Looking for a new urban fantasy series to start? If you like stories about magical academies, you’re in luck. Here are three first-in-series ebooks set at schools of magic that you can download for free. A few things to keep in mind:

• Not all of these deals are permanent, so make sure to double-check the price before downloading to make sure the sale hasn’t expired.
• I haven’t read all of these books personally and selected them based on the cover and blurb. Please read the reviews and excerpts before downloading.

Basics of Spellcraft (Ember Academy for Young Witches Book 1)

by L.C. Mawson

Ancient curses. Blocked memories. And an Academy for young witches that might just hold the answers.

I should have known something was wrong when my weird aunt arrived in town just as I started getting killer headaches. But how was I supposed to know that it was a sign of repressed magic? Or that an ancient witch had escaped her tomb and sent demons after me?

Demons who cursed my mother.

I wanted to stay with her, even if she wouldn’t wake, but I was sent to Ember Academy for Young Witches instead. Somewhere the demons hopefully can’t get me. I need to find a way to lift the curse, but there’s a block on both my magic and memories that everyone is refusing to lift. A block that might hold the answers as to why an ancient witch is after me in the first place.

If I can figure her out, maybe I can figure out this curse. My teachers don’t want me digging into it, worried about the danger. But I don’t care.

My mother was cursed because of me, and I’m not going to rest until she’s safe again.

BASICS OF SPELLCRAFT is the first book in the Ember Academy for Young Witches YA Urban Fantasy Academy series. If you love kick-ass heroines, Sapphic slow-burn romances, and magical boarding schools, you’ll love this latest fast-paced series in L.C. Mawson’s Snowverse.

Amazon | Kobo | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Google Play

Valkyrie 101: How to become a Valkyrie (The Afterlife Academy: Valkyrie Book 1)

by Arizona Tape

Her dream comes at the price of human souls.

Ylva has always wanted to become a Valkyrie, and now she’s enrolled in her first year at Afterlife Academy, she’s getting her chance. But nothing is simple about bringing souls to Valhalla and she soon finds herself embroiled in ancient rivalries and new friendships.

With more human souls in need of collection than ever before, Ylva and her classmates are about to get a crash course in death.

Valkyrie 101 is book one of the Afterlife Academy: Valkyrie, an urban fantasy f/f academy series. The Afterlife Academy specialises in teaching paranormals how to help human souls pass onto the next phase, whether that’s by guiding them gently, preparing them for rebirth, or cutting them loose with a scythe.

Part of becoming a Valkyrie includes learning how to:

• Open the gates of Valhalla
• Train your pet wolf
• Harvest a soul
• Earn wings
• Die and come back from it

Amazon | Kobo | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Google Play

The Ghost School: Marn Magical Academy Book 1

by Stacey Keystone

What happens when a girl from Earth attends a magical academy… in her dreams?

Amy Laurendeau is just an ordinary orphan. Or so she thinks, until she finds, among her dead mother’s things, an advert for a magical Academy. An Academy she can only attend in a ghost form, in her dreams. Dreams that seem too real… Especially when so many things about Amy’s life start making sense.

As part of the experimental new Distance Learning Department, she is not especially liked by her richer, much more knowledgeable classmates. She will stand up to Martinus Novak, the rich, handsome guy whose friends end up bullying Amy’s fellow classmates, not really caring whether she will keep her place in school or not. This, after all, is just a dream, a welcome fantasy from a life of poverty and loneliness. But she will find out that magic is real, and that the dangers she encounters in Marn will follow her to Earth.

Book 1 of the Marn Magical Academy series, which will take you through Amy’s adventures as she finds love and friendship.

Amazon | Kobo | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Google Play

Have you read any of these books? What’s your favorite school of magic? Let me know in the comments!