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Conviction
Not yet published
Expected 14 Jul 26The story of a young, American woman’s misguided journey to join ISIS and the grief of the mother she leaves behind—a gripping and thought-provoking exploration of loss, empathy, and hope from the acclaimed author of The Mercy Seat
Maggie is gone. And her mother, Ann, is reeling.
In the aftermath of 9/11, eleven-year-old Maggie’s first instinct was rage. But when her parents took her to an open house at a mosque, she glimpsed a faith of beauty and peace—and over time came to embrace Islam as her own.
A decade later, Maggie has left Maine for the life in New York she always dreamed of. Yet her joy is shadowed by images from civilians starving, children buried under rubble. She feels powerless to help. Then she meets Ahmet, the handsome and headstrong son of a neighborhood baker. Ahmet is enraged by all the same things she is—so much that he leaves his life behind to join a new rebel group emerging in Syria, electrified by its sweeping vision to fight Assad and create a Muslim utopia. The group is ISIS.
Driven by love, Maggie follows him into territory from which she can’t return. Trapped without her passport and cut off from home, she slowly gleans the brutal nature of the group she has joined, one that does not share her vision of Islam.
Told in counterpoint between mother and daughter, America and Syria, Conviction is both intimate and global in a portrait of love during war, and a nuanced dive into the horrors of the modern world and the conditions that beget violence.
Maggie is gone. And her mother, Ann, is reeling.
In the aftermath of 9/11, eleven-year-old Maggie’s first instinct was rage. But when her parents took her to an open house at a mosque, she glimpsed a faith of beauty and peace—and over time came to embrace Islam as her own.
A decade later, Maggie has left Maine for the life in New York she always dreamed of. Yet her joy is shadowed by images from civilians starving, children buried under rubble. She feels powerless to help. Then she meets Ahmet, the handsome and headstrong son of a neighborhood baker. Ahmet is enraged by all the same things she is—so much that he leaves his life behind to join a new rebel group emerging in Syria, electrified by its sweeping vision to fight Assad and create a Muslim utopia. The group is ISIS.
Driven by love, Maggie follows him into territory from which she can’t return. Trapped without her passport and cut off from home, she slowly gleans the brutal nature of the group she has joined, one that does not share her vision of Islam.
Told in counterpoint between mother and daughter, America and Syria, Conviction is both intimate and global in a portrait of love during war, and a nuanced dive into the horrors of the modern world and the conditions that beget violence.
280 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication July 14, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Elizabeth Winthrop’s distinctly unsettling novel, “Conviction,” with its depiction of the growing disenchantment of its two protagonists with Islam, had a special resonance for me with how I came to a similar parting of the ways with my boyhood religion, Catholicism, whose strict precepts I accepted well enough in my earlier years but grew ever more disaffected with as I grew older.
Something of a reverse trajectory Winthrop's book charts for its chief female character, Maggie, who as a child in Maine after 9/11 is put off enough with Islam that she tells her mother that she hates Muslims, but eventually comes round to a more favorable view of the religion after her father, with whom she is especially close, takes her to a more benevolently oriented mosque, where her enmity shifts to something more approving – a “conviction,” if you will.
It’s a conviction she will carry with her to New York, where she meets a Muslim bakery owner and his son, Ahmet, with whom she falls in love and who is more passionately committed to Islam than either her or his father – enough so, indeed, that it gets him into trouble with local authorities and eventually has him, with Maggie not long behind him, making his way to Syria, where ISIS has brought great hope after the horrors of Assad, but, in the way of authoritarian or theocratic regimes everywhere, eventually brings not the advertised paradise but an almost literal hell on Earth.
Hangings, beheadings, ex-Syrian soldiers being lined up and shot in the back of the head, a man being bent backward over a rail until his back breaks, an emir threatening to throw a child out a window if Maggie doesn’t perform a sexual act on him – the horrors build and build for Maggie, with the absolute worst of them perhaps being the inculcation of ISIS values into children.
Quite the absorbing read, in short, Winthrop’s novel, and at times positively riveting, even if I found the earlier scenes less compelling than the later ones and the book’s shifts in time and location the occasion for some reader disorientation. Still, for all the possible inertia of some of the earlier parts, the later scenes, as the book moves inexorably toward its finale, make for harrowing reading, especially the chilling last line.
Something of a reverse trajectory Winthrop's book charts for its chief female character, Maggie, who as a child in Maine after 9/11 is put off enough with Islam that she tells her mother that she hates Muslims, but eventually comes round to a more favorable view of the religion after her father, with whom she is especially close, takes her to a more benevolently oriented mosque, where her enmity shifts to something more approving – a “conviction,” if you will.
It’s a conviction she will carry with her to New York, where she meets a Muslim bakery owner and his son, Ahmet, with whom she falls in love and who is more passionately committed to Islam than either her or his father – enough so, indeed, that it gets him into trouble with local authorities and eventually has him, with Maggie not long behind him, making his way to Syria, where ISIS has brought great hope after the horrors of Assad, but, in the way of authoritarian or theocratic regimes everywhere, eventually brings not the advertised paradise but an almost literal hell on Earth.
Hangings, beheadings, ex-Syrian soldiers being lined up and shot in the back of the head, a man being bent backward over a rail until his back breaks, an emir threatening to throw a child out a window if Maggie doesn’t perform a sexual act on him – the horrors build and build for Maggie, with the absolute worst of them perhaps being the inculcation of ISIS values into children.
Quite the absorbing read, in short, Winthrop’s novel, and at times positively riveting, even if I found the earlier scenes less compelling than the later ones and the book’s shifts in time and location the occasion for some reader disorientation. Still, for all the possible inertia of some of the earlier parts, the later scenes, as the book moves inexorably toward its finale, make for harrowing reading, especially the chilling last line.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This book was one of the greatest reads ever. I was so engrossed the entire time. Haunting, raw, real and complex just like the characters. Maggie is a very complex character and very relatable. I wanted to scream at her through the pages and warn her of things but I know her story is the reality for many. The amount of detail in this book truly paints an amazing picture during every moment as if you’re standing there watching it all unfold. My heart broke many times and still I will read this book again and again. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
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