly, an empath computer hacker with a dark secret, Jeremy, Molly's khaki-flavored psychometrist boyfriend, death warning receiver Dara, and last but not least, Pyro (X-Men alias Lucas), the former cop bad boy with a heart of gold and a fireball in his pocket. These crazy "kids" make up the Misfits and are in direct competition with the other six "normal" students, the Alphas. It's all obstacle courses and telepathy lessons until students start to go missing and Teddy begins to suspect there's more to her origin story than meets the eye.

This is where I’ll leave the remainder of the story to the author and share the Good and the Bad of School for Psychics

The Good:

-It was a quick read:
While it may not have been well-written, it was easy to get through. The pace of the plot moved swiftly and there wasn't a ton of filler.

-The story has potential:
In better hands, this story could have gone far. If the school itself had been better developed *cough*Hogwarts*cough*, it would have provided a better foundation. Once the "real" central plot kicked in, I found myself exponentially more engaged than I had been, and I noticed the sins of the early writing were steadily decreasing. If the book was longer or if the fat was trimmed from the earlier chapters, this plot would have had more space to breathe and develop properly.

The Bad:

-The characters' ages:
The only reason I can see for making them all in their mid-twenties is to avoid the Harry Potter/Hunger Game/Divergent/Twilight fatigue of high school aged characters and to differentiate itself by being about adults, but not "grownups." This failed miserably. Every time their age was mentioned I found myself shocked because the characters were all so immature and behaved as though they never spent a day in the real world.

-Teddy's libido:
This kind of piggybacks on the above complaint, but this was so vexing that it deserved its own moment in the sun. Teddy's constant musings regarding every attractive male she lays eyes on and the way in which she expresses these thoughts had me thisclose to putting the book down for good.

"'See you by the pool,' she said...she actually wouldn't mind seeing him by the pool. All that muscle and maybe a pair of tiny European swim trunks. It's been a long time, okay?"

"...she spotted a hot guy slouched in the corner...Teddy wondered about the talents of the hot guy."

"She was going to need an extracurricular activity to let off steam...she saw the hot guy smirk."

"Teddy looked over to see the hot guy slouch down in the seat next to hers...he looked like the kind of guy who'd enjoy breaking the rules."

"It took her another second before she put it together: Jillian Blustein wanted to get laid."

"She couldn't help but stare as he walked away...and damn, the view was fine."

"...he had the ass of a minor Greek god."

If it took a lot to get through those quotes in this review, imagine wading through that muck in a book.

-The writing in general:
This book was poorly written, there's no way around that. The pop culture references to Ryan Gosling dreams, Taylor Swift and Katie Perry's feud, a Long Island Medium Halloween costume (I live on Long Island and even I thought this was a wee bit esoteric) already feel dated. The non-stop poker clichés about going all in, knowing when to fold, bluffing, reading the table, etc...were so painful and forced. And in stark contrast to all this immaturity, were bits of dialogue that sounded like they were written in a retirement home:

"...the pain was nothing compared to her desire to take him out--not for a grain bowl, but for a knuckle sandwich."

-Teddy's a poor man's Jessica Jones:
This was a pretty minor irritation, all other things considered, but I think Archer was watching a little too much Netflix when she crafted this sarcastic loner who drowns her sorrows in booze and boys and proudly rocks a uniform of "badass" boots and a leather jacket.

TL;DR: While the concept of School for Psychics and the developing series' arch have potential, the laughable writing, cardboard characters, and weak protagonist overshadow any sliver of hope. I don't need to be psychic to know I'm not going to continue this series.

I can't seem to get the review to post I've tried typing it and reposting it but it keeps telling me it can't go.

I found this one a little slow at first but it wasn't too long before the pace picked up. Teddy has a gift that leads her to be enrolled in the school for psychics. Once we are introduced to her new environment things get really fascinating. I truly enjoyed seeing the development of the characters, solo, or as they begin to bond, as a group. There seem to be some mysterious developments and the more new information is learned, the harder it is to guess the end result.

It's really well written. While it is about psychics learning to control their gifts, it is first and foremost about relationships, empathy, and learning to trust. For me the most fun aspect has to be the detail surrounding each gift and how it works. I can't say too much because honestly, I feel if you go into this book knowing very little, you'll enjoy the experience a great deal more.

The plot has so many unexpected twists and a 'whodunnnit' type of feel to it. The writing has a wonderful flow and the sprinklings of information along the way really gives the mind and imagination a workout. I'm hoping to read more from this author in the future.

[Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposes.]

This came up on my dashboard on NetGalley, but when I read the synopsis I didn't think I was very interested. There are so many books on my TBR pile this year, I didn't want to waste time on something that didn't sound interesting to me. But then someone I follow, who usually has similar taste in books to me, praised it in a review, and made it sound so much better than the blurb. So I requested it, and I was approved. But I put off reading it because of other books I wanted to read, so this review is a little delayed. My apologies to NG and the author for that.

Anyway, you'll notice that a book I wasn't interested garnered four stars from me. They are pretty enthusiastic stars, too. It wasn't perfect (far from it), but I absolutely loved the character progression and how you are always led in certain ways, but may end up in a different place than expected.

