The Princess Who Forgot She Was Beautiful

The Harry Ferguson Chronicles, Book 1

De: William David Ellis

Narrado por: KC Wayman

Harry Ferguson has a problem. Dragons have blown into his sleepy East Texas town.

And it’s all his fault.

Now here’s what happened....

It is summertime in a small town in Texas. To keep the children of the community entertained, the town librarian has asked her father to come and tell them a story. The old man, known as Hank, is a bit nervous but agrees. Hank begins to tell his mystical fairy tale about a young boy, a princess, a talking sword, and an evil dragon. Hank is a masterful storyteller. In no time at all, he captures the hearts and imaginations of the children and the adults gathered in the library.

In the crowd, there is one precocious and curious little girl who stands out among the rest. Little Sarah seems to immediately become one with the story. Hank and Sarah connect in a peculiar way; somehow Sarah knows what’s going to happen in the story before Hank tells it. As the story unfolds, life in the small town becomes really strange. The fairy tale and the real world begin to meld. As the plot action rises, the creepy eeriness does as well - something is wrong, bizarrely wrong. There are surprises, twists, and turns as the evil dragon is revealed and raises his ugly head! “There are more things we don’t know than we do know”. But nothing compares to the shocking ending.

Warning: Clean, romantic content, strong female characters who love their men and fight and die side by side with them. You will laugh and possibly snort. Do not listen to this book while eating or drinking unless you bring something to clean up. It has Texans with PhDs - they talk funny but are smart - country Texans cast in a balanced light who cuss or come a vowel short thereof (not real bad), pray, and fight for each other, children at risk of demonic rituals, angels in overalls, grandpas that spoil their granddaughters, sword violence, old pickup trucks, and coming in future books in the series, but not yet, sentient dogs and Sasquatches with degrees in chemistry.

©2018 William David Ellis (P)2019 William David Ellis

Great Story! Great Narration.

A unique storyline that hasn't been done a hundred times over. I previously read this book and love the way the narrator did the children's voices, lol. This story has a lost romance, time jumps, action, and a dragon. A boy, who becomes an old man in a time not his own, is still somewhat bumbling his way through the world. His good heart is the one thing that keeps him going in the right direction and will help him save him from evil. Great story!

Enchanting Story

I received this book for free. I am voluntarily posting this review and all opinions expressed herein are my own.

Starting with the cover - it is beautiful - a sword against starry night sky. This book would be good for the entire family [warning for younger children - there are several deaths and some language issues]. I love how this book starts as a storytelling hour at the library and turns into a grand adventure for all involved. I don't want to give anything away as part of the magic of this story is discovering the events as they unfold. There's humor, action, mystery, and plot twists which will keep you guessing in this fast-moving story. There is a cliffhanger ending - which normally would bother me - but I found this story to be so enchanting and engaging that I am looking forward to the next book. This book draws you in and keeps you engaged throughout. Highly recommend!

The narrator, KC Wayman, has a tenor voice which lends itself perfectly to telling a story. His voice gathers you in as you sit back and enjoy this entertaining tale.

Not a Kid's Book

For the first 9 chapters I thought this would be a good book to read to my 5-yr old daughter. Then chapter 10 happened (which I felt was done REALLY well)... and then similar things kept happening... and the ending was especially brutal. I'm still interested to know the rest of the story, but be warned that this book includes death of children, and particularly bad (although thankfully not very descriptive) manners of death too, most of which I felt was unnecessary. I didn't like how the book abruptly ended, and the chapter 1 of Book 2 that was included with the Audible version was about a new character, so didn't shed any light on anything. I felt like the book needed AT LEAST another chapter. (This, along with the amount of child death, is the reason for my overall 3 star rating.)

As far as the story goes, I really liked it. This is a very unique story in that it takes place in East Texas (which is very close to where I live, btw), but it has ancient dragons and magic and whatnot. If you're turned off by people praying, quoting the Bible, etc, you will probably be annoyed, but it was fine with me personally. The author should consider adding some contractions as a lot of the dialogue sounded unnatural without them, but it was an easy thing to overlook. (I think listening to the audio version made this more noticeable than if I had been reading a print version.)

All in all, I would recommend this book to some people, and not to others. I'm interested enough to check out Book 2 whenever it pops up on Audible, if that tells you anything.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Great Story, Great Narrator

This is a fantastic blend of fairy tale, suspenseful adventure, and humor. I never knew where it would go next. The narrator is excellent and reads likes a master storyteller, which is the perfect tone for this moving and entertaining tale.

Great writing empowered by a great narrator

This story is remarkable! It starts out so innocently then begins to bend. It tight ropes temptation and then displays the highest integrity and honor. It restores my faith in storytelling. A unique and provocative and restorative work. I love it. I also read some of the other reviews and was amazed by their criticism. Were we listening to the same book? I think not! This is a really good work!