This novel, and this author's earlier "The Summer Before the War", nicely bookends WWI. This story, set in 1919, follows Constance Haverhill as she navigates the grief of losing 1) her mother to influenza, 2) her home, 3) the support of her brother, then 4) having to make a life for herself, with the real danger of penury looming.

Women who had been managing all matters while men were away at war were suddenly unemployed and pushed back into the home upon the men's return. The women lost their independence, including financial, and also found they could not rely on marriage as an option as so many young men had died. Consequently, these women were forced to live off of relatives' kindness or sufferance, or had to seek low paying jobs, if possible.

Constance Haverhill is one such person, who had been quite competently managing the Clivehill Estate for Lord Mercer. When the war concluded, Lady Mercer, a supposed good friend of her mother, kicked Constance out of her beloved home, and as a weak, and frankly insulting, stopgap, appointed Constance as Lady Mercer's mother Mrs. Fog's companion.

The two benefits of this change in Constance's circumstances were 1) Mrs. Fog is a lovely, kind woman, and 2) they are at a seaside resort, so the surroundings are pleasing.

One afternoon, Constance meets Poppy Wirral, a motorcycle-driving, unconventional, young, wealthy woman (and daughter of an actress), who takes an immediate liking to her. Poppy, and other young women she knows, used to deliver messages during the war, speeding about on their motorcycles. Now, they, too, find themselves deemed useless and are seen as terribly scandalous. Poppy decides that the young women can continue to use their skills, and starts a taxi service, gradually pulling Constance into the motorcycle club's activities, and giving Constance a love for travelling fast around the countryside.

Author Helen Simonson populates her novel with a variety of characters (all the non-wealthy members of the motorcycle club are charming), and shows how people are gradually picking up their lives, or finding new lives post-war, and the conflicts, both internal and external, of striking out sometimes in unexpected directions. We meet businessmen keen to take advantage of new technologies from the war, former pilots, one of whom is Poppy's brother who lost part of his leg in an accident, a German waiter who was interned during the war and just wants to live in peace, and landed gentry who see the staid customs and mores they grew up with changing faster than they'd like.

Constance meanwhile continues to look for work while forging new friendships, and falling for Poppy's brother. And though pulled into Poppy's orbit, Constance is keenly aware that Poppy has many more options available to her than Constance, or the other members of the taxi service, will ever have, thanks to her wealth. Poppy is often oblivious to her privilege, nonchalantly subverting society's expectations, and not having to worry about money. These differences are brought home repeatedly to Constance, especially when Lady Mercer descends on the resort, and causes strife in the new, relatively happy situation Constance finds herself in.

The slower pacing of this novel allows Simonson to really get us to care about her characters, and the new world they live in. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and the way Simonson so beautifully shows us the opportunities of 1919, and also the many frustrations experienced by the women of this time in England.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for my review.

This was a wonderful novel and I've been talking it up to customers ar our bookstore. It wasn't fast paced by any means and the first couple of chapters I wasn't sure .... but in the end I loved it. I enjoyed the leisurely look at the lives of those left to pick up the pieces in a post-war small coastal British town and how that impacted so many facets of their life and the restrictions and changing measure of what was allowable for women.

I loved Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and hoped this one would be as good, but I wasn't tickled in the same way. Some of the humour fell flat. But, I still enjoyed it and will handsell to my customers looking for good historical fiction.

Set in England in 1919, and written with humour and compassion, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is about the lives of women in the years following WWI. Their plight after the men return from war is real.
Constance Haverhill, a young lady who just completed accounting courses by correspondence struggles to find work, as the men returning take all of the available accounting positions. She becomes a companion to an elderly woman, Mrs. Fog, who is recovering from an illness at a posh seaside resort.
There she meets Poppy Wirral, a well to do young woman who runs a ladies motorcycle club. Poppy's friends welcome Constance into their club. While the country is now celebrating Peace the women at the club are forced to realize that the freedoms they had during the war are being taken away.
Many engaging characters in this witty and compassionate tale.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada/Doubleday for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

4.5/5 Historical fiction of a summer in an English coastal town in the months after World War One. Told from the perspective of various characters of different classes, genders and war experiences. A interesting and informative read.