So there was some obvious foreshadowing. A few different characters come under suspicion, and you aren't sure which one(s) to believe or disbelieve, but I think I figured out the "big bad" early on in the book. I wasn't 100% sure, but my suspicions were confirmed at the end.

But it's not really a "big bad" in the sense that the characters have to destroy this thing to save the world. So in that it's much more sinister. What are their true motives? By the end we know approximately who they are, but not what they are, and not really much else about them.

Regarding characterization, I absolutely HATED Teddy when I first met her. She was selfish, seemed to have a sense of guilt but still threw her life away anyway, and didn't seem to want to improve her situation at all. She went to Whitfield very reluctantly, and only because she had just lost a shit-ton of money at poker and her bookie was going to come to collect very soon. When she got there, she distanced herself from everyone, refused to let anyone in, and kept making selfish mistake after selfish mistake. I wanted to slap her in the head and ask her what the heck she was doing, because I know her trajectory is all too realistic and it is frustrating. She was *real* to me. Even when she's still screwing up at the end, she's still struggling with everything she has done. There is development there, progress, and a shift in perspective for her.

So by the end, I had grown to love Teddy and all of her flaws, despite all her mistakes, or maybe because of them.

I think my one major complaint about this book, hence only 4 stars, is that all the characters acted and spoke like teenagers, not people in their mid-20s. I also couldn't get a read on how old Nick was, which confused me a little later on in the book. So I had a hard time not reading these kids as high-schoolers in a military setting, which has obviously been done before, but it didn't read right for me. Also, there seemed to be some jumping around in time that wasn't clearly noted, so I would be reading something about the characters being one place, and then shortly after they were somewhere else with no indication that they had moved. That may have been the ARC, or it may have been that I was missing the written shift for some reason, or it may have just been that way.

Overall, a great book and satisfying read. I'm glad I read that review, I'm glad I requested it, and I'm glad I read it. Psychics are hard to do well. I think K.C. Archer did a good job, and I look forward to reading book 2 when it comes out.

Theodora "Teddy" Cannon is in a tight spot. She owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts. And in Vegas, her home, she has been banned from most casinos not because she counts cards or anything like that, but because of the accuracy with which she reads people. In disguise, she goes into a casino and sits down to play poker. She's doing ok until suddenly she isn't. And it would appear she's been recognized. As she flees for her life, a rather large man stops her and convinces her to listen to him. In exchange for paying her gambling debts, she will need to attend a law enforcement school for psychically gifted people. Between a rock and a hard place, Teddy agrees to go to the school.

The people at the school have a variety of psychic talents. They are all getting the same basic training though. They naturally divide into two groups. The group Teddy belongs to is the "Misfits." The other group is more physically fit and almost like a clique of the popular kids. The two groups are encouraged to vie with one another especially when it comes to physical activities.

As the school year progresses, things escalate competition wise. There is a conspiracy of sorts floating around the school. Some of the students go missing. The FBI might be involved somehow. The Misfits work together to try and solve what's happening. The pace increases towards the end of the book as things come to a head.

Generally speaking, I enjoyed the book. I kind of felt like it had a YA vibe to it but the characters were supposed to be of the age to qualify as New Adult. The competition between the groups reminded me a little of the competition in the YA book The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau. The dangers were serious, but maybe not quite as many deadly dangers as in The Testing. The dangers were a little more focused on the conspiracy the students were investigating.

The characters were not all well developed but were developed enough to carry off the plot. There is some attraction between some of the students. There is some hooking up and possible romance. Nothing is explicit.

Overall, I give this book a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars. I liked it and it was pretty good. There is definitely room for a sequel to this book. I deducted half a star mostly because the characters seemed to act more YA than early 20s a lot of the time. And a little because of how things wrapped up when they are investigating the conspiracy and the FBI. It's still a good read. And it's a good introduction to a new series. I would recommend it to people who enjoy paranormal YA/New Adult literature.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions herein are my own and freely given.

As soon as I started this one, I was in love with it. I loved the main character, Teddy, and the pace of the book was great. Right into the fire. Tension, intrigue, humor, and a lot more.

Then it kind of pumped the brakes on me.

Once Teddy got to the school (the school for psychics) everything seemed to move at a snail’s pace. I realize a book can’t be full speed the whole time, when would we have a chance to breathe? There’s a balance between spots to breathe and action (or at least tension and intrigue!)

I think what really did it was a sudden obviousness of age. Before getting to the school, Teddy seemed like an adult. She is an adult, but she also acted like an adult. Then, she gets to school, and it’s like a bunch of teenagers at some kind of boarding school. I have nothing against teenagers, unless they’re adults acting like teenagers.

The relationships were odd as well. We were constantly told that certain people were important to Teddy, but no one ever felt important. Teddy walked around like a sociopath who didn’t have feelings or emotions, but was capable of telling us that someone was her closest friend.

The psychic elements of the book were described beautifully. It’s a tough thing to visualize, especially since if it was real there wouldn’t be anything to see. The author did a great job of describing these ‘invisible visuals.’

