The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents
Play sample
  • Published: 7 January 2025
  • ISBN: 9780593528518
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $40.00

The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents

Formats & editions
Paperback
28 Oct 2025
Hardback
7 Jan 2025
EBook
1 Oct 2024
Audiobook
1 Oct 2024
Buy from…
The Nile Mighty Ape BookHub Whitcoulls The Warehouse Paper Plus Fishpond Book Hero Unity Books University Book Shop Find Local Retailers

A middle grade magic school fantasy perfect for fans of The School for Good and Evil and Witchlings, in which a girl with unparalleled power must work with her misfit classmates to save her new school.

A middle grade magic school fantasy perfect for fans of The School for Good and Evil and Witchlings, in which a girl with unparalleled power must work with her misfit classmates to save her new school.

Lavinia “Vin” Lucas is out of control and out of options. Stranded by parents who would rather use their average magical abilities to study dung beetles than raise her, Vin's been on her own for years. But she’s never been able to corral her own powerful, unpredictable magic. After years of detention, suspension, and expulsion from magic schools far and wide, she’s now being sent to the Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents. If she gets expelled, it’s the end of the line. 

Now, Vin is determined to behave. Except no one at Last Hope seems to want her to. Her new teachers—particularly the school’s kind headmistress—push her to explore her magic, and her mischievous classmates delight in every accident. And all the while, a mysterious fire sprite, a suspicious instructor, and her overwhelming abilities might just sabotage Vin. But for the first time, she is not alone.

So when a former student begins attacking the school, Vin must question just how much she knows about the headmistress and her new home. Is this place worth saving? And are her budding abilities—and every trick, trap, and deception in her friends’ delinquent arsenal—enough to protect Last Hope?
  • Published: 7 January 2025
  • ISBN: 9780593528518
  • Imprint: Viking
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $40.00
Categories:

Praise for The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents

"The heart, humor, and hijinks of middle grade are at their best in The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents. A story full of found family, magic, and learning to believe in yourself, it’s sure to appeal to fans of Jessica Townsend’s Nevermoor series."—Kalyn Josephson, New York Times bestselling author of the Ravenfall series

"An absolute masterpiece full of breathless magic and charming characters. Readers will find the pages all but turning on their own as Nicki Pau Preto leads us from wonder to mystery and everything in between.”—Scott Reintgen, New York Times bestselling author of A Door in the Dark

"Brimming with magic, mystery, and heart, this story was an action-packed delight from start to finish. Vin is a lovable heroine worth rooting for, and Nicki Pau Preto delivers a fresh, fascinating new world that any reader—delinquent or not—would want to belong to."—Jessica Khoury, Author of The Mystwick School of Musicraft and the Skyborn series

"The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents is an outstanding middle grade debut!...[it is] one of those stories that prove that middle grade books are the best books on the market today for any age. Books can be fun and serious by being filled with laughter and lessons simultaneously! I recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt lost or alone in this unmagical world. I think it will have you believing that maybe we haven't seen the last of hope."—Laura Wood, East Clinton Library, Buffalo, NY

“Nicki Pau Preto has written a knock-out middle grade debut! Full of laughs, brimming with imagination, and with secrets down every hidden hallway, this book is unputdownable. You will be desperate for another semester to start so you too can return to The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents.”—Callum Carr, Spartanburg County Public Library, Spartanburg County, SC

"The Last Hope School For Magical Delinquents is both a warm hug and a riotous adventure that readers will fall in love with. I can’t wait to see how Nicki continues this series that is sure to be a hit with young readers.”—Alex Crouch, Barnes & Noble, Syracuse, NY

"This was genuinely one of the sweetest little stories I’ve read in a really long time, I adored it!"—Angela Britton, Iris BookCafé, Cincinnati, OH