Rating: 1.5/5 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 There have always been dragons, and there have always been dragon slayers to slay said dragons. Owen is sixteen years old and in training to be a dragon slayer like his famous aunt and dad. After moving to a small town named Trondheim, he bumps into a girl named Siobhan who he quickly befriends. After Owen's family learns that Siobhan loves music and is extremely proficient in it, they ask her to be Owen's bard. Once up a time, every dragon slayer had a bard to compose songs to record what has happened, and they would like to bring that tradition back. For some reason, more and more dragons are attacking Trondheim. Siobhan, Owen, and a few others seek to defend the town while also root out the source of the problem. 
 First off, I hadn't realized that I've read another of E.K. Johnston's books already, A Thousand Nights, until I had already began to read this. I haven't liked either of her books that I read. I wouldn't have picked this one up if it weren't for the book club I'm in at school. Anyway, I had a lot of issues with this book. First off, I found the timeline all over the place. Siobhan speaks about what's happening right now, mentions something that happened once before, then goes back to explain that thing. Then she speaks about something that "happened" but is actually a spruced up version of what really happened, then goes on to say what really happened. There are also times when Siobhan tells a story, says it doesn't happen, then doesn't say what actually did happen. It was quite messy. 
 Unfortunately, I found this extremely boring. It was a book where dragons have always existed and featured an alternate history, so I thought it would be an interesting adventure. There wasn't really any adventure in this. We basically lived Siobhan and Owen's everyday life, except there were some dragons thrown in. I had hoped that they would go on some epic dragon slaying quest, but the majority of the book was just seeing them go to school, talk a bit, go to Owen's house, and that's pretty much it. In between chapters there would be some "alternate history" lessons where Siobhan tells us about different wars or people or whatnot, but I just wasn't interested. There were some bits that were clever and written well, but there was just too much that was boring, to the point where I dreaded to turn the page. 
 Lastly, there was something that wasn't necessarily a problem for me since I live in Ontario, but there was a lot of mention of different places around Ontario. I found myself thinking to myself that people who don't live in Ontario might find this confusing. There are parts where Owen rapid-fire talks about different places we're never introduced to, and while I knew what he was talking about, it may be confusing or annoying to anyone else. 
 Overall, I didn't find this book to be too great. It was extremely boring for the most part, and it seemed pretty messy in spots. I expected this to be some sort of grand adventure with a bard and a dragon but it just seemed to be ordinary high school life with some dragon attacks thrown in. The writing was a bit unique but the book just overall wasn't my cup of tea. I wouldn't really recommend this to you since I found it so boring.