When the action did happen, it was well done as well. The pace quickened during these parts and kept me turning the pages as quickly as I could. I just wish there had been a little more of it.

Even though I wasn’t blown away by School for Psychics, I enjoyed the read and if a sequel is produced, I’d definitely check it out.

School for Psychics is like Harry Potter for adults but with psychic abilities instead of magical powers. Teddy Cannon is a reformed gambler-well, trying to be. She manages to get herself into hot water at every turn but salvation appears in the form of a gift she never wanted. When Teddy learns she has powerful psychic abilities, and that there is a school she can attend to harness those abilities, Teddy is skeptical. But what she learns is not only how to harness her abilities-for the good of the country-but the truth about where she comes from.

I thought this story was well written and engaging. I'm curious to see what other trouble Teddy and her band of misfits can get into.

Psychological thrillers and literary fiction are usually the corners of the bookstores I live in. So when I saw the cover of School for Psychics by K.C. Archer, I assumed it fell into the same category. When I started reading it, though, I immediately realized that I was wrong. But that didn't stop me from finishing this book in record time. While I moved away from the genres I normally love to read, School for Psychics was a fun, action-packed page-turner that has me counting down the days until the next series installment. 

School for Psychics follows Teddy Cannon's transition from card shark being hunted down by gangs to recruit for a top-secret school for psychics. Part privately funded, part government controlled, the School for Psychics works to train assets that will be placed in various military and government positions. Of course, that's just what's happening on the surface. The longer Teddy stays at the school, the more secrets--about her past and about the school--begin to surface. But her biggest challenge isn't figuring out these secrets or acing her exams, or controlling her psychic abilities, but figuring out how to be part of a team and learning how to trust her fellow classmates. If she doesn't, it can cost her--and her classmates--her life. 

What I loved about reading this book is what I loved about watching ABC's Quantico: it was a light read, entertaining, and threw adults into a school-like setting that pushed them to their emotional and physical limits. In Teddy, we have a (somewhat cliched) heroine who is used to working alone and taking care of herself. The cast of characters is both unsurprising and eclectic: the bad boy, the eccentric hippie, the computer genius, the type-A control freak. The fact that the way they interacted could be guessed made this an extremely enjoyable, light read that didn't keep me up all night because I was terrified, but because I was so ensconced in the story.

The School for Psychics is an entertaining read, especially for fans of cross-over Contemporary Young Adult, New Adult, and Paranormal Romance.

An enjoyable fast-read when it came to the ‘psychic powers’ theme. I really liked the premise: a young woman who’s been making questionable decisions, and gets a second chance in a school for people with psychic abilities, where they’re trained to protect and server… but a few people on the inside have different agendas, and it’s a constant game of trying to figure out what’s at stake, and if it’s going to be a bunch of revelations, or something much more lethal. The powers the students have are varied, ranging from precognition to telepathy and even pyrokinesis, and I liked how the novel tried to bring a scientific approach to it: after all, they’re training people who’re going to end up working for the FBI or NSA.

The first scene also engaged me from the beginning, what’s with Teddy being banned from Las Vegas casinos, but still sneaking into one, disguised as a different woman, to hopefully win the money she owes a Russian crime boss, because otherwise her own parents will be targeted. Well, OK, nevermind that she should never have let things go that far, all the more if she’s so good at reading people at the poker table, but ‘questionable decisions’ being a key here, alright, I can go with that.

On the other hand, I never really got a good feeling for Teddy, or for the other characters. Some of them had a sort of ‘larger than life’ vibe, with their quirks (the animal medium who likes doing yoga naked, the ex-cop who’s a charmer and can literally set things on fire, the hacker who’s also an empath…); but they remained fairly one-dimensional. Teddy barely thought of her family except in the beginning, we know nothing of the others except for a couple of things like ‘his family’s rich and he has a boat’, and so when the story took a more action/heist-oriented turn, it was hard to root for them.

The other thing I didn’t like—and which contributed to my not enjoying the sotry as much as I hoped—was the globally juvenile aspects. These people are 20-something (Teddy’s 24, and Pyro must be at least 25 considering he served in the police for some time, and I doubt you just start there at 15 or so), but the whole Whitfield academy had a strong high school feeling, and I constantly thought I was reading a YA novel when in fact it was marketed as geared towards adult, with adult characters. I don’t mind YA in general, even though I have my gripes about a lot of books; I don’t think that ‘because it’s YA, it’s necessarily stupid and uninteresting.’ This said, the aforementioned gripes involve a certain number of tropes that I find cringe-worthy, such as the mandatory romance and love triangle, the professor who immediately favours certain students and begrudges the heroine and her friends, or the whole ‘school stars vs. misfits’ aspect. And those tropes were clearly present here, to the point of making me forget that those characters were, uh, two years from going to work for the FBI? Suspension of disbelief was then shattered every time forensics or the shooting range was mentioned; it’s like the story couldn’t make up his mind about whether it was meant to be about teenagers or about adult people.

Not sure if I’ll be interested in the sequel.