March 18, 2024
Simonson (The Summer Before the War) delivers a thoughtful and witty tale of British men and women adjusting to a new normal after WWI. Spunky and observant Constance Haverhill worked as an estate manager during the war. Now, she’s reduced to serving temporarily as a lady’s companion for Mrs. Fog, who is recuperating from influenza in a hotel in the seaside resort town of Hazelbourne. Here, Constance meets free-spirited spendthrift Poppy Wirrall and her attractive and morose brother, Harris, who lost his leg while flying a plane in the war. Constance, timid at first, gets involved with Poppy’s effort to provide local woman with jobs as motorcycle drivers for sidecar-riding passengers. Constance even tries her hand at flying Harris’s Sopworth Camel biplane, which Poppy bought to jolt him out of his rut. While Constance’s bumpy romantic adventures with Harris form the spine of the book, Simonson neatly interweaves multiple plotlines involving the chauvinistic and condescending local gentry, the travails of a German waiter scorned because of his nationality, and the bad behavior of visiting Americans. Readers are in for a treat. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group.
April 1, 2024
Constance Haverhill is sensible and useful, but those admirable qualities aren't enough for her to live on in post-WWI England. Lady Mercer has Constance spending the summer at the Meredith Hotel in seaside Hazelbourne with her mother, Mrs. Fog, whom Constance nursed through a bout of influenza. A chance meeting in the lobby has her taking up with rebellious Poppy Wirrall, who spent the war years as a motorcycle courier and now runs a ladies taxi service with all-women drivers. Poppy's brother, Harris, lost half a leg in the war and longs to fly again. In an attempt to cheer him up, Poppy buys a decrepit Sopwith Camel and hires Harris' wartime mechanic to fix it up. Simonson (The Summer before the War, 2016) brilliantly captures the pains of a generation of young people at a crossroads in an England ravaged by war and a flu epidemic, especially of the women who kept the home front going only to be tossed aside when the men came home. Constance is a quietly lovable heroine, a woman who longs for independence but is stifled by society's expectations. The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is, by turns, heartwarming and heartbreaking, and readers will be entranced.
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