Wild Swimming

I don’t usually go for romantic comedies with wellness retreats as backdrops—too often they feel like a thin plot stretched over a travelogue—but *Wild Swimming* won me over with its unapologetic embrace of messiness. Flic isn’t the kind of heroine who learns to love herself in 300 pages; she stumbles, she resists, and she lashes out, which made her feel human rather than a self-help convert. Bronwen Price’s narration sells it. She doesn’t soften Flic’s prickliness, which could’ve been a liability in less capable hands, but instead leans into the character’s dry humor and occasional vulnerability. The pacing feels deliberate, though I wished the trek’s challenges had been more sharply drawn—too many scenes of Flic complaining about rain instead of, say, a storm-wrecked kayak forcing her into closer quarters with a love interest. The romance itself is a slow burn that never quite flames out of control, which might frustrate readers craving a scorching heat index. Still, the quieter moments—Flic’s late-night chats with a tent-mate or her reluctant bonding with a gruff local—land hardest. The audiobook’s runtime drags slightly in the middle act, but Price’s performance keeps the energy afloat. If you’re after a romance that’s more *The Holiday* and less *Bridget Jones’s Diary*, this might be your swim lane. It’s not perfect, but it’s buoyantly imperfect in the best way.