Love's Call

Love's Magic, Book 5

By: Betty McLain

Narrated by: Carolyn Kashner

Length: 3 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Distance, bank robbers, bureaucracy? No problem for this school teacher. She won’t let anything get in her way when she answers love’s call.

When Dora heard the art gallery was displaying a mirror that could show a girl her true love, she had to see for herself. Looking at its reflective surface, she learned the claims where true. The image in the glass was not her own.

Rafe was out to dinner with his family, when he looked over at a mirror, and saw a woman staring back. Even more surprising was the voice he heard as he approached the reflection. She claimed to be his true love, but he didn’t believe in love.

Can Dora convince Rafe to take a chance on someone he’s never actually met, or will Rafe never answer love’s call?

©2019 Betty McLain (P)2020 Betty McLain

Are these adults or teens

I may have had too high of expectations for this book. The characters are adults although in their early 20s. The magic mirror that shows your true love is a fun idea. Execution was stiff. The way the narrator told the story things felt awkward. There was instalove. With the main characters name being Dora, I kept flashing to Dora the Explorer. Dora was just too good and nice to be believed. Rafe said in the mirror that he didn’t believe in true love but then fell instantly upon meeting Dora.
It was just a bit too sweet for me.

Great premise for a story ...

just wish she had a better narrator. Hate having a book READ to me with no inflections and different "voices" for different characters. Loved the story line and felt it was very original. Rather just read the book myself next time and I will see if she has others!

Magic To Bring Love

Dora and Rafe one magic mirror, will it show true love. Cute story, given audio for my voluntary review and my honest opinion

Cute story

Love’s Call is another cute story in the Love’s Magic series. The special mirror dies it’s magic again. I’d say this could be a for any age, but it does have a few words in it. The narrator gave a nice performance.

Lovely story

Dora see Rafe through a magical mirror and then discovers his family has been friends with hers for years. Dora fm sets out to meet Rafe and she comes into contact with a lot of people she eventually helps. Dora is a breath of fresh air for a heroine she gets things done. Loved the set up for the next book as well. Can't wait to read more from this author in the future.

Domineering female lead

While I truly appreciate a strong female lead, Dora was outrageously domineering, to the extent that it was hard to like her. It's true that her heart was in the right place, but the whole story had more of a fairy tale quality. Everything Dora wanted, she got, whether it was reasonable or not. Everyone bowed down to her wishes, even when they were contrary to their own. For example, she insisted that a breastfeeding mom feed her child formula because the mom was dehydrated. Okay... I can see perhaps supplementing nursing with formula. But suddenly, formula was the only food for the child. Lies, half-truths and omissions were all par for the course as Dora controlled the narrative and the town.

I did like that her heart was in the right place. I don't believe she was trying to be uncompromising or manipulative. She was truly trying to help, and she did shake up a community to the extent that they started helping each other again, as they should have been doing all along. I just wish that Dora's methods were a bit less heavy-handed.

As for the love story, we never really learn much about Rafe even though he's completely smitten with what he sees in Dora. And since their love was ordained by a magic mirror, there was no reason to doubt his feelings. But it still would have been nice to see that grow and develop as they got to know one another instead of going from zero to sixty in 30 seconds flat.

Personally, I found the narrator's delivery to be a bit halting and stilted, and considered more than once discontinuing listening. But since it was a short audiobook, I kept going.

Not for me

The magic mirror idea was cute but that was about it. The book just seemed to juvenile for me. There was so much he said this and she said that instead of just letting the story flow... I mean, we already knew who was talking. They referred to their parents most of the time by for 1st name and The Judge. Just wasn't for me.