Welcome to Glorious Tuga

In the first of a planned trilogy, Segal (Mother Ship) offers listeners a layered story of community and family set on a fictional British overseas territory in the South Atlantic. Charlotte, a 29-year-old veterinarian and reptile enthusiast, travels to the remote island Tuga de Oro to study the gold coin tortoise as a fellowship opportunity and an escape. Blending elements of both contemporary fiction and mystery, the novel follows Charlotte as she comes to terms with having grown up without knowing her own father, who she believes once lived on the island. As Charlotte gets to know Tuga’s close-knit community and tends to the many animals on the island, the book explores themes of community, family, conservation, and governance of territories. Narrator Kristin Atherton skillfully crafts musical voices for a range of British characters, but unfortunately, her accents for the Tuga residents are less than ideal. They are presented in an exaggerated stereotypical manner that doesn’t reflect the island’s populace, whose ancestors hail variously from Brazil, England, the Netherlands, Nigeria, North America, and eastern Europe.