Books by Francesca Segal

Welcome to Glorious Tuga: A Novel

by Francesca Segal

A bighearted page-turner set on a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean about love, community, and what it means to come home
Passionate about conservation and fleeing an argument with her mother, newly qualified London vet Charlotte Walker has taken up a fellowship on the tiny South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. She can claim the best of reasons for this year in paradise—What better motivation than to save a species?—but the reality is more complex. For Charlotte has secretly come to believe that she has her own connection to this remote and eccentric community, and she is finally determined to solve the mystery that has dominated her life.
But she will have little time for any of her declared or covert investigations. She is inconveniently attracted to the new island doctor. And not only do Tuga’s tortoises need attention but so too do the island’s dogs, goats, and donkeys—not to mention the islanders themselves, determined to win Charlotte over with cake and homemade jam until she relents and becomes vet to all their animals.
A complete, vivid world unto itself, Welcome to Glorious Tuga is a bewitching combination of warmth and humor. Immersive and uplifting, it transports the reader to an island that time forgot, bringing to life a cast of flawed, loveable people, like a contemporary James Herriot beneath the coconut palms.

The Awkward Age: A Novel

by Francesca Segal

"A very smart, soulful, compelling, elegantly written domestic novel about a wedged-together family, and what can go wrong when teenage children decide they have minds (and hormones) of their own." —Nick Hornby

“A spry and accomplished comedy of manners.” —The New York Times Book Review

“They've chosen the one thing that will make our family life impossible. It's genius really, when you think about it. It's the perfect sabotage.”

Julia Alden has fallen deeply, unexpectedly in love. American obstetrician James is everything she didn't know she wanted--if only her teenage daughter, Gwen, didn't hate him so much. Uniting two households is never easy, but when Gwen turns for comfort to James's seventeen-year-old son, Nathan, the consequences will test her mother's loyalty and threaten all their fragile new happiness.

This is a moving and powerful novel about the modern family: about starting over; about love, guilt, and generosity; about building something beautiful amid the mess and complexity of what came before. It is a story about standing by the ones we love, even while they make mistakes. We would give anything to make our children happy. But how much should they ask?

The Innocents

by Francesca Segal, Richard Barre, Lili Peloquin

When a flash flood uncovers the grave of seven murdered children, scarce clues and media attention hamper the investigation, but private eye Wil Hardesty digs deeper to find the killer. Reprint.

The Innocents

by Francesca Segal, Richard Barre, Lili Peloquin

*** Winner of the 2012 Costa First Novel Award *** "It is impossible to resist this novel's wit, grace, and charm."
--Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia

A smart and slyly funny tale of love, temptation, confusion, and commitment; a triumphant and beautifully executed recasting of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

Newly engaged and unthinkingly self-satisfied, twenty-eight-year-old Adam Newman is the prize catch of Temple Fortune, a small, tight-knit Jewish suburb of London. He has been dating Rachel Gilbert since they were both sixteen and now, to the relief and happiness of the entire Gilbert family, they are finally to marry. To Adam, Rachel embodies the highest values of Temple Fortune; she is innocent, conventional, and entirely secure in her community--a place in which everyone still knows the whereabouts of their nursery school classmates. Marrying Rachel will cement Adam's role in a warm, inclusive family he loves.

But as the vast machinery of the wedding gathers momentum, Adam feels the first faint touches of claustrophobia, and when Rachel's younger cousin Ellie Schneider moves home from New York, she unsettles Adam more than he'd care to admit. Ellie--beautiful, vulnerable, and fiercely independent--offers a liberation that he hadn't known existed: a freedom from the loving interference and frustrating parochialism of North West London. Adam finds himself questioning everything, suddenly torn between security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. What might he be missing by staying close to home?

Francesca Segal was born in London and studied at Oxford and Harvard University before becoming a journalist and critic. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Guardian, and The Observer, among other publications. For three years she wrote the Debut Fiction Column in The Observer and has been a features writer at Tatler. She divides her time between London and New York.

"With understated wit, empathy and a cinematic eye of detail, Segal brings alive a host of characters so robust that you can easily imagine them onscreen... A winning debut novel."
--People

"Inspired by The Age of Innocence, Segal's book is warmer, funnier, and paints a more dynamic and human portrait of a functional community that is a wonderful juxtaposition to Wharton's cold social strata."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A crafty homage... [Segal] writes with engaging warmth."
--Entertainment Weekly, Grade: B+

"Readers who enjoy fast-paced, gently satirical literary novels, fans of Allegra Goodman, and book group participants will find a Shabbat dinner's worth of noshing in this accomplished debut novel."
--Library Journal

"An emotionally and intellectually astute debut."
--Kirkus

"[A] delightful first novel... wise, witty and observant."
--The London Times

"Segal writes with an understated elegance."
--The Observer (UK)

"The Innocents is written with wisdom and deliciously subtle wit... This is a wonderfully readable novel: elegant, accomplished, and romantic."
--Andre Aciman, author of Out of Egypt, Call Me by Your Name, and Alibis

"A moving, funny, richly drawn story... Full of real pleasures and unexpected wisdom, this book sweeps you along."
--Esther Freud, author of Love Falls and Lucky Break

The Innocents

by Francesca Segal, Richard Barre, Lili Peloquin

Even the innocent don't kiss and tell...

