Spring in Hyde Park

I wasn’t expecting to fall for a Regency romance this hard—especially one that treats its heroine’s intellect with the same reverence as her gowns. Eleanor Hartwell is the kind of woman I’d want as a friend: fiercely opinionated, stubbornly independent, and refreshingly uninterested in the performative femininity of the ton. Moore grounds her in reality—Eleanor’s philosophical debates with her father feel like a real intellectual’s lifeblood, not a plot contrivance—while still letting her chafe against the suffocating expectations of marriage. The romance, when it arrives, isn’t a whirlwind of declarations but a slow, sunlit unfurling, like the opening of a rare orchid in a hothouse. Sarah Zimmerman’s narration is the secret weapon here. She nails the clipped cadence of upper-class English, making even the most biting remarks sound effortlessly aristocratic, yet she never loses Eleanor’s edge. My only quibble? The secondary characters occasionally blur together—Eleanor’s siblings, in particular, needed more distinct voices (or at least a shared trait beyond being forgettable). But Zimmerman offsets this with a production that feels like a luxury audiobook: no distracting pops or breaths, just the kind of immersive clarity that makes you forget you’re listening to headphones. By the time Eleanor and her rakish, surprisingly progressive suitor reach their final walk in the park, you’ll be hard-pressed not to sigh along with the seasonal bloom.