Once Upon a Christmas

Kismet Bay, Book 1

By: Dawn Brower

Narrated by: Magdy Maher/TGW Enterprise Inc

Length: 31 mins

Publisher's summary

Welcome to the town of Kismet Bay where magic and fate are a way of life....

Holly Strange is part of a large family. Her ancestors founded Kismet Bay over 200 years ago. Kismet Bay has a lot of charms and for the Stranges, it means leading them to their one true love. Christmas, and every holiday, brings out the magic of the town. It's Christmas, so anything is possible, and when she literally runs into Nicholas Bell outside the local coffee shop, her world turns upside down. Holly stopped believing she'd find love, but after that one fated meeting, she starts to believe in the power of destiny and the possibility of finding her heart's desire.

©2018 Dawn Brower (P)2019 Dawn Brower

Cute Christmas story

This is a super quick novella that is the start to the series. Very ‘Hallmark Chanel’ type story.

Needs better narration

ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS
by Dawn Brower

A very short Christmas romance/ magic tale. Seemed cute but ...........

The narration was poorly done. Magdy Maher's accent was almost too hard to listen to.



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

Story? Cute. Narration? Awful

This is a super short story. The audiobook is thirty minutes long.

I liked the story from what I could make my brain understand of it through the awful narration.

Narrator Magdy Maher should stick to narrating books in his primary language or work towards taming his accent down a little.

He should also learn how to pronounce “cocoa” in English. “Co-co” not “coke-wa”

I might give this author another try but I will definitely be researching the narration first, or will go to the kindle story.

Once Upon a Christmas

A sweet little Christmas romance. The town of Kismet Bay is a great little place where the magic can happen.

I was not fond of the narration. I had a difficult time with the narrator’s accent and mispronunciations.

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

Poor Narration Sinks the Story

I listen to a lot of audiobooks, though I've only become a convert to the audio format this year, having been a lifelong voracious reader. I've come to realize how narration can truly make or break a book, and unfortunately in this case, the choice of narrator utterly broke this book! How did the author or her people ever choose this person? The narrator is clearly not a native English speaker, and that aspect alone made this painful to listen to. He mispronounced so many words—including the hero's name, saying Nicholas like knee-COAL-ahs—and putting the emphasis on wrong words and phrases that I had a hard time following the story. I like to unwind with an audiobook at the end of my very long days as a nurse, and I don't want to have to try too hard to parse the words and their meaning because the narrator just can't say the words right. Frankly, I didn't come away with much knowledge of the story because the narration was just so bad. Yes, the heroine's last name was Strange, which apparently belongs to the founding family of Kismet Bay, and she had a prior relationship with the hero. But that's about all I took away from this because of the exceedingly poor narration, and probably, the incredible shortness of the story. At least, in this case, the brevity of the audiobook was a plus. Not recommended, unless you enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out the words—and ultimately the story—through the voice of a horrible narrator.

don't buy this

The narrator doesn't match the story at all. His accent is so thick it's hard to understand. I wouldn't recommend this title to anyone.

Hard to get through

I thought this short story was ok but the narrator took so much away from the story it was hard to really know what was going on.

The accent was a little much, The character voices were are to tell apart, and I think it was read a little to fast. I couldn't even finish it.

Nice but narration was a struggle at times

This is a short Sweet Christmas Story. The meeting of Holly and Nicholas was lovely. Very magical but the narration was a struggle. The narrator has a heavy accent and it was difficult to understand at times. Multiple replaying at times.

Not my cup of cocoa

My rating scale:
5☆ - I loved this book and it brought out true emotion in me (laughter, anger, a good cry, etc)
4☆ - I loved this book.
3☆ - I liked this book.
2☆ - I didn't really care for this book.
1☆ - I did not like this book at all and probably did not finish it.

Unfortunately DNF

I had a very hard time with understanding the narrator. I gave it 5 min and I slowed it way down and still had issues with the accent and following. I’m sure it could be a good story, but couldn’t get past the narrator.

I was given a credit in exchange for an honest review.