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.'
'A magical novel, so uplifting, heartwarming, funny . . . I cannot TELL you how much I adored it! This feels as if it was written specifically to give comfort – the perfect antidote to current climes' * Marian Keyes, author of GROWN UPS * If you’re looking for a perfect holiday read, this is it * Red * A slice of sunshine in book form!... The descriptions of the island and its community are particularly gorgeous * Good Housekeeping, *Summer Reads of 2024* * 'If you’re looking for the perfect holiday read without even going on holiday, just as a much-needed escape from it all, I warmly recommend this beauty . . . Cannot wait for the next volume in the series' * Nigella Lawson * 'For anyone feeling a bit battered by life, this novel is the tonic ... It’s a book to escape into (who doesn’t want to be on a tropical island?) but it’s also a book about community ... [Segal's] descriptions of the island and its inhabitants are elegantly written, lush and vivid' * Pandora Sykes *