“…the quick pacing will keep readers engrossed in this series kickoff as Alice and Charlie try to sort through the soap opera that is their new lives and figure out who they can trust. It’s Gossip Girl for Connecticut’s Gold Coast.” –Publishers Weekly

The Innocentsweaves a saga of nail-biting drama, breathless romance, and gothic mystery perfect for fans of ABC's Revenge.

Though they share the same blood, Alice and Charlie couldn’t be more different. Alice is older (by one year and one day), shy and reserved, a cool blonde, a painter, a reader, a thinker. Charlie is feisty and uninhibited, a wild brunette, the kind of girl who punches a bully right in the mouth. They hate each other. They love each other. They stand by each other, when no one else will. They’re sisters.

Then their parents divorce. Soon, Alice, Charlie, and their mother are leaving their old life behind. They’re saying goodbye to their cramped Cambridge apartment and driving along the rocky Connecticut coastline—to their stepfather's summer estate in the wealthy town of Serenity Point.

The minute they drive through the gates, they wish they never had. Their arrival reopens old wounds, memories of lost loves, best friends—and bitter rivals. The people of Serenity Point thought the past was dead and buried. They were wrong.

The Innocents

by Francesca Segal, Richard Barre, Lili Peloquin

Even the innocent don't kiss and tell...

“…the quick pacing will keep readers engrossed in this series kickoff as Alice and Charlie try to sort through the soap opera that is their new lives and figure out who they can trust. It’s Gossip Girl for Connecticut’s Gold Coast.” –Publishers Weekly

The Innocents weaves a saga of nail-biting drama, breathless romance, and gothic mystery perfect for fans of ABC's Revenge.

Though they share the same blood, Alice and Charlie couldn’t be more different. Alice is older (by one year and one day), shy and reserved, a cool blonde, a painter, a reader, a thinker. Charlie is feisty and uninhibited, a wild brunette, the kind of girl who punches a bully right in the mouth. They hate each other. They love each other. They stand by each other, when no one else will. They’re sisters.

Then their parents divorce. Soon, Alice, Charlie, and their mother are leaving their old life behind. They’re saying goodbye to their cramped Cambridge apartment and driving along the rocky Connecticut coastline—to their stepfather's summer estate in the wealthy town of Serenity Point.

The minute they drive through the gates, they wish they never had. Their arrival reopens old wounds, memories of lost loves, best friends—and bitter rivals. The people of Serenity Point thought the past was dead and buried. They were wrong.

The Innocents

by Francesca Segal, Richard Barre, Lili Peloquin

"It is impossible to resist this novel's wit, grace, and charm." --Lauren Groff, author of The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia

A smart and slyly funny tale of love, temptation, confusion, and commitment; a triumphant and beautifully executed recasting of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

Newly engaged and unthinkingly self-satisfied, twenty-eight-year-old Adam Newman is the prize catch of Temple Fortune, a small, tight-knit Jewish suburb of London. He has been dating Rachel Gilbert since they were both sixteen and now, to the relief and happiness of the entire Gilbert family, they are finally to marry. To Adam, Rachel embodies the highest values of Temple Fortune; she is innocent, conventional, and entirely secure in her community--a place in which everyone still knows the whereabouts of their nursery school classmates. Marrying Rachel will cement Adam's role in a warm, inclusive family he loves.

But as the vast machinery of the wedding gathers momentum, Adam feels the first faint touches of claustrophobia, and when Rachel's younger cousin Ellie Schneider moves home from New York, she unsettles Adam more than he'd care to admit. Ellie--beautiful, vulnerable, and fiercely independent--offers a liberation that he hadn't known existed: a freedom from the loving interference and frustrating parochialism of North West London. Adam finds himself questioning everything, suddenly torn between security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. What might he be missing by staying close to home?

Welcome to Glorious Tuga A Novel

by Francesca Segal

A bighearted page-turner set on a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean about love, community, and what it means to come home

Passionate about conservation and fleeing an argument with her mother, newly qualified London vet Charlotte Walker has taken up a fellowship on the tiny South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. She can claim the best of reasons for this year in paradise--What better motivation than to save a species?--but the reality is more complex. For Charlotte has secretly come to believe that she has her own connection to this remote and eccentric community, and she is finally determined to solve the mystery that has dominated her life.

But she will have little time for any of her declared or covert investigations. She is inconveniently attracted to the new island doctor. And not only do Tuga's tortoises need attention but so too do the island's dogs, goats, and donkeys--not to mention the islanders themselves, determined to win Charlotte over with cake and homemade jam until she relents and becomes vet to all their animals.

A complete, vivid world unto itself, Welcome to Glorious Tuga is a bewitching combination of warmth and humor. Immersive and uplifting, it transports the reader to an island that time forgot, bringing to life a cast of flawed, loveable people, like a contemporary James Herriot beneath the coconut palms.