Miss Benson's Beetle Audiobook By Rachel Joyce cover art

Miss Benson's Beetle

A Novel

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Miss Benson's Beetle

By: Rachel Joyce
Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.25

Buy for $20.25

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

National best seller

“A beautifully written, extraordinary quest in which two ordinary, overlooked women embark on an unlikely scientific expedition to the South Seas.” (Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand)

From the best-selling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry comes an uplifting, irresistible novel about two women on a life-changing adventure where they must risk everything, break all the rules, and discover their best selves - together.

She’s going too far to go it alone.

It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may not exist - the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind. Fun-loving Enid Pretty in her tight-fitting pink suit and pom-pom sandals seems to attract trouble wherever she goes. But together, these two British women find themselves drawn into a cross-ocean adventure that exceeds all expectations and delivers something neither of them expected to find: the transformative power of friendship.

Praise for Miss Benson's Beetle:

“A hilarious jaunt into the wilderness of women’s friendship and the triumph of outrageous dreams.” (Kirkus Reviews)

©2020 Rachel Joyce (P)2020 Random House Audio
Fiction Friendship Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction Feel-Good Witty Funny Heartfelt Inspiring
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

“[Miss Benson’s Beetle] feels larger than Joyce’s other books—more expansive, swashbuckling, a wild adventure. It is the best so far of her novels, and the most inspiring. . . . At the heart of the story is the slow, unlikely friendship that builds between the two women and how that friendship enables them both to grow stronger, more capable and more self-reliant. . . . There is resilience, there is redemption, and there is beauty—great beauty.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“I fell in love with the unlikely friendship between two wildly different women—their devotion to each other as they trek up and down mountains in someplace called New Caledonia is a hysterical delight. This novel made me realize how hungry I am for stories about women loving each other into being their best selves.”—Ann Napolitano, author of Dear Edward

Miss Benson’s Beetle is a pure joyride. Sweet, witty, poignant, filled with intrigue and unlikely friendship, it’s a perfect escape. I loved it.”—Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours and The Book of Lost Friends