Five on My TBR - Set Abroad

#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. Learn more about it here. 

Set Abroad

I love any opportunity to feature more books and found this meme an interesting way to take a look at my TBR. I hope to also get some feedback from you. Should I keep these books on my TBR? Should I push them up the list? Without further ado, below are five books that are set abroad, for me, that's outside the US. 

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Lost & Found by James Gould-Bourn

Ronnie has resigned himself to a life of loneliness.

His life in the crumbling seaside town of Bingham-on-Sea never seemed that bad, but since the loss of his father, the highlights of Ronnie's solitary days include manning the lost property office at the bus station where he works, and plaguing his local GP with increasingly outlandish ailments. Forgotten or underestimated by all those around him, Ronnie is lost, and he's not expecting to be found.

But when a chance encounter leads Ronnie to reluctantly foster Hamlet, an unwanted stray dog, his empty days begin to fill with all manner of new responsibilities and experiences.

Can these two lost souls help each other to find a new lease of life?

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The Inheritance by Joanna Goodman

From the bestselling author of The Home for Unwanted Girls and The Forgotten Daughter comes a compulsively readable mother-daughter story in which two women who share a difficult past must come to together to claim the future they deserve.

Arden Moore enjoyed an affluent life thanks to her husband’s high-paying job. But a year after his death, the 36-year-old is a grieving single mother deeply in debt and living paycheck to paycheck with her three children. Then an unexpected call from a well-known estate lawyer in New York offers a glimmer of hope. It is the beginning of a complex legal journey that could mean the difference between a life of abject poverty and unthinkable wealth thanks to her father, deceased billionaire Wallace Barclay.

Thirty years before, Arden’s mother Virginia Bunt, a flirtatious love addict with a string of failed affairs, met Wallace, an encounter that transformed her life. When he died unexpectedly without a will, Virginia fought to secure a comfortable future for her and the secret unborn daughter she shared with Wallace. Yet despite her best efforts, society and the legal system prevented her from receiving the money that should rightfully have been hers. Now, though, with changes in the legal system and science, her daughter Arden may finally succeed in claiming the inheritance that has been long denied.

Told from both Arden and Virginia’s viewpoints, straddling past and present, and moving from Toronto to New York City, The Inheritance is a poignant portrait of familial bonds, haunting pasts, the collateral damage of life choices, and the promise of hopeful futures as two venerable women fight for the life they deserve.

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The Heirloom by Jessie Rosen

Shea Anderson’s beloved Nonna had endless rules for a happy, healthy life: avoid owls, never put a hat on a bed, and never, ever accept a marriage proposal that comes with an heirloom ring. Happily ever after is hard enough without bad karma in the mix.

Naturally, panic sets in when Shea’s boyfriend, John, proposes with an heirloom ring. Yes is her answer, but Nonna’s warning sets Shea on a mission to ensure the ring contains forever energy: She will find its previous owners wherever they may be. With the help of her long-suffering big sister and a nosy journalist eager for a big story, Shea embarks on a journey that takes her from Los Angeles and New York to Italy and Portugal.

Sophisticated, cinematic, and full of lively observations, The Heirloom is a diamond-sharp read for everyone who’s ever tried to make their own good luck.

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Welcome to the Glorious Tuga 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.

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Oar Than Friends by Lulu Moore

She's rowing for Cambridge. He's rowing for Oxford. A boat race to go down in history.

Arthur Osbourne-Cloud has always had his future mapped out for him – graduate Oxford and follow his dreadful father into politics. Except Arthur wants to do anything but that. He’s more than happy filling his days rowing for golds at the Olympics or World Championships, and this year he has The Boat Race to win.

Kate Astley also has her future mapped out – the next six years at least. Fly half-way across the world, and win a scholarship at Cambridge University to study medicine. Oh, and become a crew member for the legendary Boat Race. Seems simple enough. But then she meets Arthur.

For Arthur, this feisty American challenges everything he's been taught to believe, while Kate battles between what she wants to do, and what she’s expected to do. The bitter rivalry between their schools is destined to destroy them, but it’s only a matter of time before they give in to the sizzling chemistry bubbling between them.

Then the reality of their future comes knocking. In The Boat Race, there can only be one winner. Who will sink and who will swim?

What books set abroad are on your TBR?
Let us know in the comments!