Island Calling

This novel has everything: lovely writing, a tropical setting, a whole cleverly and perfectly invented world, highly romantic romance, a quest, a fully-realised cast of characters, excellent jokes, and a huge amount of heart. What more could you want? * India Knight *
‘A rich and memorable cast in a brilliantly imagined landscape. ISLAND CALLING is every bit as charming and absorbing as Welcome to Glorious Tuga, with the added bonus of a new, entirely believably parental relationship. A joy’ * Nick Hornby *
Light and shade mingle in a narrative that is witty, soulful and escapist in all the right ways * Mail on Sunday *
[Segal] has written something almost defiantly classical: shapely, generous, intricately resolved… The brilliance of Island Calling is that it knows escape is a fiction and offers that fiction, precisely, as solace * Observer *
‘What I enjoy most about Island Calling is how immersive it is. I felt like I was hiking through this lush island with Charlotte … For all the joy of this tiny island, it is a community thrumming with secrets. … If there is an ultimate holiday read, this is it’ * Pandora Sykes *
‘An utter joy’ * Red *
This second book is just as irresistible as the first, offering a sharp dissection of mother-daughter bonds… Wise, funny and very romantic * i *
‘Absolutely blissful … Get both [books in the series]: I’ll eat my hat if you don’t love them’ * India Knight, Sunday Times *
Dopamine in book form! * Red, Books of the Year *
‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather read if I were in proximity to sand and sea (though it would be so cheering in the depths of winter too). Francesca Segal has, incredibly, invented a whole island … The result is deeply satisfying, engrossing, and utterly charming. … Do yourself a favour and read these [WELCOME TO GLORIOUS TUGA and ISLAND CALLING], whether you’re going away or not: they are summer between covers’ * India Knight *

Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer and journalist. She is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, The Innocents (2012) and The Awkward Age (2017), and a memoir of NICU motherhood, Mother Ship (2019). Her writing has won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award, a Betty Trask Award, and been longlisted for the Women’s Prize.

Segal says- ‘Writing this novel was a deliberate reaching out for joy. The world can feel very bleak, and bringing Tuga to life became my own magical portal to wide beaches, crystal seas, endless sunshine, and most vitally, to a warm, eccentric community of good people mostly just trying to do their best. Tuga de Oro was a refuge for its first settlers, and I hope will offer refuge for readers, too.’

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