The Narrowboat Summer

"Narrator Helen Lloyd's consistent pace and subtle British inflections enhance this sweet story about seizing the day with friends." (AudioFile magazine)

From the author of Meet Me at the Museum, a charming novel of second chances, about three women, one dog, and the narrowboat that brings them together.

Eve expected Sally to come festooned with suitcases and overnight bags packed with everything she owned, but she was wrong. She arrived on foot, with a rucksack and a carrier bag. “I just walked away,” she said, climbing on to the boat. Eve knew what she meant.

Meet Eve, who has left her thirty-year career to become a Free Spirit; Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children; and Anastasia, a defiantly independent narrowboat-dweller, who is suddenly landlocked and vulnerable.

Before they quite know what they’ve done, Sally and Eve agree to drive Anastasia’s narrowboat on a journey through the canals of England, as she awaits a life-saving operation. As they glide gently - and not so gently - through the countryside, the eccentricities and challenges of narrowboat life draw them inexorably together, and a tender and unforgettable story unfolds. At summer’s end, all three women must decide whether to return to the lives they left behind, or forge a new path forward.

Candid, hilarious, and uplifting, Anne Youngson's The Narrowboat Summer is a celebration of the power of friendship and new experiences to change one’s life, at any age.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

©2021 Anne Youngson (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

The growth of self knowledge and confidence.

Enjoyed the characters, and listening about blossoming friendships, support in times of adversity, and growth in self confidence. Reader is excellant.

Beautifully produced and read

As a female boater with a “slow go” trawler, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. This book for me was about women finding themselves while exploring new challenges and places. Highly recommend!

Excellent story of second chances

This sweet rambling story made me smile throughout. Adventure, new settings and situations, plus fascinating people over a broad spectrum of life stories. Never a dull moment even if it is in a slow moving boat along a map work of canals in rural England.
I loved each character along this journey and was eager to see how all these new things for each of them would turn out. It more than met my hopeful expectations.
A crazy old woman, owner and sole captain of the narrow boat #1 has a health issue, but has to take the boat for inspection to get it relicensed. Two middle aged women looking for change to happen in their lives to come together by the boat just when a decision must be made by the captain.
After quick instructions on how to operate it, they agree to take the boat 6-weeks away through a maze of canals to get it fixed while the owner goes to hospital for surgery.
The story is mostly theirs and their experiences and people they meet on the long lazy but physically active trip. At the end a multiple of decisions must be made of where each will go next.
Very satisfying. And there's a dog too, a rascally one.

Feel good and a good story, too

The Narrowboat Summer is a treat for those of us old enough to understand what we have learned about life and open to understanding what we have yet to learn. The setting is wonderful - I have traveled on English narrowboats myself - the characters well drawn, it is well paced, and offers an evolving plot that keeps one intrigued. 2 middle aged women, strangers, & fresh from momentous life changes, spontaneously take on a lengthy narrowboat trip to help it's owner, also a stranger and facing unwanted life changes. They review life, grow, change, retreat, endure ... and rediscover themselves in their shared and individual journeys. Loved it.

An original story!

This story was something completely different and the characters became real for me. It’s a story about life changes that are relatable. I throughly enjoyed the book and the narration was great.