
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Fiona Hardingham
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Helen Simonson
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By:
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Helen Simonson
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Historical fiction of the highest order . . . an absolute joy of a book, warm and romantic, and with so much to say about the lives of women in the years following World War I.”—Ann Napolitano, bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
A timeless comedy of manners—refreshing as a summer breeze and bracing as the British seaside—about a generation of young women facing the seismic changes brought on by war and dreaming of the boundless possibilities of their future, from the bestselling author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
A PARADE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
It is the summer of 1919, and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.
Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.
Whip-smart and utterly transportive, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is historical fiction of the highest order: an unforgettable coming-of-age story, a tender romance, and a portrait of a nation on the brink of change.
©2024 Helen Simonson (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Simonson expertly probes cultural tensions hindering her characters’ efforts at post-war reinvention, including the immense human cost of combat, the hypocrisy of letting women work during wartime but not afterward.”—Shelf Awareness
“Simonson knows a good era when she sees one, so Hazelbourne is set in a seaside town just after World War I, with romance and women chafing under the constraints of society after war showed them what is possible when they’re given the chance.”—Parade
“The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is an absolute joy of a book. Warm and romantic, it also has so much to say about the lives of women in the years following World War I. This is historical fiction of the highest order—pleasurable and smart.”—Ann Napolitano, bestselling author of Hello Beautiful
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How the Penguins Saved Veronica
- By: Hazel Prior
- Narrated by: Helen Lloyd, Andrew Fallaize, Mandy Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Eighty-five-year-old Veronica McCreedy is estranged from her family and wants to find a worthwhile cause to which to leave her fortune. When she sees a documentary about penguins being studied in Antarctica, she tells the scientists she's coming to visit - and won't take no for an answer. Shortly after arriving, she convinces the reluctant team to rescue an orphaned baby penguin. He becomes part of life at the base, and Veronica's closed heart starts to open.
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A mostly pleasant story
- By Kristyn Rose on 02-28-21
By: Hazel Prior
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Last Summer at the Golden Hotel
- By: Elyssa Friedland
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In its heyday, The Golden Hotel was the crown jewel of the hotter-than-hot Catskills vacation scene. For more than sixty years, the Goldman and Weingold families - best friends and business partners - have presided over this glamorous resort which served as a second home for well-heeled guests and celebrities. But the Catskills are not what they used to be - and neither is the relationship between the Goldmans and the Weingolds.
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Very frustrating and confusing
- By kendallalycia on 05-26-21
By: Elyssa Friedland
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The Summer Before the War
- A Novel
- By: Helen Simonson
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England's brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha's husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won't come to anything.
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Divine Book Club Listening
- By Gillian on 03-24-16
By: Helen Simonson
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The Restoration of Celia Fairchild
- A Novel
- By: Marie Bostwick
- Narrated by: Sarah Naughton
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Celia Fairchild, known as advice columnist "Dear Calpurnia", has insight into everybody’s problems—except her own. Still bruised by the end of a marriage she thought was her last chance to create a family, Celia receives an unexpected answer to a “Dear Birthmother” letter. Celia throws herself into proving she’s a perfect adoptive mother material—with a stable home and income—only to lose her job. Her one option: sell the Charleston house left to her by her recently departed, estranged Aunt Calpurnia.
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Honestly have no idea how people enjoyed this
- By Kelly Albury on 10-11-21
By: Marie Bostwick
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Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
- A Novel
- By: Helen Simonson
- Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major Pettigrew is one of the most indelible characters in contemporary fiction, and from the very first page of this remarkable novel he will steal your heart.
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Charming book with an excellent narrator
- By jc on 03-05-10
By: Helen Simonson
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Counting Lost Stars
- A Novel
- By: Kim van Alkemade
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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1960, New York City: College student Rita Klein is a pioneering woman in the new field of computer programming—until she unexpectedly becomes pregnant. At the Hudson Home for Unwed Mothers, social workers pressure her into surrendering her baby for adoption. Rita is struggling to get on with her life when she meets Jacob Nassy, a charming yet troubled man from the Netherlands who is traumatized by his childhood experience of being separated from his mother during the Holocaust.
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My kind of book
- By diane on 01-03-25
By: Kim van Alkemade
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The Nature of Fragile Things
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins, Jason Culp
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.
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The Nature of Fragile Things is a 5 star listen!
- By Kathy… send to help my husband to sleep!! on 02-04-21
By: Susan Meissner
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The Dictionary of Lost Words
- A Novel
- By: Pip Williams
- Narrated by: Pippa Bennett-Warner
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
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Enchanted
- By Lulu Can on 04-07-21
By: Pip Williams
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The Lions of Fifth Avenue
- A Novel
- By: Fiona Davis
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett, Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life - her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open.
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Exhilarating
- By Joanna Butler on 08-20-20
By: Fiona Davis
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All We Were Promised
- A Novel
- By: Ashton Lattimore
- Narrated by: Shayna Small, Ashton Lattimore
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Philadelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. After all, Philadelphia is supposed to be the birthplace of American liberty. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they both attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives.
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Simply Amazing!
- By TMJ on 04-19-25
By: Ashton Lattimore
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The Floating Feldmans
- By: Elyssa Friedland
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Sink or swim. Or at least that's what Annette Feldman tells herself when she books a cruise for her entire family. It's been over a decade since the Feldman clan has spent more than twenty-four hours under the same roof, but Annette is determined to celebrate her 70th birthday the right way. Just this once, they are going to behave like an actual family. Too bad her kids didn't get the memo.
