Tales of Westerford: Dragons, Knights and Kings

By: Darryl Womack

Narrated by: Troy Reich

Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

From deep within the ring of fire, burning logs, and smoldering ash, grows a tale of an adventurous boy and a magical discovery.

Nat is a young boy who lives with his family in Sutter, a small village in the Kingdom of Westerford. Like all children his age, Nat loves to play "knights" with his friends. He dreams of one day becoming a knight himself and serving the noble King Edgar. Nat's other favorite activity is exploring the nearby forest where, one day, he, quite literally, stumbles upon a giant egg.

When the egg finally hatches, so does a series of events that leads to the fulfillment of Nat's wildest dreams. This is the story of two young friends who take on adventures to save the kingdom. With his best friend, Danby, by his side what could possibly go wrong?

The Tales of Westerford: Dragons, Knights and Kings is a collection of stories born in the campfire tradition and meant to be shared aloud with family and friends. Watch as the flames come to life before the children's eyes with the adventures of Nat and Danby and the Knights and Kings of Westerford.

©2016 Darryl Womack (P)2017 Darryl Womack

Reminiscent of Fairy Tales

Imagine you’re ten years old, playing in the woods when you stumble upon an egg. You can’t tell what type of egg it is. So you wait for it to hatch. This is what happened to Nat. When the egg did hatch, Nat got the surprise of his life. It was a dragon’s egg. He names the dragon Danby and the two soon become best friends.

The Tales Of Westerford: Dragons, Knights, and Kings is a collection of stories all told from Nat’s perspective. The title really tells you everything you need to know. The stories are reminiscent of fairy tales in the sense that they are pretty simplistic but they do have a lesson behind them. For me, this was a pretty light book. It is only a little over 5 hours long and I didn’t have to think very much about what was going on. A little bit predictable. That being said, I feel like I need a book like that every once in a while and it was enjoyable for the most part. I do wish that we had seen a little bit more of some of the characters. But as the stories are all from Nat’s perspective, I guess it is only natural that we see more of him than anyone else.

The narrator, Troy Reich, did an okay job. Overall he kept my attention and I could tell the different characters apart. But I really didn’t feel any emotion in the narration. There are some audiobooks that can pull at your emotions from the narration. This book did not do that for me. There were no issues with the production; no hisses, pops, or anything like that.

I think this is a good book if you need a relaxing listen or maybe for a young adult reader who is reading fantasy for the first time. If you are looking for an epic fantasy read or something with a lot of plot twists, this probably isn’t the book for you. To me, The Tales Of Westerford feels more like a story treatment that could be fleshed out into a longer novel. The potential is definitely there for a longer, more in-depth story. Overall, I’d say The Tales of Westerford: Dragons, Knights, and Kings is a decent book but nothing that hasn’t been told before.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author/narrator/publisher.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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