The Enchanted April

It starts with a small newspaper advertisement: a medieval castle on the Italian Riviera, to let for the month of April, wisteria and sunshine included. Two London wives, worn thin by drizzle and dutiful marriages, impulsively answer it, and to afford the rent they recruit two strangers, a formidable widow and a beautiful socialite who is tired of being looked at. Four women who have nothing in common except exhaustion arrive at San Salvatore among the flowers.

What follows is not a plot so much as a thaw. Von Arnim watches, with sly wit and real tenderness, as sunshine, idleness, and distance from everyone's expectations quietly rearrange each woman's life. It is one of the great feel-good novels in English, funny, generous, and the perfect thing to have read to you somewhere comfortable.

At roughly 79,400 words, The Enchanted April runs about 9 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The Enchanted April is in the public domain, so the complete text is free on Project Gutenberg and LoudReader has the entire Project Gutenberg catalog built in. To listen:

1. Download LoudReader for Mac or iPhone (free, no account).
2. Search for “The Enchanted April” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

LoudReader reads with natural offline voices, so the whole book works on a plane or underground. It is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. Listening is unlimited on the free tier.