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Definitely a fun listen!
- By Sandy Edwards on 08-09-19
By: Elyssa Friedland
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Flying Solo
- A Novel
- By: Linda Holmes
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Smarting from her recently canceled wedding and about to turn forty, Laurie Sassalyn returns to her Maine hometown of Calcasset to handle the estate of her great-aunt Dot, a spirited adventurer who lived to be ninety-three. Alongside boxes of Polaroids and pottery, a mysterious wooden duck shows up at the bottom of a cedar chest. Laurie’s curiosity is piqued, especially after she finds a love letter to the never-married Dot that ends with the line “And anyway, if you’re ever desperate, there are always ducks, darling.”
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Refreshingly smart, funny and heartfelt
- By Stella G. Schwartz on 06-18-22
By: Linda Holmes
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The Beach Trap
- By: Ali Brady
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Imani Jade Powers
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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When 12-year-olds Kat Steiner and Blake O’Neill meet at Camp Chickawah, they have an instant connection. But everything falls apart when they learn they’re not just best friends—they’re also half sisters. Confused and betrayed, the girls break off all contact. Fifteen years later, when their father dies suddenly, Kat and Blake discover he’s left them a joint inheritance: the family beach house in Destin, Florida. The two sisters are immediately at odds. Blake wants to sell the house, while Kat is desperate to hold on to the place where she lived so many happy memories.
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Shallow story w/Boyfriend reading Toxic Masculinity
- By TC on 08-01-23
By: Ali Brady
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Falling Home
- A Falling Home Novel
- By: Karen White
- Narrated by: Lyssa Browne
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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At 20, Cassie Madison left her hometown of Walton, Georgia, for New York City, where she has reinvented herself - from losing herself in her career to squashing her accent. But one night a single phone call brings back everything she's tried to forget. She hasn't spoken to her sister since Harriet stole Cassie's fiancé and married him. But now Harriet's on the line with news that their father is dying. As she makes the trip back, the only thing that frightens Cassie more than losing her father is seeing Harriet and the family that should have been hers.
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Another great book by Karen White
- By Kindle Customer on 02-01-21
By: Karen White
What listeners say about The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
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- F Finley
- 05-31-24
Escape to 1919
Keeps you moving from one character to the next while the plot materializes.
Lots of characters all with beauty and quirkiness. At the end I am a little sad since I want to know what each of them did with their lives.
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- Cherokee
- 06-29-24
The women riding motorcycles and learning to fly
I liked the story. It had plenty of twists and turns and kept me wanting to hear more. I liked the ending but was sorry when the book was finished!
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- Danielle Mangano
- 02-02-25
Historical fiction.
Loved the story strong resilience and women empowerment. We have come a long way from this time
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- Tiger
- 05-03-25
Very romantic
The story has a lot of charm, wit and suspense. Really nasty, snobby villains. Overall Constance is very likable except for the fact that she complains a bit too much to everyone about her circumstances. It seems like she is trying to make everyone feel uncomfortable and sorry for her, which doesn’t align with the rest of her personality. I wish more of those worries about how poor she is were kept as internal thoughts.
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- lyjo
- 07-31-24
Well done
Novel set after WW1. Well written concerning the class struggles after the war where women had worked and still needed jobs after and the upper classes had to struggle with the social changes affecting their previously privileged lifestyle. Think Downton Abbey in novel and you will enjoy it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Vger
- 09-04-24
Escapist reading at it's best
A superb book about residents in a seaside town in England following WWI. The story is dazzling in conveying the social and cultural norms of the times before women's equal standing in the country through the lens of some swashbuckling women operating a motorcycle taxi service. There are many subplots with both conformists and nonconformists adapting to changing times in the early 20th century. The narrator is excellent, able to voice discerning characters uniquely. I didn't want this book to read.
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- Therese D. Bernbach
- 12-13-24
The role of strong women and honest men
It was interesting to find out about the history in England of men & women in the aftermath of WWII.
The social mores among the British classes were changing. Men and women struggled to retain their dignity in the face traditional responses to changed circumstances.
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- Mary
- 02-12-25
Enjoyable, meaningful and delightful read
The characters grew on me, the social setting of post WW1 was well depicted.
I loved that the author created relatable characters without resorting to excessive violence.
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- Sarah S.
- 03-21-25
Surprised by how much I loved it
My husband picked out this book for me at a little bookstore we had never been to before. It was a “staff pick” in the front window and its cover was unique and striking. He picked it up and we read the description together, both individually deciding our home library needed this book. I usually read nonfiction—memoirs and such—so this book was a bit out of my norm. But it’s cast of characters, premise, and cover, thoroughly intrigued me, so I started reading it while my daughter napped one day. I couldn’t put it down and purchased the audiobook so I could easily finish it and not neglect my family or schoolwork. This is the kind of story that I believe will stay with me for a while, characters that I will think of frequently and already miss. I loved the writing style and underlying themes, so I will definitely read every other book by Helen Simonson. If you want a book that’s cozy but still teaches you about England in 1919, feminism, classism, the work after WW1, and the importance of strength of character, look no further.
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- Starr
- 10-21-24
Engaging at every step
Loved this book! Felt a bit like a post WW I Jane Austen novel. Touched on many social issues while keeping you engaged in the story throughout.
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1 person found this helpful