With high school finished for the summer, Nick looks forward to visiting his aunt and uncle in New Jersey. What awaits him is a heat wave like no other—and the last two Greywing dragons on the planet. Nick has an innate ability to train horses but will he be able to translate his amazing skill to these teenage dragons?
The steaming soup of mid-summer heats up tempers and tests resolve as Nick vies with fellow trainers, Keith and Maxie, for mastery over their new charges. The dragons, Nikita and Michael, typical teenagers themselves, have other ideas.
Nick treads a torturous path through a minefield of competing demands: the expectations of his aunt and uncle, recalcitrant horses, the Academy’s female students and the overwhelming egos of Nikita and Michael. One small mistake erupts into a conflagration that hurls everyone into a race against time and the overwhelming forces of nature.
Genre: JUVENILE FICTION / General2nd Place
National Forward Literature Awards
Teen/Young Adult
Currently on Kindle Select/KU
Review rating 4.3 out of 5.
Nick braced for what he knew was coming. Michael stood poised to lunge after his femme, the long elegant neck arched with anxiety. His cobalt blue eyes, ringed with a pearlescent green, flashed concern as Nikita sauntered away from the tractor trailer, meekly following Maxie toward the indoor. As Michael lunged, neck extended, Nick flipped the halter over his snout, clipping the latch at the last second. Michael landed with a thud and spun to face down his attacker.
AnnaLise moaned, "Be careful, Nick. He's upset and thinks you are the poacher between him and his femme."
"I know, Aunt Anna. It's okay."
Nick fingered the leather handhold on the chain lead, tugging gently to pull Michael's head toward him. The male's nostrils distended ominously, his lungs filling with oxygen, rapidly circulating through oversized arteries, ready to fuel the gland that acted like an oxyacetylene torch. Nick attempted to move to a neutral position on the male's shoulder but Michael circled, following Nick's every movement with precision and contempt.
"Uncle Dietrich? You better get everybody behind the rig. This bad boy and I have a little dance to do." Nick nodded confidently to the group, now scurrying to keep the tractor trailer as a bunker between the agitated dragon and themselves.
Will called out, "Nick, keep him circling. Don't let him get a straight-line bead on you. Remember that the flame comes out as a cone. You've got to avoid that."
Nick nodded, never taking his eyes off the menacing male. "Okay, buster. You wanna dance? Let's do it."
