The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

Our group generally enjoyed The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club and found it a good, easy read.
The book concerns Constance, who is mourning the death of her parents and comes to the Meredith hotel, Hazelbourne to support a family friend, Mrs Fog, as she recovers from illness. There Constance is befriended by the effervescent Poppy Wirral who has set up a ladies’ motorcycle taxi company. In the hope of lifting her brother’s Harris’s spirits after losing a leg in an aircraft accident in the war, the ever-resourceful Poppy buys the wreck of a Sopwith Camel and persuades her dis-spirited brother to help repair it, to fly it and give lessons in it.
The book is set just after the First World War when men were returning to work after the war, women were having to relinquish the freedom that they had tasted and Britain was trying to get back to normal life.
We loved the character of Poppy, the irascible Harris, the down-to-earth Iris and both Mrs Wirral and Mrs Fog the elder stateswomen in the story. We found the crowd of characters coming in at the start a little overwhelming, but it really picked up for some with the arrival of the aircraft.
We found that there were many social issues raised such as feminism, racism and class and these were tackled with ease, subtlety and humour.
We gave this book a 'thumbs up' and would recommend to those who enjoyed a good romp and strong female characters.