Alastair Luft

Jihadi Bride by Alastair Luft

Erik Petersson is a rising star on the High Risk Traveller Task Force, an organization that prevents radicalized individuals from joining extremist groups. Disciplined and dedicated, cracks appear in Erik’s carefully controlled world when his daughter, Arielle, leaves university to join the Islamic Caliphate, a brutal terrorist regime in Syria. Erik rallies a desperate effort to stop her, but when he fails and is subsequently removed from the task force in a bid to compartmentalize the investigation, he resolves to bring her back, whatever the cost.

Driven by a secret she can’t outrun, Arielle’s dream of a more purposeful life is confronted with the brutal reality of life in the Caliphate. When she attracts the attention of Abu Noor al-Kanadi, a converted American soldier bent on punishing his birth country for its actions in the Middle East, Arielle must choose whether to sacrifice her ideals to survive or risk a frantic bid to escape. Torn between rival agendas, father and daughter must choose between family or country, love or fear.

I currently serve as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces and have spent the majority of the past twelve years in counter-terrorism. JIHADI BRIDE is my second novel and it will appeal to fans of Ausma Zehanat Khan’s Esa Khattak series, and also to those who enjoyed AN ISOLATED INCIDENT by Soniah Kamal. The literary equivalent of TAKEN meets THE TERRORIST, JIHADI BRIDE delves into family relationships, extremism, and a search for meaningfulness that spans societal and geopolitical borders.


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