Francesca Segal

"A wry, tender novel about an ordinary family facing extraordinary choices. 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...

"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...