
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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Story
Jess Metcalf is perfectly content with her quiet, predictable life. But when her beloved grandmother passes away and she loses her job at the local library, Jess’ life is turned upside down. Determined to pick up the pieces, Jess decides it’s time for a new beginning. Unable to part with her grandmother’s cherished books, she packs them all up and moves to a tiny cottage in the English countryside. To her surprise, Jess discovers that she’s now the owner of an old red phone box that was left on the property.
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An entertaining read.
- By Kim Meseck on 11-10-22
By: Poppy Alexander
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The Mayfair Bookshop
- A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Eliza Knight
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.
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Perfectly Voices, Upliftingly Fun
- By Syd Young on 04-15-22
By: Eliza Knight
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Off the Wild Coast of Brittany
- By: Juliet Blackwell
- Narrated by: Hope Newhouse, Xe Sands
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Natalie Morgen made a name for herself with a memoir about overcoming her harsh childhood after finding a new life in Paris. After falling in love with a classically trained chef, they moved together to his ancestral home, a tiny fishing village off the coast of Brittany. But then Francois-Xavier breaks things off with her without warning, leaving her flat broke and in the middle of renovating the guesthouse they planned to open for business.
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Swept away by this wonderful story
- By pam g on 03-29-21
By: Juliet Blackwell
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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 Underground Library
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Ryan
- Narrated by: Fenella Woolgar
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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When the new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, finds that Bethnal Green Library isn’t the bustling hub she is expecting, she becomes determined to breathe life back into it. But can she show the men in charge that a woman is up to the task of running the library, especially when a confrontation with her past threatens to derail her?
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Storytelling excellence and historical facts wrapped into one.
- By Robin Goldin on 03-30-24
By: Jennifer Ryan
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You Belong Here Now
- A Novel
- By: Dianna Rostad
- Narrated by: Courtney Patterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Montana 1925: Three brave kids from New York board the orphan train headed west. An Irish boy who lost his whole family to Spanish flu, a tiny girl who won’t talk, and a volatile young man who desperately needs to escape Hell’s Kitchen. They are paraded on platforms across the Midwest to work-worn folks and journey countless miles, racing the sun westward. Before they reach the last rejection and stop, the kids come up with a daring plan, and they set off toward the Yellowstone River and grassy mountains where the wild horses roam.
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Disappointed with the language
- By Clara Jennings on 09-15-21
By: Dianna Rostad
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Sisters of the Resistance
- A Novel of Catherine Dior's Paris Spy Network
- By: Christine Wells
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Paris, 1944: The war is nearly over, but for members of the Resistance in occupied France, it is more dangerous than ever before. Twenty-five-year-old Gabby Foucher loathes the Nazis, though as the concierge of 10 rue Royale, she does her best to avoid conflict - unlike her bolder sister Yvette, who finds trouble at every turn.
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NOT about Catherine Dior
- By Amazoncustomer on 08-09-21
By: Christine Wells
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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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When the Moon Is Low
- A Novel
- By: Nadia Hashimi
- Narrated by: Sneha Mathan, Neil Shah
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Mahmoud’s passion for his wife, Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she’s ever known. But their happy, middle-class world implodes when their country is engulfed in war and the Taliban rises to power. Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister’s family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness.
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Unfinished?
- By James R. Hyde on 10-25-21
By: Nadia Hashimi
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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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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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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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Would they actually be friends?
- By Makenzie on 05-29-25
By: Ashton Lattimore
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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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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
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The Break-Up Book Club
- By: Wendy Wax
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Nicole Lewis, Renata Friedman, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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On paper, Jazmine, Judith, Erin, and Sara have little in common - they’re very different people leading very different lives. And yet at book club meetings in an historic carriage house turned bookstore, they bond over a shared love of reading (and more than a little wine) as well as the growing realization that their lives are not turning out like they expected.
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Audio Errors
- By Madeleine on 06-08-21
By: Wendy Wax
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.
Escape to 1919
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The women riding motorcycles and learning to fly
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Historical fiction.
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Very romantic
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Well done
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Escapist reading at it's best
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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.
The role of strong women and honest men
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I loved that the author created relatable characters without resorting to excessive violence.
Enjoyable, meaningful and delightful read
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Surprised by how much I loved it
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Engaging at every step
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