The Good Sister

Description

If you had the chance to escape from your life and, better still, fight for a cause you believe in, would you take it? At seventeen, disenfranchized with her life in London, with a mother too sick to care for her and a father too broken to, Sofia Mounir packs her bags and heads to the only place that makes sense: Raqqa. A place where she can be part of something greater than herself. Where she can help build a new society from the ground up. But what happens when that world isn't everything you dreamed of? When you realize that other people's intentions might not be as pure as your own? And what happens when you're not allowed to leave alive?

For over a decade Morgan Jones worked for Kroll, the world's largest investigations company, where he specialized in Russian matters and international disputes. Under the name Chris Morgan Jones, he wrote the critically acclaimed spy thrillers, An Agent of Deceit, The Jackal's Share and The Searcher. The Good Sister is his first novel writing as Morgan Jones. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

Syria, Isis, radicalisation, parental love & the zeitgeist wrapped up in a poetic page-turner of epic proportions * James O'Brien * Sofia's visceral chronicle of self-radicalisation is delivered in a persuasive voice. It could have been a literary novel along the lines of Kamila Shamsie's award-winning Home Fire, but a tense second strand is added - the desperate Abraham, whom she regards as westernised and lost to the faith, travelling to Syria in an attempt to save her. His terrifying encounters with people-traffickers and violent jihadis pulse with tension. But the real achievement of the novel lies in the portrait of a naive young woman realising that the pure religious caliphate she has committed to is a place of betrayal, misogyny and lethal danger. * Guardian * Morgan Jones's The Good Sister centres on a father heading to Syria via Turkey on a rescue mission . . . Interwoven with his narrative is the first-person story of his teenage daughter Sofia, a devout Muslim who flees to the "caliphate", where she is swiftly married to a mujahid . . . Both are handled remarkably convincingly in an enthralling adventure story peopled with memorable characters * Sunday Times * Deft, complex and believable plotting, tense, gut-wrenching action, and classy literary writing -- Kirkus (on The Jackal's Share) Morgan Jones weaves an engaging narrative -- Financial Times (on The Jackal's Share)