'Beguiling ... Segal is writing in a comic tradition that runs from Jane Austen to David Nicholls' Observer

What if your mother knows you better than you know yourself?

On remote Tuga de Oro, vet Charlotte Walker has been taken to the islanders’ hearts and, between days on the farms and nights with a new love interest, she’s content to remain in blissful retreat from her real life, in London.

Just for now, obviously.

Until real life hits the island with the force of a tropical storm: Charlotte’s mother arrives.

Lucinda Compton-Neville knows an identity crisis when she sees one, and has come to haul her daughter back on course: back to England, back to her career, back home where she belongs.

Funny, moving, and hope-filled, Island Calling is the joyous second novel in the Tuga Island Trilogy – about mothers and daughters; about holding on and letting go.


READERS LOVE ISLAND CALLING:
‘The perfect summer holiday read’
‘Thoroughly enjoyable’
‘A fabulous return to the wonderful Island of Tuga’
‘I adore all the characters’

PRAISE FOR WELCOME TO GLORIOUS TUGA:

‘A much-needed escape, I warmly recommend this beauty’ NIGELLA LAWSON
‘A magical novel, so uplifting, heartwarming, funny . . . One of my favourite books OF ALL TIME’ MARIAN KEYES
‘Brilliantly and thoroughly imagined. I didn’t want to go home’ NICK HORNBY
‘Sparkling and sophisticated’ JESSIE BURTON

'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 *
'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 *
'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* *

Francesca Segal is an award-winning writer. 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 trilogy 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.'