Quick Take
- Narration: Fajer Al-Kaisi handles the expanded cast and higher-stakes action of the second year at Mountainfall Academy with energy and clear character differentiation, sustaining a demanding 20-hour runtime without losing momentum.
- Themes: Coming-of-age through adversity, found family under pressure, the cost of growing power
- Mood: Propulsive and adventure-driven, with genuine emotional stakes woven through the action
- Verdict: A strong second-year installment in the Mountainfall Academy series that builds substantially on its foundations, better suited to readers who have completed year one than to those starting mid-series.
I have a soft spot for magic academy fiction when it takes its characters seriously, when the school setting is genuinely doing work rather than serving as a thin backdrop for adventure sequences with classrooms between them. Dragon’s Call, the second book in AJ Jontz’s Mountainfall Academy series, announced its intentions early: this is not a year-one warm-up anymore. The synopsis says as much outright, and the book delivers on that promise with considerably more worldbuilding, more points of view, and an urgency that the first installment was still building toward.
Aidan returns to Mountainfall Academy’s adventurers’ track expecting new spells, time with his friends, and the ongoing business of bonding with his magical beast companion. What he gets instead is an assassin, the threat of war on the horizon, and an academy whose security has become genuinely uncertain. That escalation from school story to something higher-stakes is handled with enough care that the emotional continuity of the first book doesn’t get sacrificed for spectacle. The found family dynamic, the thing that makes this genre work when it works, remains the emotional center even as the external threats grow more serious.
Our Take on Dragon’s Call
What Jontz does well in this second installment is expand the picture without losing the character focus. Reviewers consistently point to the increased worldbuilding, the additional points of view, and the more dynamic picture of the academy’s political and magical landscape as genuine improvements over year one. One reviewer noted that the series has it all: academy settings, warring factions, dragons, betrayal, coming-into-powers arcs, hints of romance, and sustained action. That list is accurate. What makes Dragon’s Call more than a competent delivery of genre expectations is the emotional groundedness that another reviewer identified: the characters are expected to act their age. The stakes are serious, but the responses to them feel like what adolescents in extraordinary circumstances might actually do, rather than what convenient heroism would require.
The team dynamic between Aidan and his companions has deepened considerably here. The misadventures and shared difficulties of second year push these relationships into a more fully tested territory, and Jontz uses the pressure to reveal character rather than just plot mechanics. By the time the major crises of the book arrive, you have spent enough time with this group that their survival matters in the way it needs to.
Why Listen to Dragon’s Call
Fajer Al-Kaisi’s narration is well matched to the material. A 20-hour fantasy audiobook demands a narrator who can sustain energy across a long runtime and keep character voices distinct enough through multiple POV shifts that the expanded perspective structure doesn’t become disorienting. Al-Kaisi manages this reliably, bringing particular life to the action sequences without letting the more reflective passages flatten into rote delivery. The audio format suits this kind of kinetic fantasy well, the pacing of a good narrator adds urgency that the eye alone sometimes has to supply from the page.
The clean content designation is worth noting for listeners managing what their younger readers are exposed to. Jontz has positioned this as appropriate for kids and adults alike, and the book delivers on that, the violence and threat are present and genuine, but the series maintains clear commitments around content that have earned it a dedicated following among parents and young adult readers looking for high fantasy that doesn’t require age-gating.
What to Watch For in Dragon’s Call
The book is emphatically a second installment, not an entry point. The world, the relationships, and the stakes all carry forward directly from Mountainfall Academy’s first year, and arriving here without that foundation would mean missing the significance of almost every character development and threat escalation. Reading or listening to book one first is not optional if you want the full experience.
At over 20 hours, the runtime is substantial. The expanded worldbuilding and multiple POV structure justify the length, but listeners who prefer tighter, faster-moving fantasy may find certain sections of the second act, where the political complexity and the academy’s internal dynamics are being mapped in more detail, slower than they’d like before the book’s final crisis arrives. The payoff is there; you have to be willing to let the world build around you.
Who Should Listen to Dragon’s Call
Listeners who finished Mountainfall Academy’s first year and found themselves immediately wanting to know what comes next will find Dragon’s Call a natural and satisfying continuation. Fans of progression fantasy and magic academy fiction, the Robyn Wideman, Pedro Urvi, or DK Holmberg readership that Jontz explicitly invites, will feel at home in the storytelling approach. Parents looking for clean high fantasy with genuine stakes and actual character development for middle-grade and young adult listeners should add this series to the list. Anyone starting from zero should go back to book one first.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Dragon’s Call work as an entry point to the Mountainfall Academy series, or is book one required?
Book one is required. The world, characters, and stakes all carry forward directly, and the significance of the second year’s challenges only registers fully if you know what the first year established. Start with the first Mountainfall Academy book before coming here.
How does the 20-hour runtime hold up, does the book earn its length, or does it feel padded?
The expanded worldbuilding and additional points of view justify much of the length, though the second act does spend significant time developing the academy’s political landscape before the main crisis accelerates. Listeners comfortable with the pace of secondary-world fantasy construction will find it rewarding; those who prefer tightly edited narratives may find the middle sections slower.
Is this series genuinely appropriate for younger listeners, or is the ‘clean teen’ designation overstated?
The designation appears accurate based on reviewer feedback. The violence and threat are present and taken seriously, but the series maintains clear content commitments. Multiple reviewers explicitly note the age-appropriate character behavior as one of the book’s strengths, not a limitation.
How does Fajer Al-Kaisi handle the expanded cast and multiple POV structure in the narration?
Well. Character differentiation is clear across the expanded cast, and Al-Kaisi maintains consistent energy through both action sequences and the quieter character-development scenes. The multiple POV structure is handled without the confusion that can sometimes arise when a narrator has to manage too many distinct voices simultaneously.
