The Good Sister

Syria, Isis, radicalisation, parental love & the zeitgeist wrapped up in a poetic page-turner of epic proportionsJames 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 charactersSunday Times

Deft, complex and believable plotting, tense, gut-wrenching action, and classy literary writingKirkus (on The Jackal's Share)