Lord Livesey's Bluestocking

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at the start—*another* house party romance? But *Lord Livesey’s Bluestocking* disarmed me within chapters. Phoebe isn’t your typical bookish heroine; she’s actively *angry* about the constraints of her world, and Harrison lets her stay that way longer than most authors would dare. The romance doesn’t soften her edges; it forces Livesey to reckon with them. That said, the middle act drags slightly with one too many drawing-room confrontations that start to blend together. I found myself wishing for a subplot—anything—to break up the Phoebe-vs-Livesey tennis match. Joan Walker’s performance is *exceptional*, though not without quirks. Her Phoebe’s clipped, academic delivery is pitch-perfect, but her male voices occasionally veer into caricature, especially the secondary characters. (The duke sounds like he’s perpetually mid-sneer.) Still, her chemistry with the material elevates the audiobook above its print version. The production is clean, though I docked half a star for an oddly loud chapter transition around the 3:45 mark—jarring enough to pull me out of the story. What ultimately won me over? The ending. No grand gestures, just two flawed people choosing each other *despite* their flaws. In a genre that often prioritizes fantasy over realism, that’s refreshingly bold.