Island Calling

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Can your mother really know you better than you know yourself?
On remote Tuga de Oro, vet Charlotte Walker has been taken into the islander’s 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.

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 a joyous novel about mothers and daughters; about holding on and letting go.

PRAISE FOR WELCOME TO GLORIOUS TUGA:

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


© Francesca Segal 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

'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

User Reviews

Book 4.0
Narration 5.0
4.0
5.0
Erik Firmlys Holisti 10/07/2025

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