Willow’s father always told her that she had magic inside of her. It wasn’t until he disappeared that she discovers he meant that literally… secret side—a side that includes dragons to train and magic spells to learn.
Thrust into a world her Dragon Heart father had always been forced to hide from her, Willow struggles to prove herself worthy of his legacy. She learns to ride a dragon and use a magic ring, but her biggest challenge lies ahead: when a practice mission goes horribly wrong, it’s up to Willow to save one of her fellow Dragon Heart students. She rises to the challenge, and discovers in the process that her father might still be alive after all… and there’s more to his disappearance than any of the Dragon Heart Agents could have ever imagined.
Willow’s Dark Discovery is the first book in D.J. DuMont’s Dragon Heart Academy of Magic series.
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Willow Ember’s father, a renowned CIA agent and Scientist, is captured in a raid and presumed dead; her mother sends her away to a boarding school to attend Birch Point Academy 541 days after his absence. Willow felt like she was being exiled to the wilderness! The only good thing was no one here knew her father, so there would be no questions asked. She was picked up at the airport along with 4 other students and quickly fell asleep on the 2-hour drive. She was suddenly awakened when the van swerved from side to side and another van blocked the road in the middle of a forest. The other students jumped out and two ran with Willow into the woods. Hearing screams back at the road, Willow turned around to go back and help. These people might have been after her because of her father, and she didn’t want anyone else hurt. Men were pulling Sylvie into their van, but something happened as Willow ran toward them – they let Sylvie go, turned, and hopped back into their van, driving off at high speed! Sylvie and Anjali, their driver, both stopped screaming and smiled? She had just passed her first test and they welcomed her to The Dragon Heart Academy of Magic!
The school campus was very impressive, but Willow was so confused and just wanted to go home. Anjali took her on a lengthy walk to her office to explain that this part of the school was a secret CIA training program while the other part was just a regular school. They train promising Dragon Hearts – like Willow – to use magic and work with dragons. Then the Dragon Hearts work with the CIA to protect the United States’ interests both at home and abroad.
The other trainees were Sylvie Asher, Cara Moss, and Locke Nash. The four of them went to a dinner where they were given their magic rings in a cauldron ceremony. Locke and Sylvie got red stones for intelligence; Cara got a sapphire for courage; and Willow was embarrassed when she got an amethyst for loyalty, figuring it was the least important of the three possibilities. Anjali told her it was the highest honor, but when Willow asked for examples of those who wore the amethyst, there were none – Willow was the first out of hundreds of agents to receive the amethyst! They visited the dragons and one was lying on the ground with sad eyes. It turned out to be her father’s dragon, Clove. When Willow asked Sam, who looked after the dragons, about the choosing, she was told the dragons pick their riders. Willow hoped Clove would pick her, but Sam said that would not happen. He was uncomfortable, but finally told her a dragon would not pick another rider as long as its rider was still alive! Was her father still alive?
This was an intriguing story that grabs the reader at the start and the action increases as the story line unfolds. Willow feels totally unprepared for her new life. Her father, who would have guided her was missing, presumed dead. Her mother knew nothing of her husband’s work as a Dragon Heart. So everything for Willow was strange. She feels inferior to the others, when she actually is extremely powerful – she just doesn’t know it. Grab your copy and soak up the magic in this story as Willow and her friends train for their greatest adventure as Dragon riders!