DRAGONRIDER ACADEMY

In the first volume of Flowers’ YA fantasy series, a high schooler enters a fantasy realm and finds out many secrets about her and her family’s past.

Sixteen-year-old Vivienne “Vivi” Reid feels lost, and at Oakland High, she fits in nowhere. When track star Max Green invites her to a party at the prominent Silver Lake Resort, where her dad drowned nine years ago,Vivi decides to attend and try to find out any information she can about her father’s demise. But at the party, Max assaults her while on a boat. She escapes and encounters a mysterious woman underwater; soon, Vivi washes up on Dragonrider Academy’s warm sands. There, she learns to ride a wyvern named Solstice and meets her rival, Jasmine, and an 18-year-old named Killian, who guides her at the academy; Vivi and Killian become romantically involved; Solstice and Killian’s beast, Topaz, are also bonded. It is at Dragonrider Academy that Vivi learns that both she and her mother hail from a place called Avalon and have the power of goddesses. As she adjusts to life at the academy with rivals, friends, and dragons, Vivi learns that she has a mission, and along the way, she finds out the truth about her father’s death. She also discovers that her allies may not always be who they seem. Presented over seven episodes, this volume begins with Vivi’s father’s death and follows her through Dragonrider Academy as she intuits each part of her calling and, with newfound friends, pursues her destiny. Flowers weaves in multiple aspects that teen readers will find relatable, as Vivi encounters romance, struggles with feelings of not belonging, and discovers her drive to achieve. Each of these, in turn, is presented in a rousing manner, often with elements of suspense. The parts set at Dragonrider Academy would have benefited from more extensive and detailed worldbuilding regarding the academy’s culture so that readers might be able to engage more with what naïve Vivi faces. Still, the work effectively hearkens back to ancient stories, integrating themes of feminine strength and romance.

An often engaging fantasy novel that could have used more background detail.