A wonderful story from the beautiful cover the great title I was immediately drawn in.A book I will be recommending perfect vacation read.#netgalley #ecco

I enjoyed this book set on the fictional island of Tuga, which is inaccessible to the rest of the world for over half of the year. Veterinarian Charlotte Walker arrives at the island for a one-year research assignment to study the gold-coin tortoises. However, she also has another motive- information about her father, whom she's never known. Fans of Remarkably Bright Creatures may enjoy this book.

This is a story about community on a far flung tropical island. Charlotte, a young vet from London, travels to Tuga to study the Gold Coin tortoise, she has a secondary motive that relates to a search for her identity. This might be a great book to read on a beach vacation.
There is a lot of back story on a sizable group of islanders, for me it was a little too much. As with any group not all of them were interesting. As can be expected in a novel with community at its heart, things get messy. Unfortunately, the story seemed to lose focus from time to time, I would have liked to know more about the tortoises or spent more of the characters who could carry a compelling story. This felt like an introduction or the groundwork for a series, if that is the case, I would happily pick up the next installment.
Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to read and review this book.

I'll be using this title for one of my bookstore's book clubs. It's got a great feel for a summer read. and that cover is so bright and colorful. I really enjoyed this one!

I was drawn to this book by the beautiful cover, the intriguing title and the blurb, and I wasn't disappointed. Charlotte is a naturalist who comes to this remote island, closed off from the rest of the world for six months a year, to research turtles-- and perhaps learn something about herself in the process. Part love story, part coming of age story, and wholly original, this book is a charm.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC. All opinions are my own.

A fun quirky book by an author I met and had dinner with years ago (she's lovely). In Welcome to Glorious Tuga we follow Charlotte, a studious single woman who has come to the most remote island on Earth - Tuga, an imaginary island - to study a special breed of tortoise and to maybe find out the truth about a father she never knew. We meet a handful of Tuga's colorful residents, Charlotte's two potential suitors, and a menagerie of animals. Charlotte navigates being a fish out of water while caring for the animals and humans on this special isle.

Stars - I loved the world building. The inhabitants of Tuga are partially descended from Sephardic Jews and I enjoyed how the author quietly integrated Jewish and Israeli words and customs (etrog, moshav, haver). Charlotte was an empathetic character.

Wishes - The author often introduced characters with backstories that were a little confusing until later in the novel. Obviously this was on purpose but sometimes it was difficult to follow along and I felt like maybe I had missed something.

I think this is going to be a trilogy and I look forward to seeing what happens next.

A fish out of water story, to a degree, a research vet, Charlotte Walker, running away from home and mother in London to a very isolated island far away, to study turtles, but also to learn whether the secret she's recently uncovered could be true. The ins and outs of the island, its history, its current inhabitants, The novel starts with Charlotte, but it's a multi-character narrative. A fun read, apparently the first in a series, though it didn't quite mesh together for me. Still, I'd read the next one.

Thanks to Ecco and Netgalley for the ARC.