Free book extract: summer between covers
a whole made-up island!
Here’s what I wrote about Francesca Segal’s utterly wonderful Welcome to Glorious Tuga when it first came out:
The summeriest summer read here: pure feelgood joy, but clever, funny and beautifully written - it is just charming from start to finish. A zoologist called Charlotte goes off to a tiny tropical island to study some special endangered tortoises for a year, but she has an ulterior motive (clue: she’s never met her dad). The fictional island of Tuga is so persuasively and gorgeously described, as are its inhabitants, that you feel sure it’s real. There’s a man, obviously, and the man has a fiancée. Sunshine in book form - a lovely read.
And then there’s the sequel, Island Calling, which if anything is even better. Here’s what I wrote when it came out in hardback last year:
Welcome To Glorious Tuga is the first book and Island Calling is the sequel - it’s going to be a trilogy. 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, complete with geography, argot, customs, foods, behaviours, celebrations, rituals - the lot. The result is deeply satisfying, engrossing, and utterly charming. It’s about Charlotte, a vet, who has come to the island to study special and endangered tortoises. She’s also looking for her birth father, who she suspects is from Tuga. I’m not going to say anything about the second book because of spoilers - but do yourself a favour and read these, whether you’re going away or not: they are summer between covers.
Island Calling is out in paperback today. I recommend it so highly (I’d read WTGT first - it’s not technically essential, but it’s so much fun, the sort of book you live in and are really sad to leave behind. If you’re going on holiday, stick both books in your suitcase and you’re sorted).
All this to say: we have an extract! Enjoy. All you need to know before you start reading is that FFA stands for From Far Away, which is what the islanders call visitors like Charlotte (there to do her research into endangered gold coin tortoises), that fizzycan is soda, that there is romantic awkwardness with Dan, and that Levi is very handsome.
And here’s the link to the book again.
Thank you to Francesca and to her publishers! Have a lovely Thursday, do please really kindly leave this post a ❤️ if you enjoyed it, thank you, and I’ll be back on Saturday with a weekend supplement for paid subscribers.
I have more lovingly handpicked book extracts up my sleeve - there will be another next week. But do read Island Calling, if you haven’t already - it couldn’t be more enjoyable if it tried. Watch it wend its way up the bestseller chart!
PS Two more summer-read ready book extracts:
Ordering the first one of the trilogy now. What a gorgeous cover!
I read Welcome to Glorious Tuga last year, on your recommendation. I'm now waiting for Island Calling to be delivered. I finished The Names yesterday so my next book is sorted!!